New Kids on the Block

In the second week of February, an ensemble of young and remarkably accomplished dancers presented a lovely and generously conceived programme just beyond the Paris city limits, at the Théâtre des Sablons in Neuilly-sur-Seine, as part of a tour spanning not only several French cities but also Spain, Germany, Switzerland and Malaysia. The evening unfolded as a carefully balanced succession of styles, allowing the dancers to reveal both technical assurance and interpretative maturity. Overall, the cohesion of the ensemble and the clarity of their stage presence matched those of an established professional company. Yet this was not, strictly speaking, the case: the performers belonged to the Junior Ballet of the Paris Opera.

Performance

Junior Ballet de l’Opéra National de Paris: George Balanchine’s “Allegro brillante” / Maurice Béjart’s “Cantate 51” / Annabelle López Ochoa’s “Requiem for a Rose” / José Martinez's “Mi favorita”

Place

Théâtre des Sablons in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, February 16, 2026

Words

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti

Junior Ballet of the Paris Opera in George Balanchine's “Allegro brillante.” Photograph by Julien Benhamou | OnP

It has become increasingly common for major ballet institutions to establish a junior ensemble alongside the main troupe. From the Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet to Boston Ballet II, these structures have emerged as essential spaces where young dancers refine their artistry while entering the professional repertory. The Paris Opéra has followed this path: supported by private patrons, the ensemble brings together artists between eighteen and twenty-three years old, offering them a fixed term engagement conceived as a transitional professional experience and the opportunity to test themselves in major repertory works before a wide theatre audience.

The evening opened with George Balanchine’s “Allegro brillante,” set to Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 3, a work of exceptional virtuosity and dynamism conceived for five couples and structured around a pair who carry, with particular emphasis on the ballerina, the greater weight of the choreography. Balanchine’s writing demands relentless technical precision and an unbroken sense of tempo, with expansive yet rapid movements that must preserve an underlying lyricism throughout.

Eve Belguet and Davide Alphandery formed a compelling central partnership. Belguet, who had already distinguished herself in school performances at the Paris Opera Ballet School, confirms a rare combination of softness and radiance, revealing an artist of considerable promise. Her technique is impeccable yet fluidly responsive to the music, and she projects charisma that naturally draws the eye. Together with Alphandery, trained at La Scala, she formed an exceptional pairing, with him proving an attentive and solid partner. The ensemble largely met the demands of the choreography, articulating the rapid footwork, the clarity of the épaulement and the subtle forward and backward displacement of the hips typical of Balanchine’s vocabulary. In the male sections, the jumps occasionally tested the uniformity of coordination, yet the overall energy remained buoyant.

Junior Ballet of the Paris Opera in Maurice Béjart’s “Cantate 51.” Photograph by Julien Benhamou | OnP

Maurice Béjart’s “Cantate 51” shifted the atmosphere toward the spiritual register of the Annunciation. Premiered by Béjart’s Ballet du XXe siècle in 1966 in Brussels, it distills the baroque music of Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen BWV 51 into a neoclassical language of suspension and reflection. The image of Mary (Natalie Vikner) lying motionless before slowly rising beneath the gaze of the angel (Jackson Smith Leishman) establishes a ritual space, the youth of the ensemble lending the scene an unexpected purity.

Leishman embodied the angel with hieratic composure and a disarming sincerity, his presence defined by a perfect balance of display and inward concentration. His double tours en l’air were clean, and the nobility of his lines conveyed the sacred tone of the work. The two women on pointe, Nuria Fernandes and Anastasia Gallon, positioned symmetrically at his sides, captured the exultant quality of the singing line, their movements unfolding in exquisitely mirrored symmetry.

The pas de deux of the angel and Mary, alone on stage, shaped by demanding rond de jambe en l’air and sustained balances, was intensely emotional. With the return of the ensemble and the other four men in a burst of joyful elevation, the opposition between aerial lightness and solemn gravity reasserted itself, restoring the work’s tension between transcendence and earthly weight and creating a sense of spiritual exultation.

Junior Ballet of the Paris Opera in Annabelle López Ochoa’s “Requiem for a Rose.” Photograph by Julien Benhamou | OnP

This was followed by the Belgian-Colombian choreographer Annabelle López Ochoa’s “Requiem for a Rose,” created in 2009 for the Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia and set to the Adagio from Franz Schubert’s String Quintet in C major D 956, whose romantic intensity and dramatic breadth find expression in a sensuous and fluid choreography. Twelve dancers, six men and six women, compose a swirling floral formation, all wearing skirts that soften gender distinctions and create a unified visual texture. Roles shift, partnering dissolves and reforms, and the group acquires a mutable quality that keeps the eye in constant motion.

