Play

In 2017, Alexander Ekman created his first piece for the Paris Opera Ballet. This season, he comes back and invites the dancers of the company to dive, once more, into his world. Here, play is everything and everywhere. From the props to the sets. For, as the choreographer repeats, play makes us happy; one should never stop being a child. In the Massenet and Blanchine studios, photographer Anne Deniau focusses on certain emblematic props from this production, whilst playwright Nicolas Doutey reflects upon these new visual compositions.

Composition with man on cube, doors, projector and yellow ball. Amongst all the other elements that he works with, Alexander Ekman pays particular attention to visual compositions in Play – sometimes, a chance repetition (as is the case here) also provides him with compositional perspectives.

“Let’s say that one is like a scientist, that one experiments on play in the laboratory.” The laboratory in question is the Massenet Studio, six floors down, in the basement of Opera Bastille; the notebook and the bottle of water are essential props. Alexander directs operations either from his chair or, more often, on stage: the game creates the desire to play, it’s a laboratory where you want to get right inside the test tube.

Balls of different sizes and colours, skipping ropes, a cage on wheels. If the one serves to store the others, it’s only because we are backstage: on stage, everything is a plaything, with or without balls.

“Try and find honesty in the game”, says Alexander frequently during rehearsals. You can’t just pretend to play: if you do, you’re not playing. This is doubtless the reason why, during the three-month rehearsal period, he wanted to give himself time for experimentation and research with the dancers, and with each one, their particular game space. There is a model, there are structures, there are lines, but each time the play is singular.

Hands are on the alert, some of them show it more than others, each in his/her own way. Feet, too, in comfortable trainers, like starting blocks. When one sits down in Play, the urge to play is never far away, one might be tempted to jump up at any moment.

The forty thousand plastic balls constituting the “swimming pool” in the second rehearsal room, the Balanchine Studio, have a particularly amusing characteristic: however one moves amongst them, there are always a couple that start flying about. Each movement creates its counterpoint in the air.