Aterballetto Opens Chaillot Season with Don Juan

Swedish choreographer Johan Inger's Don Juan, produced by Fondazione Nazionale della Danza/Aterballetto, opened the 2024-2025 season at Théâtre Chaillot in Paris from October 14 to 17. The work, over a year in preparation, marks the company's return to the French theatre since 2008. The set, designed by Curt Allen Wilmer, consists of twelve totem-like blocks that reconfigure the stage, representing physical and psychological barriers. The libretto by Gregor Acuna-Pohle draws from plays by Tirso de Molina, Molière, and Bertolt Brecht. Inger explores the Don Juan myth through a psychoanalytic lens, tracing abusive behaviors to childhood trauma. The central figure of the mother suggests the protagonist's psychological disturbances stem from early abandonment. Leporello (Philippe Kratz) embodies the struggle between desire for freedom and guilt. Don Juan (Saul Daniele Ardillo) seduces, manipulates, and abandons women including Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina. The choreography features expansive, physical gestures with marked gesturality, set to strongly cadenced music by Marc Alvarez. The production includes choral scenes like a masked ball and a wedding, with intense duets between the seducer and his victims. The single-act performance uses mobile structures animated by dancers, culminating in the fall of the last block symbolizing the collapse of rules and conventions.