Cannes Dance Festival, an international and festive programme to celebrate its 20th edition.

From 20th to 29th November 2015

The City of Cannes has entrusted Brigitte Lefèvre with the artistic direction of the Dance Festival: a festive menu for the celebration of the 20th edition. With its fourteen shows, six of which are French creations or premieres, the Festival presents us with a joyous and rich edition, open on the world and crossing all aesthetics of dance.

The Cannes Dance Festival is fully confident in its choices, and has brought together, in this one and same edition, great and grand ballets but also bold contemporary creations, all this on a fully international scale. For this edition, Brigitte Lefèvre lays out her own vision of dance in all its variety and diversity.

The 20th edition will open with a splash, with the exceptional visit – in the framework of the France-Korea Year - of the National Dance Company of Korea, presenting Vortex by the Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen. This sensitive, delicate and poetic piece is emblematic of the trajectories and interactions that always have been part of the DNA of dance with its multiple sources of inspiration from the four corners of the earth.

So, to be part of this culture trip, the Festival has, among its starring guests, dancers ranging from Brazil to the far-flung Mediterranean shores, from Sweden to Spain, from Belgium to America en passant by France. Real or imaginary crossings, the choreographers themselves, on the crest of the wave of discovery, are certainly not new to navigating different countries, different identities.

Thus the Brazilian choreographer , plunges the spectator delightfully into the heart of Russian literature with Tatvana (Tatiana), an original, sensitive and inspired interpretation of Pushkin’s masterpiece Eugène Onéguine (Eugene Oneguin). The new directors of the CCN (National Choreographic Centre) of Franche-Comté in Belfort, Héla Fattoumi and Eric Lamoureux have joined the Swedish singer and composer Peter von Poehl, star of Swedish post-rock, with his amazing Waves. José Martinez, ex-dancer Etoile of the and director of the Compagnie Nationale de Danse d’Espagne (National Dance Company of Spain) plays the ‘local colour’ card with his presentation of a flamboyant Carmen, whilst the Lyons Opera Ballet, directed by Yorgos Loukos, transports us into the universe of the brilliant choreographer Jiří Kylián with three pieces in a programme that is both Baroque and nostalgic. As for the American choreographer Daniel Linehan who studied in Brussels under Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker but now lives in France, he invents, with his dbddbb, a choreographic reflection on the rhythm of walking and marching… but perturbed by a Dadaist spirit! And the Belgian choreographer Michèle Noiret presents a new score on the music of the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, Palimpseste. In this chapter of phantasmatic countries, Hervé Koubi, who, after claiming loud and clear his Algerian origins, looks into those strange Peoples of the Sea, those tribes of uncertain origin in Les Nuits barbares ou Les premiers matins du monde (Barbarian Nights or The First Mornings of the World). The new director of the CCN of Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon, Christian Rizzo, works motifs taken from the history of popular and anonymous dance, that is to say dancing in twos, by joining up with the Taiwan artist Juan- hau Chiang, creator of breath-taking synthetic images. Catherine Diverrès, galvanised from her beginnings by her love of Japan, has transformed her dancers into living calligraphies. As for Kader Belarbi, ex-dancer Etoile of the Paris Opera Ballet, now director of the Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse, he imagines a new dialogue altogether between La Bête et la Belle (The Beast and Beauty) peopled with creatures of fantasy. Finally, Josette Baïz, offers a different version of her show, including a Damien Jalet creation, with a host of choreographers from all horizons, Guests, and her troupe of astoundingly dynamic young dancers.

1 But the journey wouldn’t be complete, if it didn’t include France, the country that devised the skilful refinements of dance. And who but the Dancing School of the Opéra de Paris, is more witness to the eternal vivacity of that famous “French School”? Elisabeth Platel brings a very symbolic programme that combines Jacques Garnier’s Aunis and Léo Staats’ Soir de Fête but will also show us, through her Master-classes of 1st division, the actual teaching methods - the core - of the Ecole de Danse.

Around the Festival This anniversary is also the opportunity for encouraging meetings, debates, discussions, master-classes and practical work-shops that have been part of the DNA of this Dance Festival of Cannes since its beginnings.

2 thematic colloquiums “TraditionS in MouvementS”, organised by the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, department of Arts - Dance Section and Centre of Research CTEL / National Centre of Dance / Cannes Dance Festival. Tradition subtly links present-day gestures and those of the past, revealing a vibrant and moving dynamics, part of choreographic creations as in cultural and social practice too. The researchers are in Cannes to discuss this. Guest artists; Catherine Diverrès, Tero Saarinen and Christian Rizzo… “Dance in Company” will broach, in an interdisciplinary manner, all the thematic interactions that constitute the status quo of choreographic art today.

