With this season opening show at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, from October 16 to 23, the former star dancer of the Paris Opera is innovating with cutting-edge technology “which will allow the spectator to project himself on stage“while wearing a helmet.

“We add a + annex + to the show. It is a surplus that brings a new perspective. That of the painter», Explains Kader Belarbi, who has directed the Toulouse Opera Ballet for ten years.

“+ Toulouse-Lautrec + it’s a creation that was postponed to the 1st confinement, then to the 2nd confinement. But these reports made it possible to pose something more consistent.”

Kader Belarbi confesses that before dancing, painting is his first passion. During the time suspended by the Covid pandemic, he drew a lot to refine his creation on the life and work of the Albigensian painter, who embodied “the soul of Montmartre“.

– Immersion in the intimate –

“Painting and dancing are two related arts. The bias is to say the color is the woman, the black and white is the circle of men“, he explains.

At each of the six performances planned at the Capitol, around fifty spectators can, at the normal price of 63 euros, watch ten two-minute scenes in 3D using virtual reality (VR) headsets, “where it’s Lautrec watching“.

They can thus leap “in the middle of the stage“, among the dancers, meeting their eyes, deluding themselves of an unprecedented complicity.

“Toulouse-Lautrec is a true pleasure-seeker, he is an observer of the human soul. He lived for three years in a brothel. The proximity offered with virtual reality is really parallel to what the painter experienced“, emphasizes the ballet conductor.

Three scenes of VR “stand out from the show“and proposes”an immersion“behind the scenes with the dancers, or in the cozy decor of a brothel.

“We captured a 360 ° image with eight cameras plus one in the sky. Then, we do + sewing + (in post production, editor’s note) so that each VR sequence creates a + sphere“(of images) around the spectator”, explains Luc Riolon, one of the French masters of documentaries on dance.

– The euphoria of cancan –

“When we film dance, we always want to get as close as possible to the dancers. Here, we transform the spectator into a voyeur, exactly as Toulouse-Lautrec was“, launches the director.

This technological complexity did not destabilize the star dancer Natalia de Froberville: “With virtual reality on the spot just pay more attention to the space“, she said, explaining that you have to be careful not to leave the field of each of the cameras.

“Cancan is new to me. It’s fire! It’s champagne!“Says the Russian star who plays Jane Avril, cancan and Moulin Rouge icon”that we still called + Jane la Folle + or + La Mélinite +“, she laughs.

From this experience, the classical dancer retained “the emotion of the live performance“, evokes the world of Lautrec, the tawny colors of the wigs, the eroticism of the cabaret dresses and chic underwear magnified by the costume designer Olivier Bériot.

This show immerses the ballet in the energy of the Belle Epoque on the frenzied rhythms of cancan and java. With this image technology at the service of emotion, a few spectators can enter the painter’s intimacy and meet the gaze of Jane Avril, his muse.

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A feat made possible thanks to “the Z CAM V1 camera, the only one in Europe. Another is in the space station with Thomas Pesquet“, specifies the director Luc Riolon.

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