Le Ballet Preljocaj leads the dance there where you least expect it! Created in 1998, the Groupe urbain d'intervention dansée (G.U.I.D.: the Urban Danced Action Group) has performed on many occasions in public spaces and unexpected venues to allow as many people as possible to discover contemporary dance.

“What hides beneath our contemporary rituals, in the folds of our existences?”

Suivront mille ans de calme (And then, one thousand years of peace) is part of a poetic and impressionist vein, like a work following on from a diligent but not reasoned reading of the Book of Revelation. We should thus looking for any images or clichés illustrating directly or in too referential a manner Saint John’s famous text. 

A fruitful source of inspiration, the very word Apocalypse, (from the Greek apo: lift and calypsis: the veil), nevertheless conjures up the idea of revealing, unveiling, or highlighting elements that, could be present in our world but are hidden from our gaze.

Thus the aim would be more to conjure up what is nestled in the folds of our existences than to prophesise compulsive torrents of disasters, irremediable destructions or the imminence of the end of the world. 

Is not dance, art of the unutterable par excellence, when the aim is to assume the role of developer (in the photographic sense), the best suited to fulfil this delicate function of laying bare our fears, our anxieties and our hopes. It mercilessly highlights the entropy of the molecules, programmed in the memory of our flash, which announces the Apocalypse of the body. It stigmatises our rituals and reveals the incongruity of our postures, whether they are social, religious or pagan. 

Suivront mille ans de calme (And then, one thousand years of peace) aims to touch on this blind drift of bodies, tossed and turned by ideals and beliefs, somewhat lost between the lines of the Apocalypse.  

Source: programme of the CND

Angelin Preljocaj was born in the Paris region, in France, and began studying classical ballet before turning to contemporary dance, which he studied with Karin Waehner.
In 1980, he went to New York to work with Zena Rommett and Merce Cunningham, after which he resumed his studies in France, there his teachers included the American choreographer Viola Farber and the French one Quentin Rouillier. He then joined Dominique Bagouet before founding his own company in December 1984.

His productions are now part of the repertoire of many companies, many of which also commission original production from him, notably La Scala of Milan, the New York City Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet. He has made short films ("Le postier", "Idées noires" in 1991) and several full-length films, notably "Un trait d’union" and "Annonciation" (1992 and 2003). In 2009, he directed "Snow White", featuring his own piece, and in 2011 he signed, for Air France, the commercial "L’Envol", based on the choreography of "Le Parc".
Since then he has collaborated on several films of his own choreographic work: « Les Raboteurs » with Cyril Collard (based on the painting by Gustave Caillebotte) in 1988, « Pavillon Noir » with Pierre Coulibeuf in 2006 and « Eldorado/ Preljocaj » with Olivier Assayas in 2007.

Since October 2006, the Ballet Preljocaj and its 24 permanent dancers have resided at the Pavillon Noir in Aix-en-Provence, a building entirely dedicated to dance, with Angelin Preljocaj as its artistic director. Made with Valérie Müller, the first full-length feature film by Angelin Preljocaj, « Polina », danser sa vie, adapted from the graphic novel by Bastien Vivès, came out in cinemas on November 2016.

Source: Ballet Preljocaj 's website

More information

preljocaj.org

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).

The Ballet Preljocaj leads the dance there where you least expect it! 

Created in 1998, the Groupe Urbain d’Intervention Dansée  (G.U.I.D.: the Urban Danced Action Group) takes dance into unexpected  places, showing extracts from the repertoire of Angelin Preljocaj. It  shines in the public space, from railway stations to market squares, via  school playgrounds and hospitals, to bring contemporary dance to as  many people as possible.