José Martinez, dance director of the Paris Opera Ballet since 2022, is set on bringing pointe shoes into the 21st century.
“It’s important to bring the company into our time, to see how we can live with the classical vocabulary, to find choreographers who will work with this classical vocabulary and make new ballets and who will be close to the sensibility of the audience today,” he says. “We need to find stories to tell of today, and I think it’s important to bring to the Parisian audience this dimension.”
To that end, Cal Performances presents Paris Opera Ballet’s North American premiere of “Red Carpet” in Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley on Oct. 2-4 in the first Bay Area appearance by the troupe since 2001.
“Red Carpet,” a Paris Opera Ballet premiere at the Palais Garnier in June, represents a rare opportunity for local audiences to see a work by the London-based Shechter, a native of Jerusalem and former member of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company. The founder of Hofesh Shecter Company in 2008 has choreographed works for the Royal Ballet, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and Batsheva.
While Paris Opera Ballet typically spends about six weeks preparing for a new work, Martinez says Shechter requested a three-week workshop to meet the dancers for “Red Carpet,” along with months in the studio, with musicians as well, to improvise and create the final opus.
“He was bringing his passion for the music and folklore to our dancers,” Martinez, a dancer with Paris Opera Ballet for 24 years, says of Shechter. “…. He did a piece that’s really for the Paris Opera Ballet—no other company can perform this piece as our dancers are doing it.”
Shechter has said his intention with “Red Carpet” is to “celebrate the confusion between glamour and art.”
Indeed, the piece features a chandelier from Paris making a dazzling descent from the ceiling and costumes designed by Chanel, a principal patron of the Paris Opera Ballet since 2018, for each of the 13 dancers.
Shechter, whose works don’t typically feature elaborate costumes, asked Martinez if he thought the fashion house would design costumes for “Red Carpet.”
“… With this project, it made sense to have Chanel working with him,” Martinez recounts. “The aesthetic is close to Palais Garnier—you have a lot of red costumes, a lot of sparkling things, and it matches with the sets because the sets are very simple. It’s so simple but at the same time it’s chic. We have the essence of Palais Garnier, but at the same time, it seems that it’s a kind of dark cabaret.”
Shechter, who has called “Red Carpet” a concert as well as a dance, composed the score with his frequent collaborator Yaron Engler. A blend of free jazz, Mediterranean sounds and propulsive techno, it will be performed by a quartet of cello, brass, double bass and drums.
Martinez says, “It’s live music with a structure. Hofesh created a structure before the rehearsals, and the musicians and dancers were practicing improvisation together in the studio during this process. They built a piece that can breathe—the frame is there but you have different colors.”
Paris Opera Ballet soloist Ida Viikinkoski, who appeared in the premiere of “Red Carpet” and in Shechter’s “The Art of Not Looking Back” in 2018 and “In your rooms” in 2022, finds his choreographic style quite distinctive.
“I think it’s the energy you have to put in and the connection with the group,” she says. “It’s really a group piece, even in the studio — it’s not just him coming, doing his choreography and we execute it — it’s really an exchange. You feel it even onstage; you cannot do his pieces if you’re not connected with the people around you.”
Viikinkoski, who entered Paris Opera Ballet School in 2011 and became the company’s first dancer from Finland in 2013, says that though stamina is essential for performing “Red Carpet,” the demanding one hour, 15-minute piece is exhilarating, too.
“The most amazing thing is the energy you have — you have to bring energy, you have to give it, and you’re getting it back from the other dancers, music and the public,” she explains. “It’s almost like at the end, you’ve given your all, you’re exhausted, but it’s a very pleasant feeling because you really feel like it’s for something. It’s kind of a circle of energy that’s happening all the time.”
Martinez has been keen on staging the fourth work by Shechter the company has performed for its return to the U.S. in Berkeley—its second ever visit to the Bay Area—and then New York City.
“When we go on tour everywhere they ask for ‘Swan Lake,’ ‘Sleeping Beauty’ or ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ for our classic repertoire,” he says. But our dancers today are able to work with choreographers like Hofesh, and I really wanted to show this side of the company.”
Cal Performances presents the Paris Opera Ballet in “Red Carpet” at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 2, 8 p.m. Oct. 3 and 2 p.m. Oct. 4 in Zellerbach Hall, near Bancroft Way and Dana Street, University of California, Berkeley campus. Tickets are $55 to $145 at (510) 842-9988 or calpeformances.org.
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