Jean-Guillaume
Bart

Benois de la Danse nominee

Jean-Guillaume Bart entered the School of Paris Opera Ballet in 1983. Graduated in 1988, he integrated the Paris Opéra Ballet company. Promoted coryphée in 1989, Sujet in 1991, then Premier Danseur in 1996; he was considered as a danseur noble and was given the principal parts of the classical repertoire.

In 2000, he was appointed Danseur Etoile after his performance of Prince Désiré in Noureev's Sleeping Beauty. In 2000, he got the Prix Benois de la Danse for his interpretation of Georges Balanchine's Apollon Musagète.

His repertoire included most of the principal ballets of the repertoire in Rudolf Noureev's productions: Swan Lake, Raymonda, La Bayadère, Nutcraker, Don Quixote, and Cinderella. He also interpreted ballets by George Balanchine (he performed in Jewels for the DVD recording in 2005), Jerome Robbins, John Neumeier, Maurice Béjart, Pierre Lacotte, Serge Lifar…

He took part in the creations of William Forsythe's Pas./Parts (2000), Kader Belarbi's Wuthering Heights (2002) and Patrice Bart's La Petite Danseuse de Degas (2003). He also explored more contemporary universe with Jiri Kylian's Stepping Stones and Bella Figura.

He took part to many of Paris Opera Ballet tours abroad (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Beijing, Barcelona, Madrid, Vienna…) and he was invited to dance in many companies and festivals (Mariinsky Theatre of Petersburg, Maggio Danza of Firenze, Spoleto, Moscow, Lisboa, Bratislava…)

In 2005, he was appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. He was also invited for master classes by Maggio Danza of Firenze (2002) and by La Scala di Milano (2005). He retired from the stage in October 2007, and was appointed teacher of Paris Opera Ballet in April 2008. In 2008, he was invited as a guest teacher by Tokyo Ballet, Mikhailovsky Theatre of Saint-Petersburg and Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires.

Since 1997Jean-Guillaume Bart has choreographed many pieces, in which he shows his willpower to preserve and cultivate the classical vocabulary. The success of his first choreography Alla Fuga (F. Mendelssohn- 1997) led him to compose specific pieces for soloists of POB, like Dupont, Pujol, Osta, Cozette, Abbagnato, Romoli, Bélingard, Moreau… : Tzigane, Drigo Pas de deux, Anaïs, A la manière de…, Isoline, … Claude Bessy gave him the opportunity to create Péchés de Jeunesse (Rossini- 2000) for Paris Opera Ballet School, which was awarded by the prix Charles Oulmont. Afterwards he produced Suite Caractéristique for the English National Ballet School (Sibélius- 2002) and Tchaïkovski Rhapsodie for the National Ballet School of Marseille (2003).

For POB Young Dancers programs, he created short pieces as Le Diable à Quatre (Adam- 2001), Javotte (Saint-Saëns - 2003), and Bergamasques (Fauré- 2006). For the CNSDP (Paris National Conservatory of Music and Dance), he created Quaternaire for young pre-professional dancers (Rachmaninov- 2004). He staged the dancing parts for Robert Carsen production of Richard Strauss's Capriccio (Palais Garnier, june 2004, revived in september 2007).

In April 2007, he staged his first big production of the famous ballet, Le Corsaire, for the Federal Theatre of Ekaterinburg, in Russia. In December 2010, he created the dances for the Vienna New Year's Concert 2011(produced by ORF), with the dancers and the students of the Vienna Staatsoper. In October 2011, he staged the full-length ballet La Source on the stage of Palais Garnier, adapted from the 1866 original version, using the original score of Minkus and Delibes, with costumes by Christian Lacroix.