Scènova has represented the Karelin Ballet for its Western European tours since 2014.
- Founded
- 1977
- Company
- 54 dancers
- Artistic director
- Viktor Karelin
- Touring repertoire
- Anna Karenina, The Sculptor, Requiem
Viktor Karelin founded his company in 1977 on an idea that was simple and, for a long time, unfashionable: a ballet theatre written by a single author, the way one writes a book. The first pieces displeased as much as they intrigued, and the argument they opened has never closed.
From the 1980s the repertoire turned to literature – the great novels, less for their plots than for what they do to their characters. There Karelin found his material: passion, guilt, disintegration.
A vocabulary of its own
The style is instantly recognisable: broken lines, lifts that look like arrested falls, ensembles that advance as a single mass. Nothing is decorative, and technique is never shown for its own sake.
The company today numbers fifty-four dancers and a school founded by the choreographer. Its pieces tour Asia, North America and Europe, and return regularly to France.