ES Born in New Caledonia, what made you start dancing and did you begin with classical ballet or with another style of dance?
SKL I started dancing at the age of 11 in a small town in the centre of New Caledonia called Bourail. During the day I went to school and Wednesday afternoons and weekends I rounded cattle on horseback and in the evenings I took modern dance classes with my mum Sylvia Louët, who was my first dance teacher.
ES How was it that you came to study dance at Béjart’s school, Rudra?
SKL After four years of training at the National Conservatory of Dance of Avignon under Nicole Calise-Pretacchi, I felt ready to start training at another school or somewhere else.
One evening I came across a Béjart work on TV: “Ballet For Life” to the music of Queen and Mozart. I was really amazed by the dancers and I wanted to dance with them in this ballet! I found an audition notice in a dance magazine for Béjart’s school Rudra and I went to audition.
ES What are your memories of Béjart’s school? How did this school differ to other dance schools?
SKL The first tour that we did was to Moscow where we danced at the Kremlin in a hommage to Gianni Versace. I was 18 years old and discovering the world! We danced La Taverne and Bolero. It was an amazing time and Naomi Campbell had a dressing room next to mine…
The teachers were also fantastic and the Rudra students came from all over the place. There were a lot of different cultures and mentalities-we felt a little like privileged students.
Rudra is a school where, very young, we had to take responsibility for ourselves and be autonomous. Sometimes it was really not easy to do-the schedule of classes (from 8:30am-9pm) was very draining.
The summer tour was a very important moment in my one year at Rudra. M Béjart had created “Un Bacio Per Nino” specifically for us.
ES And working for Maurice Béjart… what did you learn from this amazing person, creator and philosopher?
SKL The first word which comes to mind is “Spectacle” (“Show”). Maurice Béjart was a philosopher, a great man of infinite culture-I even remember him speaking seven different languages. He adored interpreting and directing for stage.
To help us in our interpretation of characters he played them himself the first time and it was fascinating to observe him in action. Of course he was uncompromising with our dance technique so that he could push us to the very limits of our capacities.
I think that Maurice also loved excess, his works were always grandiose and he presented them in grandiose environments as well.
Thanks to his vision and his concept of “Spectacle” I have been given a good base for holding the tension and interest of the spectator in my own choreography. After one of my last creations someone said, “I had a wonderful time, this work revitalised me!”
ES What are you best and worst memories of this time?
SKL The non-stop pace of the tours was at times very difficult. We travelled a lot with different programs and had to rehearse up and coming programs constantly. Fatigue took hold and at times our bodies said “Stop!” That translated as a stress fracture or a muscle tear or whatever. Injured, the company left on tour without you and all of a sudden you felt like an orphan…lol!
As we travelled a lot, we often took planes and sometimes I had little panics. With that thought, you remember, Emma, our tour to Kiev in 1999? The return at Geneva airport was very chaotic… (We were going to have to land on the belly of the aircraft and circled the airport for what seemed an eternity- we landed safely in the end surrounded by fire engines and ambulances!)
ES Why did you leave the company so young?
SKL Maurice knew how to develop in me the skills of improvisation and creation. I think that it was this quality in me that was most evident. After seven years in the “house of Béjart” I wanted to direct my own work towards finding a more personal choreographic voice. It was desire to concentrate on myself, discover new ways of dancing, bring my gestures and my body towards something that suited them more.
ES How was it starting a new dance company in New Caledonia by yourself?
SKL That was very difficult. I wanted to try to create a new quality of movement by mixing classical ballet with traditional dance of the Pacific region. For that to happen I needed to train dancers regularly and therefore pay them so it seemed necessary to create a permanent company.
The dancers came from different places with different styles of dance and after four years of very hard work they reached an international standard which allowed us to show our work in several festivals in the Pacific. Although there was financial assistance from local institutions it was always difficult to make ends meet and we had to stop the company momentarily.
ES How would you describe your choreography? Where does your inspiration come from?
SKL My first inspiration is life. An artist is not an artist by chance. He/she is someone who has a need to communicate differently, contrary to the “rules” that society obliges us to learn. To talk of one’s soul, ecology, meetings/relationships or of messages of hope is, for me, easier and more interesting if I put it on stage, amplifying the awareness of the subject with music, light and the body.
What I also enjoy is pretending to be someone else for the duration of the performance, as though I were no longer Sthan. I always feel in these moments that I am living another life.
To interpret a work is a little like “to be dreamed of in a dream”.
The dancers are naturally a source of indispensable inspiration, how they are able to translate my ideas but also to give them body, force, life – all that mixed with their own personality.
ES This year you have choreographed on Béjart Ballet Lausanne. How was it returning there as a choreographer?
SKL The minute Gil Roman asked me to choreograph on the company I replied that it would be a huge honour for me. To choreograph for the company which started my career is a beautiful thing and I am humbled by the situation and hope that it will open new doors for me.
Since Gil took the artistic direction of BBL it seems to me that the company has taken new paths while still conserving the oeuvre of Béjart. I was impressed by the level of the dancers and I found them “malleable” and very open to new choreographic propositions.
The first period of creation really went very well, the dancers and Gil seemed happy with our collaboration, so I am pleased and eager to return there!
ES And why are did you decide to choreograph a work to Death and the Maiden?
SKL Schubert’s music already speaks strongly to me. “Death and the Maiden” are to me two characters that are in opposition but at the same time inseparable and intimately united by life.
I am fascinated by the fact that every death by necessity gives birth to something new and more particularly by the analysis of a human being’s moods. Feelings, good or bad, exist in their own way and it is only our moods which animate them or bring them to life, preserve, or kill them.
What I like in this theme of “Death and the Maiden” is this duality between profound feelings and “imposed” ones, which in the end, direct our life choices, letting new behaviour or ways of being and new emotions endlessly die and be born
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