Latest news with #Etudes
The Guardian
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Beautiful form isn't enough': National Ballet of Japan
The three pieces of Ballet Coffret range from 1910's Stravinsky-composed classic The Firebird by Michel Fokine through the mid-20th century Etudes by Harald Lander to William Forsythe's The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude from 1996. Levene captured the training, preparations and performances of the National Ballet of Japan (NBJ) over three March days in Tokyo, as well as shadowing ballerina Yui Yonezawa and visiting the New National Theatre's ballet school. Principal dancer Yui Yonezawa prepares for Ballet Coffret in Tokyo, Japan The odds of becoming a principal ballerina in a major ballet company are roughly comparable to those of representing your country in a major sport. As with professional athletes, there are dancers who show remarkable potential at a young age, some of whom make the grade and some of whom fade away. Though she was taken to ballet lessons aged three by her mother, who had herself wanted to dance, Yonezawa insists she was far from a natural ballerina at first. 'I loved moving my body to music at nursery school. But ballet begins with putting your feet in some very awkward positions. I was often the slowest in the class to get them right,' recalls Yonezawa, speaking in Tokyo as the NBJ prepares for its first UK tour. Students from the New National Theatre Ballet School take part in a daily class. The NNT Ballet School is the official training centre for the National Ballet of Japan. It is Japan's first theatre-affiliated training institute for aspiring professional ballet dancers Established in April 2001, the school provides a two-year full-time training programme aimed at developing students into professional dancers. Students also participate in NBJ productions, gaining practical stage experience Yonezawa in the professionals' class Her father was a theatre director who suffered severe hearing difficulties and pioneered methods of training Japanese actors to use their bodies expressively. After Yonezawa's parents separated, she moved with her mother from Tokyo to Nagoya, where she began to dance. But it took around a decade before she fell under ballet's spell. Japan itself is something of a late ballet bloomer. Introduced from Europe in the early 20th century, ballet began to gain traction after the second world war. By the 1970s, Japan was producing exceptional dancers, including Yoko Morishita, who nearly all moved overseas to fulfil their ambitions. It was not until the NBJ's founding in 1997 in conjunction with the New National Theatre in Tokyo that Japan had a resident ballet company. The theatre during preparations between a matinee and evening performance Spotlights cross as the company perform Etudes The opera glasses rental concession, and a visitor to the New National Theatre Leading the NBJ as its artistic director since 2020 has been Miyako Yoshida OBE, who spent most of her performing career in Britain, with stints at Birmingham Royal Ballet (then Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet) and at the Royal Ballet. In 1995, she became the first Japanese ballerina to be a principal dancer at the Royal Ballet. Taking her acclaimed original production of Adolphe Adam's Giselle to the Royal Opera House represents something akin to a homecoming for Yoshida, while being the company's first full overseas tour (it has previously staged guest performances at Washington's Kennedy Center and Moscow's Bolshoi). Yonezawa is set to be the lead dancer for a couple of the Covent Garden performances of Giselle, a piece she finds both challenging and absorbing. The National Ballet of Japan perform The Firebird, during a performance of Ballet Coffret, a triple bill showcasing 20th-century masterpieces Ayako Ono as the Firebird, and Haruka Yoshida during Etudes National Ballet of Japan perform Etudes National Ballet of Japan perform Etudes 'The first and second acts are completely different. Not just physically, but in the entire world they portray. Act 1 is the real world, and Act 2 is the afterlife. I go from a living person to something like a ghost, close to what we call a yurei in Japanese,' explains Yonezawa. 'My body and inner self transform; Giselle's love for Albrecht is the only constant. But even that evolves, from infatuation and excitement in Act 1 to something deeper, more eternal in Act 2. That enduring love becomes the theme.' She adds that every dancer interprets Giselle differently and that attempting to imitate other performances is a hiding to nothing. 'Beautiful form isn't enough. The relationship with your partner, your individual interpretation; it's all essential. The smallest shift in emotion can change the audience's perception. If you try to plan it too much, it feels fake. This makes it a very difficult work,' says Yonezawa. Although she danced for three years in the US, this will be her first lead role overseas, at a venue where Yonezawa says every ballet dancer dreams of performing. To prepare herself, she will rely on the same routine that has kept her, remarkably, injury-free for decades in an art form infamous for taking a heavy toll on the bodies of its star performers. That preparation was captured by David Levene over three March days in Tokyo as the company staged Ballet Coffret at its home theatre. 'I'm certified in Gyrokinesis training [a method of opening up joints and muscles without overtaxing them that borrows from yoga], so I usually do that in the dressing room,' says Yonezawa. Yonezawa trying on three pairs of ballet shoes Yonezawa prepares in her dressing room, and eating beetroot powder before a performance Yonezawa squeezes through a doorway in the costume for The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude Final adjustments for Yonezawa, and with the stage manager on his last day after 25 years Yonezawa is exhausted after performing the very demanding production of The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude She also tries on three pairs of ballet shoes to see which one feels right for her body that day. 'I often end up choosing the same pair, but I still go through the process each time,' she recounts with a laugh. 