The Studiotrade platform, orchestrated by the Compagnie Humaine, will present choreographers and pieces reflecting the diversity of an independent European dance scene: Legitimate Bodies Dance Company (Ireland) / Arno Schuitemaker (Netherlands) / K&C Kekäläinen & Company (Finland)

The Festival will begin its 2015 edition by a big celebration: its “Bal Flash”: Let’s celebrate the 20th edition of the Cannes Dance Festival!

Sunday 22nd November at 2 pm – On the forecourt La Terrasse du Palais des Festivals et des Congrès. Passers-by and enthusiasts are invited to morph into “dancers of a day” to re-enact the History of the Cannes Dance Festival by means of dance sequences borrowed from pieces that the Festival has presented since 1985. From Maguy Marin to Philippe Decouflé including Mourad Merzouki, Ohad Naharin, Mats Ek or again Angelin Preliocal. Hervé Koubi will create an original choreography available on the website of the Dance Festival so that everybody can practise!

Information: Direction de l’Evènementiel (Events Management): 04 92 99 33 83

www.festivaldedanse-cannes.com www.palaisdesfestivals.com www.cannes-destination.fr Ticket Office : Palais des Festivals et des Congrès Tel : 04 92 98 62 77

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PRESS CONTACTS Cannes - Palais des Festivals et des Congrès : Paris - Agence Opus 64 : Elisabeth Lara Valérie Samuel T : 04 92 99 84 46 T : 01 40 26 77 94 [email protected] [email protected] Blandine Dugenetay Patricia Gangloff T : 04 92 99 84 45 T : 01 40 26 77 94 [email protected] [email protected]

2 P R O G R A M M E D A N C E F E S T I V A L from 20th to 29th November

Friday 20th November >20h30 - Palais des Festivals / Grand Auditorium COMPAGNIE NATIONALE DE DANSE DE COREE « VORTEX » (French premiere) – Choreography : Tero Saarinen In the framework of the France-Korea Year

Saturday 21st November >18h – Théâtre La Licorne Shared Evening MICHELE NOIRET « Palimpseste » CATHERINE DIVERRES - « Dentro » (French premiere - 2015 creation - coproduction)

>20h30 - Palais des Festivals / Théâtre Debussy CCN FRANCHE-COMTE à BELFORT « Waves » - Choreography : Héla Fattoumi / Eric Lamoureux (2014 creation)

Sunday 22nd November > 14h – Parvis Palais des Festivals BAL FLASH : Let’s celebrate the 20th edition of the Dance Festival!

>15h - Palais des Festivals / Grand Auditorium ECOLE DE DANSE L’OPERA DE PARIS Demonstrations of 2 classes of 1st division / « Aunis » (Jacques Garnier, choreograrphy - Maurice Pacher, music / « Soir de fête » (Léo Delibes, music / Léo Staats, choreography)

>18h - Théâtre Croisette Hôtel JW Marriott CHRISTIAN RIZZO - “ad noctum” (2015 creation - coproduction)

Thursday 26th November >20h30 - Palais des Festivals / Grand Auditorium BALLET DU CAPITOLE « La Bête et la Belle » - Choreography : Kader Belarbi (2005 creation for the Grands Ballets Canadiens rerun in October 2013 in Toulouse)

Friday 27th November >18h - Théâtre Croisette Hôtel JW Marriott GROUPE GRENADE - JOSETTE BAIZ « Guests II» (French premiere – 2015 creation - coproduction) Duo « Déserts d’Amour » - Dominique Bagouet (extract) / « Homage to » - re-creation Josette Baïz / « Entity » - Wayne McGregor | solo Random Dance’s entity (extract) / « L'évocation » - Damien Jalet (extract 2015 creation) / « Brilliant Corners » - Emanuel Gat (extract) / « Uprising » - Hofesh Shechter (extract)

>20h30 - Palais des Festivals / Théâtre Debussy CIA DEBORAH COLKER « Tatyana » (French premiere)

Saturday 28th November > 15h – Salle Les Arlucs PLATEFORME STUDIOTRADE (European network of choreographers, producers and dance organisations) CARTE BLANCHE CIE HUMAINE - Eric OBERDORFF

