Maguy marin at Opéra National De Paris - Palais Garnier

"Art must question the world and resist.

- "Maguy Marin


More than 25 years after being invited by Rudolf Nureyev to present Leçons de ténèbres – created in 1987 to music by François Couperin – Maguy Marin returns to the Paris Opera with one of her seminal works: Les applaudissements ne se mangent pas (One Can’t Eat Applause), first performed in Villeurbanne in 2002. It is an enigmatic title for an ambitious and truly political work exploring human contradictions and the balance of power between the oppressed and their oppressors. Drawing inspiration from the popular uprisings against Latin America’s authoritarian regimes, the acclaimed French choreographer confronts us with a burning reality.

Against a colourful backdrop, as if deafened by Denis Mariotte's haunting music, she develops the dance-theatre for which she is known and admired on both sides of the Atlantic. The work progresses uninterrupted in a choreography composed with implacable and brilliant precision. The eight dancers multiply their entrances, their evanescent interactions and fleeting encounters... Anger, disgust, sadness and revolt are portrayed with the force of a cry of protest to the whole world. Trained in the classical school and a former soloist for Maurice Béjart, Maguy Marin displays perfect mastery of the tempo which structures a choreography filled with relentless tension.