Angelin Preljocaj

Directing

Angelin Preljocaj

Born 1957-01-19 · France

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Siddharta poster
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“Siddharta” is a landmark contemporary ballet by Angelin Preljocaj, created for the Paris Opera Ballet and inspired by the spiritual journey of Siddhartha Gautama, the future Buddha. Set to an original score by Bruno Mantovani, this production fuses philosophical narrative with avant-garde choreography and striking visual design by Claude Lévêque. The piece explores themes of desire, suffering, and transcendence, following Siddharta’s path from royal privilege through temptation and enlightenment. The work stands out for its blend of spiritual intensity, physical virtuosity, and the grandeur of Paris Opera’s leading dancers.

Siddharta

2010

Snow White poster
5.5

To speak of that ballet is very difficult because the theme is so popular as a fairy tale, adapted by Perrault from German folklore and then recuperated from the same folklore by the Grimm brothers, and what's more turned into an unforgettable film by Walt Disney. Angelin Preljocaj was thus trying to break a mould in which that character and her story had been cast seemingly for ever. And it is a success. Because first the setting, the stage direction are very interesting and rich. Rich are the costumes. Rich are the main ideas of the setting like the enormous magic mirror coming down from the sky, or like the deep underground mine turned into a vertical surface on which the seven dwarfs are dancing like dragon-flies on their strings.

Snow White

2010

Polina poster
6.6

Polina is a young dancer from a modest family. After years of ballet academy, she is accepted by the Bolshoi; still, she decides to try and audition of a modern dance company in France. She makes it, but her journey will not end there...

Polina

2016

The Key poster
NR

Disaster strikes during an impromptu safety inspection of a building site. The workers must work together to fix the mess – but not everyone is present…

The Key

2019

Idées noires poster
NR

A couple dances a choreography by Angelin Preljocaj.

Idées noires

1991

Mythologies poster
8.5

"Mythologies" brings together ten dancers from the Ballet de l'Opéra national de Bordeaux and ten dancers from Ballet Preljocaj. With them, the choreographer explores contemporary rituals and the founding myths that shape our collective imagination. With music composed by Thomas Bangalter, ex-Daft Punk, and performed by the Orchestre de chambre de Paris under the direction of Romain Dumas, this powerful, evocative work explores what lurks in the recesses of our existence, through our ideals and beliefs, bringing ancient mythologies into dialogue with those of our own time.

Mythologies

2022

Paris Opera Ballet: Le Parc poster
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Ballet in three acts (1994) Encore Screenings! ‘What has become of love today?’ asked Angelin Preljocaj in 1994, when he created Le Parc for the Paris Opera Ballet. Thirty years later, the world has changed again, but his timeless ballet has travelled around the world. In a French-style garden, the choreography draws us into the seduction games of the Grand Siècle and the Age of Enlightenment, appealing to our classical musical and literary imagination: famous works by Mozart, the Map of Tendre, Dangerous Liaisons. But Preljocaj breaks with tradition by introducing a contemporary soundtrack and a choreographic language composed of broken lines and sensual movements. Like the final pas de deux, where the bodies whirl around for a languorous kiss: a moment of grace that has become the signature of this ballet.

Paris Opera Ballet: Le Parc

2026

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Déchaînées

Le Postier poster
NR

A short film about a postman.

Le Postier

1991

No artwork available
NR

The strange co-existence of acceptance and rebellion, the collision of space and time, tell us that at the very moment the message is given, fertilisation takes place. We are, as it were, inside biology, the very act of conception. This coming to life in gradual stages takes us to the heart of the process of creating art; the message is no longer an abstraction, it is reality. Rather than something finished, isn’t what we call nowadays conceptual art the portent of a new art, the Annunciation of an art yet to be born?

Annunciation

2002

No artwork available
NR

The strange co-existence of acceptance and rebellion, the collision of space and time, tell us that at the very moment the message is given, fertilisation takes place. We are, as it were, inside biology, the very act of conception. This coming to life in gradual stages takes us to the heart of the process of creating art; the message is no longer an abstraction, it is reality. Rather than something finished, isn’t what we call nowadays conceptual art the portent of a new art, the Annunciation of an art yet to be born?

Annunciation

2002

Topologie de l'invisible poster
5.0

"Angelin Preljocaj, Topologie de l'invisible" offers 3 films corresponding to 3 choreographies. 1.- Annonciation (2003), directed by Angelin Preljocaj. Annonciation dances the encounter between the Angel Gabriel and Mary, when the angel announces that she is God’s chosen one – an essential scene of conception, of the birth of faith and culture. 2.- Les Raboteurs (1988), directed by Cyril Collard. A contemporary couple in an empty room in a Parisian. They talk of love, vision, points of view and illusion. Is what these three dancers on the wooden have frozen in space with their choreographed movements and the positions of the three workers in Gustave Caillebotte’s painting The Floor Scrapers? 3.- Un trait d'union (1992), directed by Angelin Preljocaj. Adaptation of La Chambre by Jean-Paul Sartre. A story of a woman who has married and her second husband has turned insane. Her whole surrounding urges her to let the man be transported into an asylum, yet she refuses.

Topologie de l'invisible

2008

No artwork available
NR

A filmed performance of Stravinsky's ballet Les Noces (The Wedding), depicting a bleakly cynical interpretation of the marriage ritual.

Noces

1989