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The Arts Intel Report

World Premiere by Alan Lucien Øyen

Sept 20 – Oct 13, 2022
Pl. de l'Opéra, 75009 Paris, France

Alan Lucien Øyen, the Norwegian choreographer and director who in 2006 founded Winter Guests, an international company that combines dance, theater, and text, is making a new new work, as yet untitled, for the Paris Opera Ballet. “A major starting point for the piece was the element of staging, or theatricality,” he tells us in a video on the Paris Opera Web site, “the fact that you can see something in front of your eyes that is fake, that is not real, that is not true, and then you make the decision to believe. So we started looking at dioramas and how it’s a constructed world that is clearly kind of painted, a theatrical version of reality.” Indeed, the sets are trompe-l’oeil and Øyen plans to produce surprising tableaux. Be prepared for a Bausch-like exploration of dreams and fears. —Laura Jacobs