Stéphane Bullion
Stéphane Bullion (born in 1980) is a French Etoile dancer of the Paris Opera Ballet.
Stéphane Bullion started dance at age eleven and entered the Paris Opera Ballet school at age fourteen (1994). He joined the corps de ballet in 1997. During his school years, he danced twice at the School annual show (1996 and 1997), in Serge Lifar's "Le Chevalier et la demoiselle" and George Balanchine's Western Symphony.
He became Coryphée in 2001, Sujet in 2002 and Premier danseur in 2007.
He has been appointed Etoile, the highest grade of the company, in 2010 after his performance of Solor in Rudolf Nureyev’s version of La Bayadère.
Career
He danced the Faun in Vaslav Nijinsky's L'après-midi d'un faune based on Claude Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune while still a Coryphée in 2001 and has been chosen by Yury Grigorovich in 2004 for the title role of Ivan, in Ivan The Terrible.
Cast at first in villain's roles in the Rudolf Nureyev's versions of classics where they are major roles (Abderam in Raymonda, Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet or Rothbart in Swan Lake), his promotion to Premier danseur in 2007 gave him access to romantic roles like Armand in John Neumeier’s The Lady of the Camellias, Jean de Brienne in Nureyev’s Raymonda or Albrecht in Bart’s version of Corrali-Perrot’s staging of Giselle. While still favouring these main roles in Nureyev's repertoire after he reached the status of Etoile, he dances Siegfried in Swan Lake or Lucien d'Hervilly in Pierre Lacotte’s Paquita as well.
Tall and powerful dancer, he has, since the beginning of his career, often been chosen by choreographers to create or introduce their ballets in Paris Opera Ballet’s repertoire.
World creations: AndréAuria (Edouard Lock - 2002), MC14/22, Ceci est mon corps (2004), Ananda, Siddharta (2009) (Angelin Preljocaj), Répliques (2009) and Sept mètres et de mi au-dessus des montagnes (2017) (Nicolas Paul), Eros, Psyché, (Alexei Ratmansky - 2011), Vaudémont (the prince) in The Nutcracker (Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Edouard Lock and Arthur Pita) in Iolanta-The Nutcracker directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov, 2016, Play (Alexander Ekman - 2017)
Creations on Paris stage: Morel (Proust or the heart's intermissions - Roland Petit- 2007), L’homme (The House of Bernarda - Mats Ek - 2008), l’Ame - (Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler-John Neumeier - 2009), Mikado (Kaguyahime - Jiří Kylián - 2010), Die Grosse Fuge (Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker- 2015), Die Verklärte Nacht (Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker- 2015), Polyphonia (Christopher Wheeldon- 2015), Titania's cavalier A Midsummer Night's Dream - George Balanchine
Stéphane Bullion is a favourite of Roland Petit (Proust or the heart's intermissions, Le Loup, L’Arlésienne, Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, Carmen, Notre-Dame de Paris ), Angelin Preljocaj (MC14/22, Le Songe de Médée, Siddharta, Le Parc), Nicolas Le Riche (Caligula), John Neumeier (The Lady of the Camellias, The Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler), etc.
Acknowledged as a fine partner, he danced with Paris Opera Ballet guests from Russian companies in Rudolf Nureyev's ballets: With Svetlana Zakharova from Bolshoi Ballet in La Bayadère as Solor and in Swan Lake pas de de trois as Rothbart. He also partnered Maria Alexandrova from Bolshoi Ballet in Raymonda as Abderam and Ulyana Lopatkina from Mariinsky Ballet as Rothbart in Swan Lake. With Lyon Opera Ballet, he danced Don José in Roland Petit Carmen with Polina Semionova (American Ballet Theatre and Staatsballett Berlin)
International invitations: In 2007, French choreographer Jean-Guillaume Bart asked him to dance Conrad, the main role in le Corsaire for the creation of his reconstitution of the ballet in Yekaterinburg (Russia).
Additionally, as international guest in various ballet companies, he has been invited by the choreographer Yury Grigorovich to dance Ivan, in Ivan the terrible at the Mariinsky Theatre with the Kremlin ballet in 2005.
Other invitations includes Jerome Robbins In the Night in 2013 at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma where he danced the main role in Le Parc by Angelin Preljocaj in 2016 and Roland Petit Le Jeune Homme et la Mort in 2017. Stéphane Bullion is also touring with the Roman company with Le Jeune Homme et la Mort.