>18h – Théâtre La Licorne CO. HIATUS - DANIEL LINEHAN - « dbddbb » (2015 creation - coproduction)

>20h30 - Palais des Festivals / Grand Auditorium BALLET DE L’OPERA DE LYON Jiří Kylián: « Bella Figura » « Heart's Labyrinth » « 27'52" »

Sunday 29th November >15h - Théâtre Croisette Hôtel JW Marriott HERVE KOUBI «Les Nuits barbares ou Les premiers matins du monde » – (French premiere –2015 creation - coproduction)

>18h - Palais des Festivals / Théâtre Debussy CIE NATIONALE D’ESPAGNE – JOSE MARTINEZ, Johan Inguer’s « Carmen » (French premiere)

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B I O G R A P H Y Brigitte Lefèvre, artistic director

Brigitte Lefèvre, who joined the Paris Opera School of Dance at the age of eight, is enroled, at sixteen, in the Corps de ballet. Here she trains under Serge Peretti, Yves Brieux, Serge Perrault, Harald Lander…and Yvette Chauviré, for whom she has a lasting admiration. She interprets the ballets of George Balanchine, Roland Petit, Maurice Béjart, Michel Descombey, Gene Kelly, and as it goes without saying, the great classical ballets. From early on she takes an interest in different dance techniques and trains in jazz and contemporary dance under Gene Robinson, Alwin Nikolaïs, Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor.

In 1970 she creates her first choreography, Mikrocosmos (to the music of Bartók) for Jacques Garnier, Michaël Denard and herself, a ballet presented in the Cour d’Honneur at the Avignon Festival. In 1972 she decides to leave the Opera and with Jacques Garnier founds the Théâtre du Silence and at this very time Jean Mercure appeals to her to be Lisa in Albert Camus’ Les Possédés (The Possessed), after Dostoyevsky, that he is producing at the Théâtre de la Ville. At the same time she creates several choreographies for musical comedy and theatre - staged by Jean-Michel Ribes, Jean Mercure and Serge Peyrat – at the Théâtre de la Ville. She also choreographs La Révolution Française at Le Palais des Sports.

In 1974, whilst continuing their national and international tours (Japan, Brazil, United States…) the Théâtre du Silence settles in La Rochelle with the project of addressing a public not quite familiar with the world of dance, going into schools, hospitals and places where dance has had no place. The Théâtre du Silence is to be one of the first dance companies to settle in France and, besides their own creations, both choreographers deepen and enrich the repertoire of their company by works by Merce Cunningham, David Gordon, Robert Kovitch, Lar Lubovitch and Andy Degroat. When Jacques Garnier leaves in 1980, she takes over on her own the management of the company until 1985. The Ministry of Culture offers her, in 1985, the place of Head Dance Inspector (Direction of Music and Dance), and then General Inspector and first official “Music and Dance Representative” until 1992. In September of that year, Jacques Lang and Pierre Bergé appoint her General Administrator to the Opéra Garnier, then in February 1994, Vice-Director of Dance along with Jean-Paul Cluzel. On 1st July 1995 Hugues Gall appoints her Director of Dance at the Paris National Opera.

Brigitte Lefèvre sets herself out then to build up a vibrant repertoire capable of defining the past, the present and the future too. Whilst leaving plenty of room for tradition and upholding the great classical ballets – especially the productions of Rudolf Nureyev – she programmes, on a regular basis at the Opéra, the choreographies that made a mark on the twentieth century, and invites present-day choreographers to rework ballets or to create new ones. So, since 1995, several oeuvres have entered the repertory of the Opéra National de Paris (’s Le Sacre du printemps - The Rite of Spring, in 1997 and Orphée et Eurydice, in 2005, Trisha Brown’s Glacial Decoy, in 2003, and John Neumeier’s Dame aux camélias in 2006 and Troisième Symphonie (Third Symphony) after Gustave Mahler in 2009); many choreographers have created ballets for the company (Maurice Béjart, Trisha Brown, Mats Ek, William Forsythe, Susanne Linke, Jirí Kylián, Blanca Li, Wayne McGregor, Benjamin Millepied, José Montalvo, Laura Scozzi, Abou Lagraa, Carolyn Carlson, John Neumeier, Robyn Orlin, Roland Petit, Angelin Preljocaj, Saburo Teshigawara, Sasha Waltz, Alexei Ratmansky, Jérôme Bel…).

