The Paris Opera named, on Saturday March 11, the Frenchman Guillaume Diop star dancer, after a performance of Giselle in Seoul, granting the supreme title for the third time since José Martinez took office in December as director of dance.
His appointment was announced on the stage of the LG Arts Center in Seoul, where the dancer, given an ovation, had just performed the role of Albrecht for the second time in the romantic ballet by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot.
Having become the young hope of the company for more than a year, Guillaume Diopborn in 2000, is one of the five black and mixed-race authors of the manifesto “From the racial question to the Opera”, written in 2020 in the wake of the movement #BlackLivesMatter.
Very rare fact, Guillaume Diop reached the title of star without going through the “first dancer” box, the previous grade, like a handful of predecessors, including Laurent Hilaire in 1985, Manuel Legris in 1986 or Mathieu Ganio in 2004. His nomination comes just over a week after those of New Zealander Hannah O’Neill and Frenchman Marc Moreau, promoted after a performance of “Ballet Impérial” by George Balanchine at the Palais Garnier in Paris.
Introduced to dance at a very young age
It was announced on the delegation of Alexander Neef, the general director of the Paris Opera, who could not be present in Seoul, on the proposal of the director of dance, the Spaniard José Martinez, appointed in 2022 to replace Aurelie Dupont. Guillaume Diop has already been given several star roles, dancing the main male roles in “La Bayadère”, “Don Quixote”, “Swan Lake” and “Romeo and Juliet”.
Introduced to dance at the age of four, before beginning his apprenticeship in 2008 at the conservatory in Paris, he will soon be performing in the French capital in Maurice Béjart’s “Song of the wandering companion”, at the Opéra Bastille between April 21 and May 28.
(With AFP)