Dance Late Hours - Calder. Rêver en équilibre

Two Late Hours will take place on Thursday 4 and Friday 5 June 2026, from 7.00 p.m. to 11.00 p.m.
More than most artists, Calder’s work resonates with the movement-based approach of Angelin Preljocaj, one of the leading figures in contemporary dance worldwide. Drawing on extracts from his work Gravity (2018), twelve dancers from Ballet Preljocaj celebrate the union of sculpture and choreographed motion with remarkable fluidity. 

The notions of weight, space, speed and mass have intuitively run through Angelin Preljocaj’s choreographic research for many years. His piece Gravity is the finest example of this, an exercise of striking beauty centred on balance and suspension. By moving it from the theatre stage into the spaces of the Fondation, in an interplay with Frank Gehry’s building, Angelin Preljocaj seeks to create a constellation of connections between dance and the sculptures of Calder.

The choreographer has selected four key moments from Gravity to present both in the galleries and outdoor spaces of the Fondation. From the entrance hall, beneath a Calder mobile, the audience is welcomed by a gesture of perfect balance set to Bach’s Musical Offering. A suspended moment. On the top floor, a circular pas de deux unwinds in dialogue with Calder’s stabiles. Within the green mirror in the Fondation’s gardens, a spirited Boléro becomes the “centre of gravity” between two monumental stabiles. As a final gesture, in tribute to Frank Gehry’s sail-like structure, Angelin Preljocaj’s dancers will move across the water at the foot of the waterfall. And so, for the duration of these Dance Nocturnes, Gravity suspends the Fondation in a waking dream.

The notions of balance and suspension, which I have extensively explored in Gravity. When the Fondation Louis Vuitton invited me to create a carte blanche as part of the exhibition, I immediately felt a correspondence with that piece. I thought of drawing on sequences from Gravity to see how they might come into dialogue with Calder, and what this encounter – in a very different context from a theatre space – might reveal about my choreography. It echoes Duchamp’s premise of placing readymades in a museum: the viewer is compelled to see them differently, and that shift becomes a way of renewing choreographic writing. 

The first scene, beneath the large mobile in the Hall, is a dance of extreme balance and suspension, set to Bach’s Musical Offering. This is not an arbitrary choice, but a way of welcoming the audience and inviting them to open their minds as they move towards Calder. In Gallery 10, around Southern Cross, we present the duo of electrons, a dance that places the body in a circular motion repeated ad infinitum, like an assembly of molecules, leading us back to the question of mobiles. On the green reflecting surface, I have chosen to present Boléro, a circular, repetitive work that builds in intensity and carries within its DNA that infinite mental space whose power renews itself with each new wave. It will be performed between two stabiles, becoming the centre of gravity. The sculptures will appear to revolve around it, caught within the vortex of Boléro. In the final movement, we will present the Shostakovich duo on the basin at the foot of the waterfall. There is no Calder work in this setting, yet the rippling surface of the water brings us back to the idea of the mobile. 

Yes. We see this particularly well in the work of Merce Cunningham. In Beach Birds, for example, the dancers, with arms outstretched, seem to float above the air. Dance is an art of movement, and the extracts I have selected for this exhibition carry forward the idea of playing with air – as though space were, for dancers, a place to inhabit in a tactile sense, just as mobiles are caught within the turbulence of the air.  

I am struck by how central the notion of conservation is in the visual arts, yet it is true that in Calder’s work, there is – in his materials – something that recalls art brut, with pieces made from glue, cardboard and reclaimed materials. As for dance, I strongly reject the idea that it is ephemeral. Dance is not a fragile art; it is an amnesiac art that struggles to inscribe itself into the future because it resists notation. 

Interview conducted by Ariane Bavelier in May 2026