PARIS — “She is useless, she is immortal.”
These phrases spoken on the funeral of Joséphine Baker grew to become the place to begin for French-Senegalese dancer and choreographer Germaine Acogny to convey the American-born French performer and activist again to life in “Josephine,” a ballet that premiered Wednesday as a part of the opening of the season on the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.
“I mentioned let’s begin there and she is going to stay once more within the pores and skin, within the flesh, within the bones of an African girl,” Acogny advised WWD. “I started to roll this movie backwards from her demise. The useless aren’t useless [in my culture], they’re within the wind, within the water, within the flowers — they’re in all places, they encompass us.”
Costume by Paloma.
Julien Mignot/Courtesy of Chanel
Acogny’s solo subsequently begins with flowers thrown on the brass curtain on the stage, as if knocking on the door between the residing and legends, that started the piece conceived by Acogny and multidisciplinary artist and choreographer Alesandra Seutin.
Its premiere got here virtually a century after Baker made her Paris debut — on Oct. 2, 1925 — in the exact same theater.
By a collection of tableaux spring to mind Baker’s supple actions that shocked Nineteen Twenties Paris in the course of the “Revue Nègre,” her motherhood to 12 adopted kids of various ethnicities and religions and her involvement within the French Resistance and the American Civil Rights Motion.
“Joséphine Baker is completely modern,” mentioned the French-Senegalese dancer. “Every part she defended nonetheless is similar in trendy occasions.”
Reinforcing every had been the costumes, crafted by grand flou atelier Paloma, which is a part of Chanel’s 19M hub of specialty ateliers. “I wished a bodysuit in my pores and skin tone that may give the impression of being nude,” recalled Acogny.
Costume by Paloma.
Julien Mignot/Courtesy of Chanel
A costume within the Shanghai chapter of “Gabrielle Chanel. Vogue Manifesto” grew to become the place to begin for the ballet’s first outfit, a black quantity with a fluid skirt with silk blooms operating down the again that represents Baker’s funeral.
Costume adjustments had been integrated into the efficiency. That costume falls to the ground, revealing Acogny in a bodysuit, a beaded belt as the one adornment. “It’s the waist beads of French-Senegalese ladies that I’m donning as an African girl,” Acogny defined. “Fairly the departure from the banana belt, isn’t it?”
Glamorous domesticity takes the form of a marabou-trimmed dressing robe — donned with a wig and glasses — whereas an uneven martial-inflected go well with is for when the going will get robust. For the veteran dancer, working with the Paloma staff was “so fluid, with good power” and she or he felt “admiration for his or her mastery of their craft” that shone by way of within the ease during which she slipped from one outfit to a different.
“Josephine” on the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.
Julien Mignot/Courtesy of Chanel
Within the area of a 30-minute solo efficiency, it’s “a aspect of Baker that isn’t proven sufficient, [a woman] who fought for equality for Black individuals, Mexicans, Native Individuals within the U.S., who fought for freedom and was a Resistance fighter in France,” that Acogny telegraphed with limber, magnetic actions and poetic voiceovers.
Hers wasn’t the one transferring rendition of the night, as “Josephine” was a part of a tandem program that put it in dialogue with Pina Bausch’s “The Ceremony of Spring,” accompanied by the music of Igor Stravinsky, which premiered in 1913 on the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.
Costume element.
Julien Mignot/Courtesy of Chanel
Interpreted by dancers hailing from 13 African nations as a part of a coproduction between the Pina Bausch Basis, the Écoles des Sables and London’s Sadler’s Wells dance group, the ballet was a strong show that was awarded a standing ovation from an viewers that included Bruno Pavlovsky, president of vogue and president of Chanel SAS, couture designer Imane Ayissi and Paris Opera Ballet star Guillaume Diop.
This system together with “Josephine” and Pina Bausch’s “The Ceremony of Spring,” supported by Chanel, runs till Sunday on the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.
