Relève – documentary

[Duck]

This was going to be a few days’ hiking following the ballet performance that I watched in Biarritz on Sunday evening. I had also been hoping that I would be able to see the documentary Relève in or around Biarritz during this time as this would allow me to make up my own mind about it. I then realised that the nearest cinema to see the film would be in Bordeaux (it will be shown locally in October, when Millepied’s L.A. Dance Company will perform there), thus taking a full day off the outdoors, and I thus wondered which activity I would sacrifice. The weather forecast made that decision for me.

The documentary traces the development of Millepied’s ballet “Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward” from receipt of the music in June 2015 to its premiere at the Gala in September 2015. This makes it an interesting insight into the creation of a ballet, from the conceptual development of some of the choreography on paper and early rehearsals with just a few dancers to increasingly larger groups of dancers rehearsing parts of the ballet, the fitting of costumes and their alteration late on, the orchestra playing the music with the composer and Millepied present, a rehearsal with the lighting designer, through to backstage just minutes before the premiere, and finally extracts of the premiere and the reaction backstage afterwards. Shown in beautiful pictures, dancers seen close up, the performance intertwined with rehearsal footage. Paired with the hectic of “premiere minus x days” and getting everything finished in time for the opening night. Léonore Baulac is shown in a PDD with Hugo Marchand, and even though this is an abstract ballet, the emotions that her face displays while she dances on stage do remind me of her marvellous performance of Juliet in April. So far so good.

Maybe tellingly, however, the documentary is shown under the title “Benjamin Millepied Relève”, and this is where the problem starts for me. The documentary is a co-production with the Opéra de Paris; to what extent the OdP was involved in editing the film before it was shown on Canal+, or whether it was simply about giving access to the film crew, I am not clear. As the documentary stands, however, it is inevitable that it did cause so much controversy.

The rehearsal footage is interspersed with aspects that have nothing to do with the creation of the new ballet and are instead a mix of “POB under Millepied” and “Millepied at POB”. One of these aspects relates to “before Millepied and now” e.g., some of the dancers involved in the creation of the new ballet talking about seeing more opportunities, an example of such showing footage of Letizia Galloni’s debut as Lise in Ashton’s La fille mal gardée; medical professionals talking to dancers about the importance of rehydration; Millepied asking questions about the dance floor on the main stage of Palais Garnier, etc. Plus a variety of footage and comments by Millepied outside rehearsals e.g., watching videos of rehearsals on his phone while his assistant talks to him (and he responds without looking at her), his preference of the creative process over administrative aspects, and the various comments that have been much discussed here and in the press such as his dislike of the annual concours/ of the hierarchy within the company and his questioning of the company’s excellence. Moreover, his remarks about the composition of the company being in contrast to that of the population was shown against footage of the Défilé, there is one comment in which he also criticises the POB School (something about phrasing that I didn’t quite catch, not knowing what this means when it comes to ballet), and there are a number of side glances by Millepied at the camera.

I left the cinema wondering what the documentary was meant to show – the creation of a new ballet? Millepied at work? Paris Opera as organisational entity? It does show elements of all three, and in doing so illustrates that the latter two were not a good match, as much as a number of dancers did benefit from his time there. Finally - I had gone to the cinema with an open mind, open eyes and open ears. Having now seen the content of the documentary - how could the film not have triggered the debate that it did when it was shown on Canal+ initially?

[Naomi M]

Not related to the content but the font is too small to read for my aging eye, Duck. Can you modify so that the letters will be larger? 

[Duck]

Just picked up the comment this morning, so after the 30 minutes for editing. I have copied the text here with a larger font size.

 

 

This was going to be a few days’ hiking following the ballet performance that I watched in Biarritz on Sunday evening. I had also been hoping that I would be able to see the documentary Relève in or around Biarritz during this time as this would allow me to make up my own mind about it. I then realised that the nearest cinema to see the film would be in Bordeaux (it will be shown locally in October, when Millepied’s L.A. Dance Company will perform there), thus taking a full day off the outdoors, and I thus wondered which activity I would sacrifice. The weather forecast made that decision for me.

