Ballet in a prologue and four acts premiered in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theater, December 14th 1869, in a choreography by Marius Petipa
Libretto by Marius Petipa from the Miguel de Cervantes’ novel, El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha
New version in a prologue and three acts
Ludwig Minkus music
Kader Belarbi choreography and staging
Emilio Carcano sets
Sophie Kitching assistant to the set designer
Joop Stokvis costumes
Vinicio Cheli lights
Ballet du Capitole
Kader Belarbi direction
Duration - 2h 35
Act I - 50 min.
Interval - 20 min.
Act II - 40 min.
Interval - 15 min.
Act III - 30 min.
The plot of Don Quixote focuses on the thwarted love affairs of the beautiful Kitri and her lover Basilio, with moments of bravery and humorous scenes. In his new version in a prologue and three acts, Kader Belarbi wants to put back in their proper place the eponymous hero of these adventures, the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, and his faithful squire Sancho Panza.
Inspired by some vivid episodes of the novel by Cervantes, the choreographer invites us to follow in delusions of grandeur, between real and imaginary, the traces of Don Quixote, helmet tied up and lance in hand, riding his steed Rocinante. And as Sancho Panza says, « it is with crickets in the head » that the ingenious Hidalgo leads us into visions and wanderings between ladies to save and giants to beat down.
Mur-Mur
Creation by the Ballet du Capitole on April 13, 2016
Luigi Dallapiccola Music
Kader Belarbi Choreography and stage design
Michaela Buerger Costumes
Patrick Méeüs Lighting
For this new creation, Luigi Dallapiccola's Songs of Prison seemed ideal to me because of a strong expressiveness and great lyricism. They appeared to me as a resonant landscape from where emerge a complaint and meditation on the human condition. The movement and the inner song will be revealed by a male ensemble. The space interests me in a scenography of confinement and spreads out docile or resistant bodies. Moving walls dictate their commands to the dancers and demonstrate the skills of each one and the group to react. A story of spaces and a story of power. I take over the resonant landscape in order to make echoing stories of jailed male bodies.
Kader Belarbi
Hall of the lost steps
Création by dancers of Paris Opera Ballet, march 15th 1997, Paris Opéra-Bastille Amphitheater.
Premiere by the Ballet du Capitole, April 13, 2016
Sergueï Prokofiev Music
Kader Belarbi Choreography and scenography
Michaela Buerger Costumes
Sylvain Chevallot Lights
Julien Le Pape Piano
The ballet is inspired by a poem of Louis Aragon: “One evening, the future is called the past ; it is then that we look back and see our youth.”
Behind closed-door, four unconventional characters drag their memories and suitcases. As timeless, three women and one man meet and travel in their memory, on piano works by Prokofiev.
Didier Tarbelet
“More than the entertaining exploits of glorious bodies, I want to offer the vision of a broken down humanity.
The expression of the derisory from where we still try to get out. There are probably modest suffering, discreet heartbreak and oppressive confinement, trivialized in almost nothing.
The music gives the climate. It is incisive, ironic, silently painful and especially nostalgic. A touch of humanity as a moment of sad poetry, without tragedy.”
Kader Belarbi