February 19, 2025 |
The stage is set, the lights are low and a sudden wave of silence sweeps through the audience with such intensity you can almost hear the sound of the ballerina’s slippers when she steps out from the black. But this isn’t just another ballet or contemporary dance routine – this is Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.
Established in 2020, the annual dance festival functions to support both artists and institutions for their creations, through numerous international collaborations whilst adhering to the values of “creation, transmission and education”, according to the mother jewellery brand. With every performance, workshop and more highlighting the links between choreographic heritage and contemporary creation, the month-long event provides Van Cleef & Arpels the chance to share its passion for the choreographic arts with the widest possible audience one unforgettable twirl at a time.
Landing in London for the second time this year (the first was in 2022) and running from March 12 to April 8 in collaboration with long-standing partners Sadler’s Wells, Royal Ballet and Opera, Tate Modern and Southbank Centre, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels isn’t one to miss. Expect to see a number of recent and repertory performances and engage in the opportunity to take part in dance workshops, artist forums and awareness raising initiatives.
While there are a number of standout performances to look out for, highlights include Working Title (1985) by Trisha Brown, which will be presented alongside In the Fall (2023), a piece from Noé Soulier commissioned by the company of the celebrated artist, Beach Birds and BIPED, as well as a number of major works by Merce Cunningham reinterpreted by the Lyon Opera Ballet, and François Gremaud’s revisiting and reinterpretation of the classical ballet Giselle (1841).
Reinterpretation plays a big part in many of the works, in fact. Age of Content by (LA)HORDE, Ballet National de Marseille, for example, draws on action films, musicals and the video game universes to inspire its story. Christian Rizzo’s Sakinan Göze Çöp Batar, on the other hand, is inspired by a traditional Turkish dance. Maintaining this direction, Shu Lea Cheang and Dondon Hounwn will stage Hagay Dreaming at Tate Modern, a number exploring a combination of tribal legends from Taiwan’s indigenous Truku culture and modern science fiction. Later, Robyn Orlin will pay tribute to the Zulu rickshaws of her childhood in We Wear Or Wheels With Pride and Noé Soulier will present his final piece, Close Up, creating a space of intimacy with dance through the use of video.
Other performances of note include Outsider by The Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève which joins choreographer Rachid Ouramdane in his fascinating research on the collision of dance and extreme sports, and Ioannis Mandafounis’s – the new director of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company – exploration of the stakes involved in creation and transmission by bringing students of London’s Rambert School and professional dancers together on stage.
New creations include Crow and Pigeons by British choreographer Julie Cunningham and Neither Drums Nor Trumpets by American choreographer Pam Tanowitz. Plus, Soa Ratsifandrihana and Georges Labbat, two young artists from P.A.R.T.S., a contemporary dance school founded by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker will present their first works.
Then, to round off the event, a triptych of major, repertory pieces by late Georgian-American ballet choreographer George Balanchine will weave together the past and present, offering the opportunity for attendees to better understand the choreographic art of today and cultivate that of tomorrow. These include Serenade (1935), Prodigal Son (1929) and Symphony in C (1947).
Here we speak with Serge Laurent, director of dance and cultural programs at Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, about this year’s London edition, how it works and his long-term vision for the festival.
1. How does the Dance Reflections festival work, and what makes it unique?
The Dance Reflections festival is a touring festival that we launched in March 2022 in London. We organize two editions each year, each time in a different city. This festival is part of a vast program to support dance companies to produce new works but also in favor of the modern and contemporary repertoire. In parallel with the festival, we also support many institutions throughout the year for the presentation of choreographic works. The Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels program is based on three essential values of Maison: creation, transmission and education. With these values of sharing, we want to give companies the means to create but also give the public the opportunity to discover or rediscover works that have marked the history of contemporary dance. A strong focus of this program is also developed on education. We offer workshops and residencies for dancers and activities to raise awareness of choreographic culture developed on numerous occasions with our partners around the world. One of the specificities of the festival is certainly to look at dance that is both historical and contemporary.
2. Van Cleef & Arpels has a history with dance, from ballerina clips to contemporary collections. How does this festival reflect that link?
In fact, our wish with Dance Reflections is to continue writing the story of the Maison with the world of dance. This fabulous history with dance began when dance became a source of inspiration for our own creations, particularly with the ballerina clips, then there was the encounter of Claude Arpels with the choreographer Georges Balanchine in the 60s, which inspired the choreographer to create the famous ballet Jewels. This is the starting point of our relationship with dance, which leads us today to support dance, an art that still brings us a lot. It is a patronage that is therefore based on history, and which also develops an artistic line that we find in the festival.
3. Since its launch, how has Dance Reflections evolved? What’s different in this year’s edition?
The first edition was held exactly three years ago in London, then we stopped off in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, New York, Kyoto/Tokyo and again in London in March 2025. Each edition is based, as mentioned above, on three values: creation, transmission and education with the desire to invite the public to discover creations put into perspective with historical works. For this edition, for example, we are presenting works by Trisha Brown dance company, Merce Cunningham by ballet de Lyon and Georges Balanchine program performed by the Royal Ballet with very recent contemporary pieces. Bringing together artists from several generations is surely the best way to explain the contemporary phenomenon by emphasizing the evolution of dance over several decades. Of course, this approach is illustrated for each edition of the festival with different works, particularly when it comes to pieces that we have supported in production, such as those by Noé Soulier, Rachid Ouramdane or La Horde-Ballet de Marseille this year. We also wanted this new edition in London to further develop the dance workshops open to professional dancers but also to amateur audiences.
4. The program balances choreographic heritage with new voices. How do you approach this combination?
I think it is quite easy to distinguish the choreographers who in each era have been able to develop their own vocabulary, I think that Loïe Fuller, Isadora Dunkan or even Nijinsky and Pina Baush later are perfect examples for their eras and the same goes today for contemporary creators who find their own voice. We want through our choices to address this question of the evolution of choreographic language and invite the public to meet contemporary creation. A festival is a place to see dance but also a context to talk about dance and its history.
5. With such a diverse lineup, what performances or collaborations feel particularly significant this year, and why?
This question is complex because I am personally as amazed by a piece by Trisha Brown, Georges Balanchine, La Horde-Ballet de Marseille or the first work of a young choreographer Soa Ratsifandriana presented at Sadler’s Wells. What matters to us is to bear witness to the research that leads to the richness of today’s creation.
6. Dance merges many art forms – music, lighting, set design, and even jewellery. How do these interdisciplinary elements come together in the performances this year?
Dance is an art form that can exist on its own without any other additions to the art of movement. It is also an art that is inspired by and reacts to space. With Dance Reflections, we want to present this plurality of possibilities that choreographic art offers by diversifying the spaces of performance. For example, the American choreographer Pam Tanowitz will present her piece in the Paul Hamlyn Hall, a public space without a stage inside the Royal Ballet & Opera, and the Taiwanese artist Shu Lea Cheang will be presented in the South Tank of the Tate. The program brings together performances that attest to the relationships of dance with other arts, notably music and the visual arts. Dance can be considered a total, multidisciplinary art, even if sometimes movement is its only expression.
7. What’s your long-term vision for the festival? How do you see it grow or evolve in the years ahead?
We are still in a period of maturation; the first edition of the festival was just three years ago. What interests us with the festival is to create a programming space but also a place to talk about dance based on our three values (creation, transmission and education). We want to develop awareness-raising actions on choreographic culture around the festivals with our partners, especially when we are in countries outside Europe. We also want to further develop creative residences for choreographers before the festivals and offer more workshops for amateurs to discover the art of movement by participating in them.
Photography courtesy of Van Cleef & Arpels.
