La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet

Frederick Wiseman reveals the on- and offstage dramas of one of the world’s great dance companies.

This transfixing portrait takes an immersive look at the renowned Paris Opera Ballet’s practice studios, as dancers rehearse tirelessly for the upcoming season.

Pirouettes and jetées fill the screen in thrillingly sustained takes as we become privileged spectators of company performances of Nureyev’s The Nutcracker and Pina Bausch’s Orpheus and Eurydice, among others. As Wiseman invites us to experience the inner workings of dance, he also reveals the mechanisms necessary to maintain this grand institution, which require inspired creativity of another kind.

Curator’s Note

If our arts institutions are the building blocks of our society, can we truly understand society if we’re only ever given access to observe what’s intended to be seen – performance and exhibition?

In 2022, we explored this question with a four-month film season celebrating Frederick Wiseman’s career, which has been dedicated to examining society’s institutions. His observational documentaries dismantle organisations down to the cog to build a comprehensive understanding of how they work and what they mean to us.

Fourteen years after documenting the inner workings of New York City’s American Ballet Theatre, Wiseman returned to the world of dance with this detailed examination of the prestigious Paris Opera Ballet.

– Reece Goodwin, Curator (Film & TV)