She works with visual artists too (Claude Lévêque, Olivier Mosset, Daniel Buren, Karen Kilimnik) as well as many of the Opera dancers, entrusting them with choreographies (José Martinez, Kader Belarbi, Jean- Guillaume Bart, Nicolas Paul, Nicolas Leriche). From September 2008 to September 2009, Brigitte Lefèvre has produced and hosted, on France Culture, A quoi pensez-vous ? (What Are You Thinking about?). She leaves her post as Director of the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris on 1st November 2014.

She is now Artistic Director of the Cannes Dance Festival for the 2015 and 2017 editions.

4 H I S T O R Y Year of the creation of the Festival : 1984 Event produced by the City of Cannes and backed by the Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs. Realisation: Palais des Festivals et des Congrès – Events Management ► Cannes, the tree of dance… From as early as the first half of the twentieth century, the presence of the Marquis of Cuevas and numerous other personalities of the choreographic arts has been a boon for the historical relationship between Cannes and the world of dance. What is more, when the Rosella Hightower Dance Centre was opened in 1961, it was this fertile soil that enabled the festival to see light of day. Rosella Hightower, an international emblem galvanised by the will to share and transmit her passion for her art, was able to arouse the interest and the dynamics needed for the emergence of this major event - entirely dedicated to dance: this was 1984 and the Festival was born. If the Festival - up until 1991 under the artistic direction of Claude Barsotti – in its infancy proved to be resolutely classical, it undergoes a seminal metamorphosis in 1992: under the auspices of Yorgos Loukos, it embraces the contemporary trend with open arms; contemporary trend that he shows alongside neo-classical works and creations of some of the most renowned companies of classical inspiration. At the 1993 edition, the event becomes biennial and Yorgos Loukos is to run the programing until 2009.

From then on, the occasion is confirmed as an international event: artists and groups worldwide perform. From surprises to discoveries, from irresistible to amazing, the Festival fashions itself a public success like never before and a reputation of excellence with the media and the world of dance. To present the public with an abundance of the different takes on dance and a variety of international creativity, the artistic direction changes regularly thus being in the hands of dissimilar major personalities and actors of the choreographic world: choreographers, dancers, directors of international companies or the greatest dance schools. In 2011, the programing was the affair of the choreographer Frédéric Flamand. First of all, on the theme of “Nouvelles mythologies” (New Mythologies), then “Traces et reflets” (Marks and Reflections) in 2013, he draws up a programme that takes into account multiple creative sensitivities and one that points to the stylistic and technical evolution of the international contemporary choreographic scene. Brigitte Lefèvre, Director of Dance at the Opéra de Paris until 1st November 2014, appointed to the Artistic Direction of the 2015 and 2017 editions, has accepted, for the first time, to take on the artistic direction of a Festival. Her choreographic past and her experience at the head of a major international institution show she can confirm and amplify the influence of the Festival both with the public and the dance world. Today the Festival has become a real “tree of dance”, with many branches – and solid ones: alongside the programme, there are also Master-classes and themed work-shops hosted by the artists, a plethora of meetings open to the public, professional colloquiums whose research contributes to the future of dance, but also a privileged framework for regional companies to come to and disclose their oeuvre… And this “tree”, far from “hiding the wood” as perhaps could have been feared, is, on the contrary, its pulse and has had the prowess of putting, to best use, the attention and renown it arrests, so as to kick-start a global dance dynamics in and around Cannes: strong institutional support throughout the year, amateur and professional audiences, multiple interventions and initiatives in schools, a regular dance programming in the framework of the Saisons Culturelles du Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, partnerships between local cultural artists favouring the pooling of performance costs to enrich the list of events even further… We can see that a beautiful forest has grown up from “the tree of dance” and fertilised the original ground that created it. Blossoming under the fascinated international gaze, this all-embracing rendezvous has offered the city of Cannes a double cultural identity: no longer just the city of the 7th art, it is, from now on, the city of the 6th!

THEY HAVE COME TO THE FESTIVAL This is why a great number of people have been able to taste the joys and appreciate the oeuvre of prestigious companies such as the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, the Co. Bill T. Jones, the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Trisha Brown Companies, Lucinda Childs, Maguy Marin, the Ballets de Monte- Carlo, Cullberg Ballet, Compania Nacional de Danza, Bouvier Obadia, Sylvie Guillem et Russell Maliphant, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui,... and discover young contemporary and inventive troupes such as the Companies: Kafig, Castafiore, Pascal Rioult, Stephen Petronio, Andy Degroat, Pockemon Crew, Christian Rizzo... a total of around 200 companies have performed at the festival since its creation.

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