He has become a guru on the international scene, a key figure in the so-called new Belgian dance that marks the present and future of this art in Europe. The indomitable and invertebrate Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Antwerp, 1976) has broken boundaries in choreography and operatic stage direction. All cultures fit into this sensitive being with an unstoppable imagination whose Moroccan surname (his mother is Flemish) meant that some in his own country did not consider him worthy of being Belgian.
This week he lands at the Liceu with two of his more than fifty pieces: Faun and Noetic (from February 27 to March 1). She is provided by the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, whose direction she took over last year, after seven years at the helm of the Flanders Ballet. “In Switzerland I feel freer, adult, stable; In my country, not even winning two Oliviers or being nominated for a Tony was enough to stop making me feel like a second-class citizen,” he explains to La Vanguardia in an online interview.
The big repertory companies raffle it off. Are you inspired to work for them as well as your Eastman dancers?
My first time with a big company was twenty years ago, with the Monte-Carlo Ballet. Soon I also worked with the Geneva Ballet and it was exciting, I made good friends. For me it has been like coming home, also when it came to putting on Idomeneo, re di Creta, my first Mozart opera [which has just premiered]. It is a place sensitive to my artistic vision, to my needs.
What needs are those?
After Covid, I only want to make pieces about topics that matter to me. Sometimes they can be specific to a culture, about my experiences in Japan [last year I premiered Ukiyu-e at the Real] or in China, or my experiences in Morocco or Belgium. In Geneva I can contribute creations that I made in other companies, incorporate them into the repertoire and make the dancers understand them more deeply, because at the moment I create them it is all very fragile, it is ten years later that I know what I was looking for.
He created Noetic in 2014 for the Göteborg Ballet in Sweden.
Exactly, and recovering it in Geneva has allowed me to better understand what he wanted to express with that vision of the world made of mathematics. I am inspired by the Laban technique, I look for the mathematical, yes, but also the mystical, and to make the duality of masculine energy and feminine energy one. The Geneva Ballet goes beyond gender, and is more democratic and more international than the Flanders Ballet.
He has been directing productions of operas for years, including some contemporary ones, Satyagraha by Philip Glass. What does Idomeneo, re di Crete teach us?
I already tackled a scenario of Greek tragedy and self-sacrifice with Gluck's Alceste. And she, the queen of Thessaly, does sacrifice herself, but Idomeneus is like the patriarch of the archipelago who says that she will sacrifice herself but does not do it. And that's part of the problem with the whole story. Idomeneo is also about the world today, about how it is run, about figures who do not want to share power, who cannot, who do not know how to give it to the next generation. You have the young and positive Idamante who wants to reconcile the people of Troy with the people of Crete, and then you have someone like Idomeneus who has been fighting wars for a decade and who reminds me of some political figures today: in Russia, Israel or the United States. People who do not trust and who truncate any possible connection. In the version I make, she kills his son to preserve her life and power, which is what today's politicians are doing. They are killing their children to survive their own journey.
Have you made your own ending?
Yes, I didn't agree with Gluck's happy ending either but I did it. Then I regretted it.
How does someone who, like you, have movement as a language, approach an opera?
My head is always on three levels: the psychology of the characters, who feel something more than what they say, the music and the movement. Psychology has always been a priority for me. I had to be a psychoanalyst, I had to be a social worker, I had to be all of that to be able to be here doing what I do, so I'm interested in the psychology of the characters, why they do what they do. And then there is that intelligent music, with its own narrative. I like this tension, because for me we are multiple things, we can smile and be breaking inside, we can cry but believe that there is hope. Opera allows you to work on many levels: I can make the scenery say something, the singer sing something but also act... and then there is the dance, the movement, which is the third element, what really helps to transform.
Opera can be very static and I fight to make it fluid. Musical directors adore me because I flow like they flow, my way of making opera is also a constant, let's go with the music, the feeling of time is different. Yes, I make still images, of course, but there is a lot of transformation, one thing becomes another. My first opera was in 2010, a Wagner Ring with Guy Cassiers at La Scala in which I did only the choreography. There I realized that I could contribute something to opera that had not been present for years, because in the 20th century we separated opera from dance when before they had been mixed. I am from a generation that always tries to reconcile everything with everything, for me everything is connected. Dance and opera are, very much so. And today's singers have skills when it comes to moving.
Is it the case that singers ask you to make them dance?
Yeah! The best thing is that on the first day we start moving. They are surprised that it is like this, but in two weeks it feels like a score. The truth is that it is something ambitious.
A few days ago, Barcelona-born Hèctor Parra premiered Justice in Geneva, an opera about the chemical accident five years ago in the Congo.
I know, I saw it, everything related to the Congo is personal to me. I work with many Congolese artists and I believe that it is our responsibility as Belgian artists and as Belgian people to remember what our country has done to another. We cannot talk so much about Palestine and forget what happened in the Congo, because it is the same. It is made of the same substance. The composer is brave, he makes you feel the mother's anguish, you see how the people around you breathe that poison and will get sick, but they don't know it because no one warns them... because they don't want to take responsibility.
In that Geneva theater you inherit a company that was already born as contemporary and that the same person, Philippe Cohen, directed for the last 19 years.
Yes, there are 23 dancers, it is a small group compared to the 45 or 50 in Flanders, and they are not classical dancers, they are more contemporary tools that you have. Cohen invited me to choreograph for them as soon as I took over the direction and I created something that they toured with for almost five years, that is, they gave the pieces a long run. I continued doing things for them, a bond was created. Now we also have Damien Jalet as an associate artist, someone very innovative and radical who I have followed for more than two decades. We worked together many times, he even danced for me. Later this year we invited Sharon Eyal and Aszure Barton.
What was it like working for Madonna on her Celebration Tour?
Very exciting. I learn a lot from watching strong women work. I've always worked for people like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga or Alanis Morissette. I love them, they are queens of their empire. The world is very male-centric so if I support anyone it will be a sister or a mother figure.
And how do you remember facing Nijinski's mythical Faun?
I adore Nijinski, I read his diaries when I was young and I liked the courage and his ability to put someone almost masturbating on stage. That bold thing inspires me. Culture is something fluid, it changes constantly: the idea of the past in your mind or mine is different, we have our education... when I think of Debussy I feel it like family. I feel connected to these creators. And especially with Nijinski.
There is something so modern and contemporary about him that I wanted to reconnect the public with that controversy that he generated, to tell them: don't be afraid of fluidity, don't be afraid of sensuality, of attraction. In Faun the dancers are constantly almost touching: hips touch, chests touch, heads touch, arms, hands, feet... But the audience never feels that it is vulgar. It is not a sexual show although it is about sexuality. The fawn and the nymph come together and become one, like the birds and the bees, in a way. And they don't even have to be male and female.
So if you were asked to reinvent Swan Lake, what would you do?
I never say never, but the truth is that I have separated myself a little from the idea of ballet. Those years with the Flanders Ballet I already brought things by Forsythe and also by Grigorovich. But once the pandemic is over, I think I have already closed that stage. I really want to do contemporary dance and opera is interesting to me, but I don't think I'd be a good ballet choreographer. Although I remember having fun doing an excerpt from The Nutcracker for Dmitry Chernyakoví, it was a challenge for the dancers of the Paris Opera, what I proposed was not easy for them.
Have you recovered from your knee surgery?
It's getting better, thanks for asking. I haven't danced in a long time, since after covid I have concentrated on artistic direction and I miss it very much. Sometimes I almost cry when I think about it. I hope to move again, maybe in three years, when I turn 50. Maybe my midlife crisis will be dancing again.
