Concerto danzante

Under the direction of choreographers Josépha Madoki and Maud Le Pladec, the dancers of the Ballet de Lorraine bring to life a history of the concerto, from Vivaldi to Bach.

Bringing together eight musicians from Les Arts Florissants and 24 dancers, Concerto danzante takes an expansive and distinctive approach to dialogue: the art of exchange at the heart of the concerto, between soloists and orchestra, but also the conversation that unfolds on stage between Baroque music and contemporary dance, abstraction and expression.

The production draws on the history of a form that emerged in early 18th-century Venice among the city’s dancing masters, before Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi brought it to new heights. Josépha Madoki—a leading figure in waacking, a dance style known for its fast, fluid arm movements that emerged in West Coast clubs in the 1970s—offers a bold interpretation of Vivaldi’s concertos. Maud Le Pladec, director of the CCN – Ballet de Lorraine, then embraces the intricate structures of Bach’s music with the formal precision and poetic abstraction that define her choreographic language.

Les Arts Florissants
Violin and musical direction: Théotime Langlois de Swarte
Set design and lighting: Éric Soyer

Part One
Garbo
Choreography Josépha Madoki
Costumes Arturo Obegero

Part Two
Ad Vitam aeternam
Choreography Maud Le Pladec
Costumes Jeanne Friot

Featuring 24 dancers and 8 musicians

Works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Gregorio Lambranzi, Giovanni Legrenzi, Marco Uccellini, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Paul von Westhoff.

Production Philharmonie de Paris
Coproduction CCN – Ballet de Lorraine, Opéra national de Nancy-Lorraine, Les Arts Florissants

^{photo © Dorian Prost}