Raphaëlle Delaunay

A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dance, London, Raphaëlle Delaunay joined the École de Danse of the Opéra de Paris in 1986, then entered the ranks of the corps of the Ballet of the Opéra de Paris. In 1997, on the invitation of Pina Bausch, she joined the Tanztheater Wuppertal where in particular she took part in revivals of Café Muller, The Rite of Spring, Kontakthof and the creation of four pieces: Mazurka Fogo, O Dido, Wiesenland, and Barbe-Bleue in its operatic version. In 2000, she joined the Nederlands Dans Theater, under the direction of Jirí Kylián. She has danced with the Peeping Tom group in Le Jardin (2002), or with Alain Platel in Wolf (2003). She has also performed for Alain Buffard, Pascal Rambert, Anne Théron, Richard Siegal, Bernardo Montet, Laurent Chétouane, Jérôme Bel as well as Boris Charmatz, with whom she has worked on numerous projects. As a choreographer, her latest show, Soma, premiered in 2017.

Pina Bausch, what heritage?
With this workshop, Raphaëlle Delaunay wants to grasp, along with the participants, what Pina Bausch handed down and passed on to her during her years at the Tanztheater Wuppertal. With danced movements which are recognisable for their lyrical expressiveness, an attention paid to details and everyday gestures which suggest dance in an unexpected way, Pina Bausch’s virtuosity was stripped back to its simplest forms. The imaginary, fantastical, the highly intimate, absurdity, the eloquence of the silence of bodies, or the use of speech are essential component parts of her work which will also be explored.