Petter Jacobsson and Thomas Caley, the creative partnership that has been keeping up, progressing and shaping Ballet de Lorraine (Centre Chorégraphique National – CCN) into one of the best regional dance troupes in Europe since 2011, are leaving at the end of the current season. 2024 also marks 30 years for the couple’s creative partnership.
In the beginning of this year, I got to talk with Jacobsson and Caley. Before we met, I told them that I was thinking about their care and feeding of Ballet de Lorraine. That’s because, as a spectator, I have always been impressed by what I think of as the company’s “lability of individuals and invisible discipline”.
“Invisible” references the, mostly unexplored and intangible, quite real, intelligence that inspires relationships and holds people together.
I say “invisible discipline” rather than “transparent” because, while many companies seem to transparently shape themselves around an idea, the Ballet de Lorraine troupe seems to use each person’s intelligence of the other to form and shape an idea such as “Instantly forever”, the title, theme and idea of the Caley and Jacobsson’s latest creation.
Put it this way. It seems to me that while most companies respond to Blake’s Urizen – “One command, one joy, one desire/One curse, one weight, one measure” – the Lorraine troupe responds to e pluribus unum, as it says on the Almighty Dollar, “From many, one”.
As the conversation with Jacobsson and Caley went along, I realized that when it comes to understanding Ballet de Lorraine’s “individual lability and invisible discipline”, wondering about care and feeding is wrongheaded, like asking a successful basketball coach about dribbling technique.
Jacobsson and Caley, pleasant, generous and charming as they are, don’t care and feed anybody. They respect them as individuals in their circumstances, as they do between themselves. As they talked I see them practice their approach, their attitude, their state of mind: a strong emotional empathy, not a set of commands and rules, oils the gears of their interactions between themselves, with me; intellectual empathy and a focus on results, rather than a rally to a pre-fabricated idea, fuels their conversation between themselves, with me.
Near the end of our conversation, Jacobsson says, “It’s called the ‘Ballet’ de Lorraine, but we’re thinking of ‘Dance’. The troupe is a reflection of the society [that it is part of]. Grab onto the dance [that is there]”. Caley breaks in, “It’s not that we think ‘Everybody can dance’, but that everybody is proficient and professional at what they do. We want proficiency in doing above everything”…
Together, they insist, “Our idea is ‘Stay available [for the other, for dance]”.’; ‘Believe in what you are doing’”.
The two men search, express and shape rather than explain. Their approach to the Ballet de Lorraine is simply “Follow me!”. So, when, as a spectator, I see “invisible discipline” and “lability” in the Lorraine troupe, I am seeing emotional and intellectual empathy in action: individuals who are available to each other who are doing their best to express and shape a theme or an idea.
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Author: Paul Tracy DANISON
