and the provocative, the piece featured Marion Barbeau and Ulysse Zangs each performing a 30-minute solo, both made in collaboration with Chamblas, who also trained at the Paris institution and has described the dances as “choreographic portraits.”

Indeed, Barbeau, with her elfin but knowing presence, opened the piece by jumping, running in place and deploying bourrées in gym shoes, the lighting at first harsh and interrogation room-like (designed by Yves Godin in collaboration with Iannis Japiot), before she settled into silent-scream mode and removed her leather jacket—and soon shed her pants—all the better to see her well-trained legs. 

The atmospheric music track by Pierre Aviat included both keyboard and other percussive sounds, while Barbeau upped the movement ante by jogging around the room, executing the deepest of pliés, “Dying Swan” arms and tossing off sweet arabesques, her POB credentials on full view. 

In fact, this performer became a première danseuse in 2019 before leaving the Paris Opéra Ballet four years later to take up acting, then garnering a 2023 César nomination for Most Promising Actress for her starring role in “Rise.” 

Showing off her thespian chops as if she were either a descendent of Marcel Marceau or sporting robotic moves akin to having been AI-generated—her face transitioning from deadpan and determined to unabashed smiling, notably after drinking from a bottle of water, slathering her visage and hair with gel or singing along with herself on Maxime Le Forestier’s 1969 ditty, “La Petite Fugue—Barbeau could have been a young Audrey Hepburn, albeit one hailing from the twirling sprite school of entertainment.