A soloist, Shani Obadia, appears barefoot in a neutral flesh-toned bodysuit, her hair loose, a rose held between her teeth. With her entrance, electronic music abruptly replaces Schubert. Unlike the surrounding vortex of bodies, her movements are raw, angular, and impulsive, at once rhythmic, seductive, grounded and instinctive. When the others return, they circle her in widening spirals, their turns and light footwork evoking petals caught in the air. The choreography traces broad arcs and sweeping transitions. If versatility was being tested across the programme, this section confirmed the capacity of the Junior Ballet’s members to inhabit fully contrasting aesthetic worlds.

The final piece, “Mi favorita,” created by the current director of the Paris Opera Ballet, José Martinez, for the young dancers of the company, is set to a collage of music by Gaetano Donizetti, with costumes designed by former étoile Agnès Letestu. The men appear in red, while the female dancers’ skirts change throughout the piece, suggesting shifts in era and aesthetic.

The piece starts with the curtain opening just enough to reveal a pair of seventeenth-century shoes, an unmistakable reference to Louis XIV, father of French academic ballet, acknowledging a genealogy that stretches from court spectacle to contemporary reinvention. Martinez explicitly evokes figures such as Marius Petipa, Rudolf Nureyev and William Forsythe as sources of inspiration, and quotations surface throughout the work: an echo of the Fairy variations from “The Sleeping Beauty,” a serpentine entrance reminiscent of “Swan Lake.”

Junior Ballet of the Paris Opera in José Martinez's “Mi favorita.” Photograph by Julien Benhamou | OnP

Conceived as both showcase and playful self-referential performance, “Mi favorita” operates as a reflection on dance itself, a kind of meta-ballet that exposes both the mechanics of the stage and the internal dynamics of the company. Rivalries, lost skirts, fleeting crushes and shy declarations of affection animate the stage; vanity within the corps de ballet is gently observed and occasionally caricatured. The humour remains light, at times openly playful, yet beneath the wit lies a more serious meditation on heritage, including the Spanish lineage particular to Martinez, and on transmission. The work also allows the dancers to experiment with contrasting styles and registers, testing their comic timing and stage intelligence.

Tiziano Cerrato and Mei Matsunaga stood out for the precision and amplitude of their jumps and turns, while Belguet and Alphandery once again asserted their presence as a couple charged with palpable chemistry. Typhaine Gervais brought a finely tuned theatrical instinct that enriched the ensemble texture, though it would be difficult to single out others, as the overall standard remained remarkably high.

The dramaturgical arc of the evening appeared carefully calibrated. Beginning with the demanding rigour of Balanchine, moving through the spiritual austerity of Béjart and the lyrical sensuality of López Ochoa before arriving at Martinez’s playful reflexivity, the programme guided the audience from its most exacting register to its most immediately engaging. What might initially seem esoteric gradually opened into works of greater immediacy, as if inviting spectators first to contemplate and then to recognise themselves within the language of ballet. In articulating this progression, the Junior Ballet affirmed not only its technical versatility but its capacity to inhabit the full spectrum of the classical and contemporary imagination. If this performance is any indication, their trajectory seems destined to extend beyond the studio stage toward the major theatres of the international circuit.

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti

Elsa Giovanna Simonetti is a Paris-based philosopher researching ancient thought, divination, and practices of salvation at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. With over a decade of ballet training, she studied History of Dance as part of her Philosophy and Aesthetics degree at the University of Bologna. Alongside her academic work, she writes about dance.

comments

Featured

REVIEWS | Elsa Giovanna Simonetti

Lost Time

The Biennale offered an intimate view of artistic creation, with pioneering choreographer Molissa Fenley among the artists featured in this year’s programme.

MEMOIR | Fleur Van Woerkom

Vow of Stability

I have seen Megan Fairchild dance three times. The first was semi-unintentional—soon after moving to New York in the fall of 2024, I got one of those $30 for 30+ Under tickets and sat in the orchestra level on stage right.

REVIEWS | Rebecca Deczynski

Perfect Pairs

For the sixth year now, the BAAND has gotten back together at Lincoln Center. That is, the BAAND Dance Festival, the annual Chanel-sponsored program that unites five New York City dance companies: Ballet Hispánico, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, and Dance Theatre of Harlem.

REVIEWS | Sophie Bress

En Plein Air

There’s just something about the outdoor dance performances that summer brings. Movements take on additional urgency when rain threatens.