histoire(s)

Olga de Soto

What remains of a performance once the final applause has died away?

On 25 June 1946, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the premiere of the ballet Le Jeune homme et la mort, conceived by Jean Cocteau and choreographed by Roland Petit, took place. Sixty years later, Olga de Soto has chosen, not to reconstruct the work, but to collect its echoes.

True to her penchant for work on how we remember history, the choreographer conducts a sensitive investigation based on unexpected material: the memories of the audience members present that evening. Their accounts, inevitably fragmentary and sometimes contradictory, form a touching reconstruction. Was dancer Nathalie Philippart wearing a red or black cape? Were the virtuoso Jean Babilée’s leaps dazzling or suspended? How accurate these accounts are is less important than the variations that make this narrative a vehicle for transmission, somewhere between dance and documentary performance, a place where collective memory becomes a living work. histoire(s) reveals what transcends time and endures in the hearts of those who witnessed it.

Copresentation Charleroi danse

Season 2025·2026

Information

CRUSH tickets go on sale on 9 June.

Venue

Salle Jacques Huisman

Duration

1hr15

Language

fr, surtitling en

Price

10€ > 21€

Cast

Concept, direction and choreography
Olga de Soto

Created with
Vincent Druguet
Olga de Soto

With
Cyril Accorsi
Olga de Soto

Direction, camera and sound
Olga de Soto

Editing
Montxo de Soto
Olga de Soto

Featuring testimonials from (in order of appearance)
Micheline Hesse
Suzanne Batbedat
Robert Genin
Brigitte Evellin
Julien Pley
Françoise Olivaux
Olivier Merlin
Frédéric Stern

Music (in order of appearance)
Johann Sebastian Bach (œuvres pour piano)
Sarabande de la Suite anglaise No. 2 BWV 807
Sarabande de la Suite anglaise No. 5 BWV 810
Passacaglia in C Minor BWV 852 (transcription pour piano)

Performed by Angela Hewitt on the piano
CDA67309 & CDA67451/2 Hyperion Records Ltd London

Scenography
Thibault Vancraenenbroeck

Lighting design and operation
Henri-Emmanuel Doublier

Spatialisation of sound
Pierre Gufflet

Sound engineering
Julien Courroye

Video production services
Clément Demaria

Production
NIELS Production

Co-production
Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Centre National de la Danse, Culturgest

With the help of
COM4 HD – Madrid, Ministère de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles – Service de la danse

Acknowledgements: creation and takeover
Catherine Alvès, Odette Aslan, Michèle Bargues, Suzanne Batbedat, Pierre Caizergues, Jean-Jacques Chabut, Sybille Cornet, Cécile Coutin et Simone Drouin (Département des Arts du Spectacle de la Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal – Paris), Eugénie De Mey, François Deppe, Eliane Dheygere, Brigitte Evellin, Dominique Frétard, Robert Genin, Carlos González, Micheline Hesse, Colin Legras, Francis Lepigeon, Laurence Louppe, Olivier Merlin, Nadine vzw – Bruxelles, Stéphane Noël, Françoise Olivaux, Benoit Pelé, Jean Robin, Frédéric Stern, Superamas, Théâtre de la Balsamine, Michel Troadec, Georges Alexander Van Dam, Gaëtan van den Berg, Marie-Christine Vernay et Christophe Wavelet.

And especially to
Marc Bouteiller, Nathalie Collantès, Vincent Druguet, Hyperion Records Ltd, Olivier Hespel, Jorge León, Frie Leysen, Manuela Gutiérrez, Luis Sanz, Olivier Tiremarche, Ramón de Soto, Grégoire Romefort et à Antón et Gabriel de Soto Romefort.

histoire(s) is a critical study that takes as its starting point the ballet Le Jeune homme et la mort by Roland Petit and Jean Cocteau, which premiered on 25 June 1946 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.

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