Anoush Abrar meets the Béjart Ballet Lausanne
Anoush Abrar gives an unexpected glimpse into the Béjart Ballet Lausanne
For several days, the company’s dancers have been captured by the lens of Lausanne-based photographer Anoush Abrar in an improvised studio set up in the heart of the BBL. The new official portrait gallery of the 44 artists is surprising and unusual. It is now released!
He could have worked in electronics as he studied the field, but fortunately for the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Anoush Abrar decided to reinvent himself as a photographer. A “child” of the ECAL – which he never left after earning a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication and a Master’s degree in Photography – he now works there as a professor emeritus.
Gil Roman asked the Tehran-born artist, whose award-winning work has been exhibited worldwide, to refresh the BBL’s dancers’ official portrait gallery. The only constraint was the following: absolute freedom. Anoush Abrar didn’t hesitate. “You need empathy to make a beautiful portrait, you need to love people,” he says. For several days, Anoush Abrar received the company’s artists in an improvised studio at the heart of the Béjart Ballet Lausanne. “I don’t want people to do what they’re used to doing. I like to test unusual things.”
The result is 44 unexpected portraits that can be discovered on bejart.ch, the company’s website, then in the Cadanse program that will be available from December 16 during the performances of Wien, Wien, nur du Allein at the Beaulieu Theater. In addition, Anoush Abrar has been given the “carte blanche” of the program, in which he decided to extend this portrait gallery with a series of gestural sketches, pictures staged like a visual choreography. “I wanted to capture the moment when a movement starts before the body suddenly accelerates. I was looking for the concentrated, vibrant energy that precedes the expressive explosion”, he explains.
Gallery of the company by Anoush Abrar
BBL in Lausanne
Beaulieu Theater, December 16–22
Wien, Wien, nur du Allein – Maurice Béjart
Ticketing via ticketcorner.ch
