Cultural and regional action

Reaching out to the public has been part of the company’s DNA since it was founded in 1986, and it got its start by dancing in school playgrounds. Today, awareness-raising, mediation and artistic and cultural education (EAC) are still at the heart of Malandain Ballet Biarritz’s priorities, with an active and proactive policy of introducing audiences to dance.

Outreach on tour

During tours in France and abroad, additional activities are organised at the request of the host venues: workshops on the company’s repertoire, public classes, master classes, participatory balls led by company dancers, documentary screenings, lectures by Thierry Malandain, etc.

Performances for young audiences and schools (Noé, Cendrillon, Estro / Nocturnes, La Belle et la Bête, Marie-Antoinette, La Pastorale, etc.) are offered in adapted lengths, with presentations of the work and on-stage meetings.

Local outreach

The deployment of the Pôle Chorégraphique Territorial has made it possible to coordinate and strengthen the awareness-raising activities offered to amateur dancers of all levels, and more particularly to secondary school pupils in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department.

Taking into account the linguistic richness of its territory, Malandain Ballet Biarritz works with all kinds of audiences: amateur dancers, French-speaking, Basque-speaking, Spanish-speaking inhabitants, etc. To enable this encounter, the CCN offers two programmes of activities for school outings: “discovering” and “practising”, and these two programmes can be combined to form a cultural pathway.

Specialised teaching in Art-Dance at the Lycée Malraux in Biarritz

Since 2005, the CCN de Biarritz has been helping to develop the choreographic culture of around fifty high school students a year enrolled in the Art-Dance speciality course. With several hours of teaching a week, we will continue to enrich this teaching with :

• putting students in touch with professional contributors: dancers and choreographers, representing a range of aesthetics ;
• workshops led and coordinated by a choreographic artist from the CCN ;
• use of the studios at the Gare du Midi ;
• Reduced rates to attend performances at the Festival le Temps d’Aimer ;
• free access to our workshops and master classes ;
• a public demonstration of the work done by the students with a choreographer in real performance conditions.

Carole Philipp has been in charge of speciality dance teaching since September 2019. She accompanies the students and coordinates the work of the artists involved in this educational programme. This Art-Dance teaching is part of an ecosystem with, in particular, the Conservatoire Maurice Ravel Pays Basque and the Centre de Formation en Danse de l’Ecole de Ballet – Studios de Biarritz.

Regular training for dancers

Launched in 2021 by the Conservatoire Maurice Ravel Pays Basque, the CCN Malandain Ballet Biarritz and the Institut Danse Santé, Regular Dancer Training offers weekly training in the Conservatoire’s studios in Biarritz :

• dancers from local companies who want to train with other professionals;
• intermittent dancers looking for work,
• young dancers at the end of their pre-professional cycle who are looking for a contract;
• local dance teachers who want to continue training and improving their skills, but also want to be open to other teaching methods.

Weekly classes
Ballet class: Tuesdays from 10.15am to 11.45am
A contemporary dance class: Thursdays from 10.15am to 11.45am

Choreographic workshops
Held throughout the season on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11.45am to 1.00pm, these workshops offer an opportunity to discover other aesthetics, and to explore an approach, a creative process or an artist’s own universe.

Prevention workshops offered by the Institut Danse Santé
These sessions take the form of health advice, specific muscular and cardio-respiratory strengthening. This is an innovation in that the dancer, accompanied by a specialised physiotherapist, will be able to make progress on this technical, physical and lifestyle triptych.

Register via the online form : https://bit.ly/entrainementdanseur
Information : entrainementdanseur@malandainballet.com

Every year, the Académie welcomes over 350 students during the first week of August: pre-professionals from the schools of the Opéra National de Paris and La Scala de Milan, from various countries (Russia, Japan, Spain, Belgium, Italy, etc.), dance enthusiasts of all levels (from preparatory to pre-professional), who take ballet classes, barres à terre, workshops and workshops on the repertory of various choreographers: Thierry Malandain, Angelin Preljocaj, Nacho Duato, and others. ..

A host of teachers teach classical dance, representing all the main trends: the French school, the Russian schools, the Cuban school, etc., with guest lecturers from renowned establishments such as the Opéra National de Paris, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris and La Scala in Milan. It enjoys a good reputation in France and Europe, having seen young dancers who have gone on to have successful careers pass through its ranks: Marie-Agnès Gillot, Dorothée Gibert, Aurélie Dupont, Jérémie Bélingard, Emilie Cosette, Benjamin Pech, Ander Zabela-Gomezâ and Paul Marque (1st prize 2016 Varna competition), as well as dancers from our Ballet… So the Academy makes it possible to spot young talent and get a glimpse of the current level in Europe.

It is organised in part by a team of volunteers, with Hélène Gillet as artistic director. Carole Philipp, a former dancer with our company, has been hired by the Biarritz CCN to provide overall coordination.