'It helps me tune in.' A recent addition to her routine is eating beetroot powder a couple of hours before each performance. She believes it boosts endurance and suppresses blood pressure spikes triggered by the rigours of ballet. Although she has been fortunate enough to avoid major injuries, she recently recovered from a heart condition. Backstage before a performance of Etudes Backstage during The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude Backstage inside the Wham (wigs, hair and makeup) department, and in the physio room backstage Stretching backstage, and a dancer warming up before a performance of Etudes 'When the photographs were taken, we were staging The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, which is a really physically intense piece,' says Yonezawa. When the day comes that Yonezawa's body can no longer withstand such intense demands, she plans to get involved in creating ballet productions. The fact that ballet performances can connect with audiences across national and linguistic borders is one of the aspects of her art that she loves most deeply. 'And in something like Act 2 of Giselle, when women in white costumes appear en pointe, it creates a world beyond our human one, without props – just with body,' Yonezawa says. 'Expressing such spiritual form through this art shows the beauty of what ballet is.' A final curtain call for Etudes Curtain call during The Firebird, and audience applause
Fashion Network
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Fashion Network
Etudes Studio: Land Art and collaborative work at the Palais de Tokyo
On Tuesday, Etudes Studio returned to runway format to present its spring-summer 2026 collection. Inspired by the creators of the Land Art movement of the '70s, "Surroundings" takes as its reference the gigantic creations of the couple Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson, whose playground was the desert spaces of Utah in the center of the United States. See catwalk In the summer heat of the Palais de Tokyo, the models embarked on a spiral path composed by the audience, reminiscent of the ephemeral work "Spiral Jetty" installed on the Great Salt Lake by Robert Smithson. In a forest of heterogeneous percussion instruments, opposite such luminaries of the French music scene as Orelsan, dressed in an Etudes top, Ed Banger and Woodkid, artist Amélie Grould, dressed in a white engineering smock, made strange cymbals whirr. It's to this muffled sound, like distant thunder, that the young men of Etudes studio embarked. Ready to traverse the great plains of Utah, equipped with his high leather boots, a peroxide-blond young man, his hair in disarray, advanced with his rebel boy scout outfit, dressed in a flowing, oversized chocolate overshirt open over a cream T-shirt and loose shorts falling above the knee. For this season, the French brand continues to experiment with tailoring, streetwear, and workwear, exploring a desert-like color palette of ochre, sand, and deep brown, as well as lots of black. Imposing pieces such as heavy-weight cotton jeans, loose-fitting jackets, and gabardine were deeply dyed or given special treatments to evoke the variations of desert soil as seen from the sky. As on this ensemble, treated with a worn effect in purplish tones marked by almost marbled nuances. See catwalk The oversized jacket, with its ultra-long sleeves, widened hems, visible seams, and patch pockets, was paired with loose pants that fell over smooth brown leather boots by La Botte Gardiane. The ensemble was worn over a jersey second skin that rises like a balaclava, adding a futuristic touch to the workwear silhouette, enhanced by streamlined Oakley sunglasses. Workwear codes are deepened, here with oversized zips running across wide pants, or diverted, when large patch pockets sit on an ochre sleeveless jacket in technical material, worn over a tone-on-tone knit sweater. Satin-finish bombers, denim with turned-up seams, and oversized trucker jackets completed the look. Touches that could also be found on more urban, flowing pieces. With detailed work on the shirt: "We work by adjusting our proposal from one season to the next," Jérémie Egry told "We're committed to the notion of French elegance. So we've worked on shirts, with shirts with patch pockets on the chest, hooded shirts, long shirts, wide shirts, Cuban collars, and blouses in very fluid and interesting materials. And we combine them with pants in the same mainly natural or recycled materials. This makes for very wearable pieces in summer, with a rather wide fall, which we appreciate". See catwalk Like this brown hooded jumpsuit with cream stripes in satin cotton, paired with a pair of paraboot boots. A pair of leather gloves by Acaba Gantier intrigued in this silhouette, while a thin, extra-long, tonal leather belt loosely encircled the waist, more in a stylized gesture than a functional one. The show signature was successfully repeated in several tailoring looks, with a palette ranging from cream to deep blue to mousey gray. Here, too, the cuts were ample and the details were nods to the outdoors, with the use of technical materials to interpret classic pieces, but also a street or alternative spirit, such as loose pockets on a classic shirt or Cristina Junquero's silver jewelry that countered a more formal silhouette. Among the 26 looks presented, Jérémie Egry and Aurélien Arbet also let loose a collaboration with U.S.-based South Korean artist, Maia Ruth Lee. "She's an artist we've known for years," explained the duo. "But the Land Art theme of the collection lent itself to a collaboration. Her works are created in three stages. She creates 'Bondage Baggage', textiles wrapped in wire, which she dabs with paint. Then she unfolds them, creating a kind of imaginary map. And these are the two pieces we chose to print on our clothes." Two colorful looks in red, black, and blue on white, reinterpreting one of the Colorado-based artist's works, rounded off the show. A major show for Etudes Studio. The brand had been carried for over 10 years by a trio. José Lamali left the adventure at the beginning of the year, after the team had redefined the brand platform in early 2024. For Etudes Studio, which has reorganized, this season's show was also intended to affirm the label's liveliness with international buyers and the market, and set it down in time. See catwalk "With Aurélien, we founded Etudes in 2012 with the desire to mix art and fashion. And it's this vision that season after season we maintain and, above all, refine. Being two today, the circuit is a little shorter, the development work is more direct. Even if last season's 2:30 performance was important for us, it was key to get back on track with a collection we're very proud of." Confirming the company's strong ambitions and the support of its investors, Egry, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: "Alternatives are possible," was greeted by applause. With 80 retailers worldwide, the independent French brand is determined to prove its worth.