The documentary traces the development of Millepied’s ballet “Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward” from receipt of the music in June 2015 to its premiere at the Gala in September 2015. This makes it an interesting insight into the creation of a ballet, from the conceptual development of some of the choreography on paper and early rehearsals with just a few dancers to increasingly larger groups of dancers rehearsing parts of the ballet, the fitting of costumes and their alteration late on, the orchestra playing the music with the composer and Millepied present, a rehearsal with the lighting designer, through to backstage just minutes before the premiere, and finally extracts of the premiere and the reaction backstage afterwards. Shown in beautiful pictures, dancers seen close up, the performance intertwined with rehearsal footage. Paired with the hectic of “premiere minus x days” and getting everything finished in time for the opening night. Léonore Baulac is shown in a PDD with Hugo Marchand, and even though this is an abstract ballet, the emotions that her face displays while she dances on stage do remind me of her marvellous performance of Juliet in April. So far so good.

Maybe tellingly, however, the documentary is shown under the title “Benjamin Millepied Relève”, and this is where the problem starts for me. The documentary is a co-production with the Opéra de Paris; to what extent the OdP was involved in editing the film before it was shown on Canal+, or whether it was simply about giving access to the film crew, I am not clear. As the documentary stands, however, it is inevitable that it did cause so much controversy.

The rehearsal footage is interspersed with aspects that have nothing to do with the creation of the new ballet and are instead a mix of “POB under Millepied” and “Millepied at POB”. One of these aspects relates to “before Millepied and now” e.g., some of the dancers involved in the creation of the new ballet talking about seeing more opportunities, an example of such showing footage of Letizia Galloni’s debut as Lise in Ashton’s La fille mal gardée; medical professionals talking to dancers about the importance of rehydration; Millepied asking questions about the dance floor on the main stage of Palais Garnier, etc. Plus a variety of footage and comments by Millepied outside rehearsals e.g., watching videos of rehearsals on his phone while his assistant talks to him (and he responds without looking at her), his preference of the creative process over administrative aspects, and the various comments that have been much discussed here and in the press such as his dislike of the annual concours/ of the hierarchy within the company and his questioning of the company’s excellence. Moreover, his remarks about the composition of the company being in contrast to that of the population was shown against footage of the Défilé, there is one comment in which he also criticises the POB School (something about phrasing that I didn’t quite catch, not knowing what this means when it comes to ballet), and there are a number of side glances by Millepied at the camera.

I left the cinema wondering what the documentary was meant to show – the creation of a new ballet? Millepied at work? Paris Opera as organisational entity? It does show elements of all three, and in doing so illustrates that the latter two were not a good match, as much as a number of dancers did benefit from his time there. Finally - I had gone to the cinema with an open mind, open eyes and open ears. Having now seen the content of the documentary - how could the film not have triggered the debate that it did when it was shown on Canal+ initially?

[capybara]

Just picked up the comment this morning, so after the 30 minutes for editing. I have copied the text here with a larger font size.

 

 

Thank you, Duck. If I draft offline I use Arial 11 and it seems to transfer onto here at the correct size

[Naomi M]

Thank you Duck. This documentary will be theatrically released in Japan this fall so I will look forward for it.

[Jan McNulty]

Just picked up the comment this morning, so after the 30 minutes for editing. I have copied the text here with a larger font size.

 

 

 

 

 

Funny thing is, I read this on my phone last night and it was fine!

 

When I do the links using my Macbook Pages app the font comes out too small when pasted and posted.  I always use the font and size boxes at the top of the posting page to ensure consistency before posting.  Using my older laptop and word I sometimes had the opposite problem in that the font came out huge!  

[Duck]

Thank you, Duck. If I draft offline I use Arial 11 and it seems to transfer onto here at the correct size

 

Thank you, capybara, I used Calibri 11 offline and then copied/ pasted the text; I'll try Arial next time

[Duck]

Funny thing is, I read this on my phone last night and it was fine!

 

When I do the links using my Macbook Pages app the font comes out too small when pasted and posted.  I always use the font and size boxes at the top of the posting page to ensure consistency before posting.  Using my older laptop and word I sometimes had the opposite problem in that the font came out huge!  

 

After I copied/ pasted the text last night, one sentence was shown in a much larger font size than everything else so I adjusted it to the same font size ... of the smaller size though.    

[Duck]

Thank you Duck. This documentary will be theatrically released in Japan this fall so I will look forward for it.

 

Would love to know what you think of it when you've seen it

[alison]

Not having seen the later discussion, I'd enlarged the font size in the original post somewhat