Paris Opera Ballet

Between Glamour and the Grotesque
by Hofesh Shechter
The title Red Carpet sounds to me like an invitation. Or like a clue. The keyhole through which we glimpse what the piece will look like. At once a color, an idea, an atmosphere. Something visual. Something that opens up the imagination. And simply, I love this title! Beyond the various explanations I could give, I need to fall in love with my titles.

In contemporary dance, the stage is filled with references and expectations, like echoes of life. We all know what red carpets are, but we all have different expectations aroused by them. Red Carpet won’t provide answers or define meaning. It’s a playground for bringing questions and emotions to the surface. I don’t believe the role of dance is to provide solutions. A ballet must remain open, unresolved; that’s its beauty.

For me, a red carpet first evokes thoughts of glamour. I see a lot of them on my tours, when I stay in a hotel or a bed and breakfast in England. But those red carpets are sometimes not very glamorous. They can be like an old tradition that has aged. We also find glamour in places like Paris’ glorious Palais Garnier, where Red Carpet premiered last June; its plush red velvet was a wonderful contrast to my rougher side. Today, glamour also evokes celebrities, pop culture, and MTV. There’s almost an opposition between the old glamour—that of the Garnier—and today’s glamour. And it’s this contrast that interests me. In Red Carpet, there’s no real story, no narration. It’s above all about a place where energies and emotions unfold. I like the meaning of all this to be sometimes very clear, and other times more confusing, without the audience knowing if we are being serious or grotesque or parodic.

The uncomfortable dimension of the grotesque also interests me; it allows us to show the bad and dirty side of reality, the ways humans organize themselves.
My ballets always present several facets at the same time. Glamour is also something that “covers”—an envelope, a blanket that can be removed to show what’s underneath. Like makeup, a mannerism, or a tradition.

Underneath, what I feel and like to see is how vulnerable we are. It’s a reality that’s very beautiful to show on stage. There are plenty of colors to explore.

Thanks to Tom Visser’s magnificent lighting, Red Carpet takes on the appearance of a cabaret performance. It plays out in a somewhat raw, sometimes grotesque, underground space, a marginal place that allows for a wider range of expression.

Composing the music for my ballets is a great joy, but sometimes also a source of suffering. It requires simultaneous work on every detail in order to bring the music and the choreography together.Working with musicians on stage is like collaborating with a living organism. I invite them to deploy their creativity. We might never even finish this sonic exploration together. The only thing stopping us is the date of the first performance.

I have to be the master of time, space, energy, material, movement. It’s a great freedom, and an immense task. My job is to make decisions. It’s like being in a forest. There are many possible paths and you often don’t know where to go. You have to light a torch. There’s fear and excitement. You can move forward in any direction. And when you choose one, you give up five others. But the important thing is that you start walking, that you get into the movement.

My choreographic language is my voice, and I try to use that voice to say something. I can shout, or whisper, but it’s always my voice. I try to do things a little differently, to maintain my excitement. Sometimes I fail. I might not be able to change my voice, but I can change my perspective. My previous pieces don’t really help because you have to start all over again each time. It doesn’t matter what I did 20 years ago. This is a new journey. A new forest. What will it look like?

It was during the creation of Uprising (2006) that I think I discovered my own language, my voice. I was in turmoil. I understood something, physically, within myself. In my language, there is also the theatrical side that has to be developed, and the overall construction often resembles a film, as in In your rooms (2007). Then, with Political Mother (2010), my relationship with music really came to life. A piece without a story, but with characters. Puzzle pieces that don’t form a narrative, but which nevertheless allow us to understand what is happening.

I continue to explore. I haven’t left the forest. At the Paris Opera, the dancers are passionate and I am fascinated by their work ethic. They dance and train alongside each other for long days, maintaining their energy and concentration at a very high level of intensity. With incredible gestural abilities. I’ve known some of them since The Art of Not Looking Back (2009) entered their repertoire in 2018. We have a history together. They understand my world.

The collaboration with CHANEL has also been very fruitful, positive, and rewarding. It’s the meeting of two worlds. CHANEL embodies a world of glamour and working with them has been magnificent. CHANEL brings color to Red Carpet.

Since we’re used to seeing ballets in a theater, we expect there to be a narrative, a story. But theaters are also like concert halls. And when you go to a concert, you’re first sensitive to the energy in the room. In Red Carpet, there are certainly elements and images that we’ll want to decipher and understand. But I think the best way to get into dance is to let yourself be carried away. It’s about living an experience. Let’s experience dance as if it were a concert!
—interview by Antony Desvaux
(May 2025)