Pierre Lacotte
Pierre Lacotte is Danseur and Chorégraphe French born with Chatou (Yvelines) the April 4th 1932.
Training
It enters in 1942 to the School of Dance of the Opéra of Paris, is engaged in the corps de ballet in 1946 with the rank of “second squares” and passes “first squares” the same year; it jumps a class and becomes “small prone” in 1947, “great subject” in 1951, then First dancer in 1953.It has as main teachers Lubov Egorova, old preceded ballerina Théâtre Mariinsky of Saint-Pétersbourg, Carlotta Zambelli, Gustave Ricaux and Serge Lifar.
Already impassioned by choreography, it creates Exode (Tchaïkovski) in 1951 with its partner Josette Clavier. Then Renunciation (Bach), and Moonlight In boat (Debussy), Songs and To overcome (Bach).
In 1954 it obtains a great success with the Night is a witch , on a music especially created for the occasion by Sidney Bechet; this work is recorded by the Belgian television where it obtains the price of the best emission of the year, decreed in this country; she is then danced with Liege, then taken again on various French scenes, in particular with the Théâtre of the Fields-Élysées in 1955 and will be finally filmed by the French television in 1959.
Years of research
In 1954, Pierre Lacotte resigns of the Opéra of Paris.In 1956 it founds the “Ballets of the Eiffel Tower” which occur in all France and in Africa, it creates Solstice (Wayenberg), Universal Tempo (Albinoni), Gosse of Paris (Aznavour), and choreography Such Sweet Thunder on a music of Duke Ellington for the Festival of Berlin. The majority of its ballets will be filmed by televisions Frenchwoman and English.
Victim of one accident to the leg in 1958, Pierre Lacotte begins his first research on the romantic ballets.
In 1959, it dissolves the Ballets of the Tower Eiffel and carries out then a career of independent dancer, invited in several countries, while continuing to create.
In 1963, it is named director of the new “Ballet of musical Youths of France”. It creates there a good dozen ballets, of which Hamlet and Penthésilée , which will be also filmed not French television, like the voice in homage to Edith Piaf.
The majority of these ballets are created by Ghislaine Thesmar which he marries in 1968.
After the dissolution of the Ballet of musical Youths of France and for one four years period, it tavaille for the Opera of Strasbourg, the Fenice of Venice and many festivals. During these years, it prepares the reconstitution of the Sylphid , thanks to the documents collected at the time of its research. This ballet, the first of the great romantic ballets, created in 1832 (music of Schneitzhoeffer) by the choreographer Filippo Taglioni for his/her daughter Marie, had been lost after the tragic death of Emma Livry, raises the latter.
In 1971, Pierre Lacotte is named professor of proverb to the Opera of Paris.
the Sylphid , danced by Ghislaine Thesmar, Michael Denard, principal dancer of the Opera, and Laurence Nerval, is filmed for the television French and diffused on the second channel on January 1st, 1972, for the inauguration of the color.
The administrators of the Opera of Paris obtain a private projection of film, decide to go up it on the scene of this theater, where it will be created again by the two principal interpreters of film, taken again by Noëlla Pontois and Cyril Atanassoff, then by Christiane Vlassi and Attilio Labis, this last quickly yielding the role to Jean-Pierre Franchetti.
The maturity of an expert
Pierre Lacotte devotes himself from now on primarily to the reconstitution of the great ballets of the repertory fallen in the lapse of memory.For the Opera of Paris, it goes up:
- in 1973, the original version of Coppélia (1870), danced by Noëlla Pontois and Cyril Atanassoff;
- in 1976, the “step of six” of Vivandière (1844), according to the Sténochorégraphie of Arthur Saint-Leon in which this step, of a rare virtuosity, was given as example. It is created in the Room Favart (Op3era Comique) by Patrice Bart with, in alternation Florence Clerc and Claude de Vulpian, then by Jacques Namont;
- in 1976, the “step of two” of the ballet the Butterfly (1860), which he dances itself with Dominique Khalfouni;
Creations for alien companies:
- in October 1995, it goes up the Lake of the fairies of Filippo Taglioni with the Staatsoper of Berlin with Oliver Mats and Steffi Scherzer.
It also returns forces of it in 2003 with the Girl of the Pharaon which puts in the high-speed motorboat the large ballerina Svetlana Zakharova and continues this series of recoveries with Ondine (ballet fallen to the oubliettes since the era Margot Fonteyn). Always very active, Pierre Lacotte recreates in this moment the Girl of the Danube with the Ballet of Tokyo.