Critiques / Reviews Dans la même rubrique In the same section Vers une Mise sous X de Monsieur LG ? Let’s talk Turkey ! Heymania Wayne McGregor & the Breakfast Oyster at the Palais Garnier Fanny Fiat and Diana Cuni: two new Socii Honoris Causa in the Society for the Advancement of the Ideas of Auguste Vestris The Man in the White Suit & Daphne Birnley Mad Dog, Anyone? The Canary Down Imperative - Jérémie Bélingard appointed Etoile A Midnight Modern Conversation The POB Internal Promotion Concours 2006 If it Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It One Plummy Voice, raised in Dissent Our Infant Wings Reckless the Man! More Power to Lopatkina ! Début of Emilie Cozette in Le Lac des Cygnes Les rubriques All sections : Les Nuits Blanches au Centre de Danse du Marais : les grands pédagogues Grandes leçons de la société Auguste Vestris Essais / Esssays Entrevues / Interviews Critiques / Reviews Evénements / Events Musique / Music Théâtre / Theatre Critiques de livre / Book Reviews Gallerie Photo / Photo Gallery Bibliographie / Bibliography Inscription liste de diffusion Accueil / Home		Emmanuel Thibault appointed premier danseur January 2005   |  708 visits / visites On the evening of December 23rd 2004, following the Internal Promotion Concours of the Paris Opera, M. Emmanuel Thibault was appointed premier danseur. For the last three hundred or so years, the Paris Opera Ballet has been the epicentre of classical dance. The technique, outlook and ideas of a premier danseur are thus standard-setting for the rest of the profession, and the position, one of influence world wide, not only in the ballet, but in the cultural life of nations. So what has the seven-year clash of arms over M. Emmanuel Thibault been about ? The question to be decided, was whether the classical dance will be allowed to dwindle into nothingness, its practitioners broken under the rod of sterile formalism and baroque excess ? Or whether it be a kind of Homeric poetry, that has become, over the centuries, as indispensable a vehicle for man’s thoughts as any other art form ? Whether the classical dance be a sport, or a subject of the mind, that will remain forever ? Reason has prevailed. It has prevailed, because the man has tremendous guts. Deaf to the sirens of discouragement, he has won over to the ballet thousands of people, not by doing anything outrageous or outlandish, but by doing what is right. Had he not, and were he not, the real question might never have come up before the Jury to be decided. K.L. Kanter