France has long been the cradle of ground-breaking new dance, thanks to a score of provocative performance-makers. It was about time, therefore, that an internationally renowned festival such as Dance Umbrella paid tribute to a country which has produced radical and revitalising choreography over the past three decades.
Former enfant terrible of what has been appropriately referred to as the ‘French choreographic avant-garde’, Angelin Preljocaj is one of the leading figures of post-modern choreography. Creations such as Liqueurs de Chair (1988), which explored rather explicitly dark eroticism and sexual perversions, Noces (1989), a vibrant and somewhat violent sexist reading of the 1923 Stravinsky ballet Les Noces, and a fairly controversial version of Romeo and Juliet (1990) have had a tremendous, though not shocking impact on the notion of dance-making, thus giving him international repute.
Created for Paris Opera Ballet in 1994 — at a time when crossing boundaries between classical dance and post-modern choreography still caused a sensation — Le Parc draws upon Preljocaj’s exploration of love and seduction in 17th- and 18th-century literary works.
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