Pavillon d'Armide | MROZEWKI

When Jean-Christophe Maillot invited him to create a dance inspired by the Ballets Russes, Matjash Mrozewski responded with a piece built around one couple’s romantic relationship. Drawing its subject from the Pavillon d’Armide, it clearly evokes the ballet-pantomime created by Michel Fokine and Alexandre Benois in 1907 in Saint Petersburg, even as it alludes to lyric works such as  Händel’s Rinaldo, premiered in London in 1711. The two starring roles, the enchantress, Armide, and the knight Renaud or Rinaldo are heroes of both the ballet and the opera.

Matjash Mrozewski  has taken the liberty of drawing from both these sources to create his own universe with an original choreographic vocabulary around Armide, who appears throughout. Armide and Renaud/Rinaldo constitute the main couple with whom Matjash Mrozewski structures his entire ballet. This couple’s story is recounted by seven other couples who represent the lovers during different phases of their relationship, as they they are changed by their feelings of animosity, enchantment, love or abandon… Much of the choreography expresses Armide’s memory and her sense of abandonment.

Instead of using music by Händel or Tcherepnin, Matjash Mrozewski chose to commission the London composer Robin Rimbaud, known as Scanner, to create a score both inspired by the Baroque spirit, yet determinedly forward looking, with atmospheric and melancholic accents. Thus, Scanner based his work on Handel’s opera in order to recreate a sort of musical tapestry consisting of short passages, repetitions, juxtaposed sounds all contributing to a structured auditory surface on which the choreography finds its most complete expression.

"Pavillon d'Armide" | MROZEWKI
Choreography: Matjash Mrozewki
Music: Scanner
Scenography and lighting: Dominique Drillot
Costumes: Jean-Michel Lainé

Creation for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo
Premiere held on July 22nd 2009, Terraces of the Casino de Monte-Carlo