In Austria, he danced Prince Siegfried in Rudolf Nureyev Swan Lake at the Vienna State Opera in 2015 with Royal Ballet principal dancer Marianela Núñez.
French photographer Anne Deniau has elaborated a project around Stéphane Bullion dancing on a beach 24 hours in a row which resulted in a bilingual book and a film in 2012, 24 hours in a man's life.
Repertoire
Main roles (Paris Opera Ballet) :
- George Balanchine : Agon, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, Concerto Barocco, Jewels, The Four Temperaments, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Symphony in C, La Valse, Stravinsky Violin Concerto
- Patrice Bart : La Petite danseuse de Degas
- Pina Bausch : Orpheus und Eurydike, Rites of Spring
- Maurice Béjart : L'Oiseau de feu, Le Mandarin merveilleux, Le Boléro
- Kader Belarbi : Wuthering Heights
- Rafael Bonachela : AB [Intra]
- Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Edouard Lock and Arthur Pita : The Nutcracker in Iolanta-The Nutcracker directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov
- Carolyn Carlson : Signes
- Dimitri Chamblas and Boris Charmatz : À bras-le-corps
- John Cranko : Onegin (Cranko)
- Birgit Cullberg : Miss Julie
- Nacho Duato : White Darkness
- Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot : Giselle
- Mats Ek : Apartment, The House of Bernarda
- Alexander Ekman : Play
- Yury Grigorovich : Ivan the Terrible
- Marco Goecke : Dogs Sleep
- Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker : Die Grosse Fuge, Verklärte Nacht
- Jiří Kylián : Doux Mensonges, Kaguyahime, Symphony of psalms
- Pierre Lacotte : Paquita
- Sol León and Paul Lightfoot : Sleight of hand
- Nicolas Le Riche : Caligula
- Serge Lifar : Les Mirages; Suite en blanc, Phèdre
- Édouard Lock : AndréAuria
- Michel Fokine : Petrouchka
- Kenneth MacMillan : L'histoire de Manon
- José Martinez : Children of Paradise
- Vaslav Nijinsky : L'après-midi d'un faune
- John Neumeier : The Lady of the Camellias; The Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler
- Rudolf Nureyev : La Bayadère ; Cinderella ; Don Quixote ; Swan Lake; The Sleeping Beauty ; Raymonda ; Romeo and Juliet
- Nicolas Paul : Répliques, Sept mètres et demi au-dessus des montagnes
- Roland Petit : L'Arlésienne ; Proust or the heart's intermissions ; Le Loup ; Le Jeune Homme et la Mort ; Carmen ; Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame)
- Angelin Preljocaj : Le Parc, Le Songe de Médée; MC 14/22 "ceci est mon corps"; Siddharta
- Alexei Ratmansky : Psyché
- Jerome Robbins : Afternoon of a faun; Glass Pieces; In the Night, Fancy Free
- Christopher Wheeldon : Polyphonia
Filmography
Documentary
- Serge Lifar Musagète - Dominique Delouche, 2005
- Serge Peretti : Le Dernier Italien - Dominique Delouche (DVD Etoiles pour l'exemple n°3)
- La Danse (documentary directed by Frederick Wiseman), 2009
- Agnès Letestu : L'Apogée d'une étoile - Marlène Ionesco, 2013 (Delange Productions)
Movie
- Aurore - Nils Tavernier, 2006
- 24 hours in a man's life - Anne Deniau, 2012
Paris Opera Ballet
- MC14/22 "Ceci est mon corps" - Angelin Preljocaj (Opus Arte-2004)
- Proust ou les intermittences du cœur - Roland Petit (Bel Air Classiques-2007)
- La Dame aux camélias - John Neumeier (Opus Arte-2008)
- Hommage à Jerome Robbins- Jerome Robbins (Bel Air Classiques-2008)
- Siddharta -Angelin Preljocaj (Arthaus Muzik-2010)
- Caligula - Nicolas Le Riche (Idéale Audience-2011)
- Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler - John Neumeier (CLC Productions-2013)
- L'histoire de Manon - Kenneth MacMillan (2015)
- Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker à l'Opéra de Paris - Die Grosse Fuge & Verklärte Nacht (Idéale Audience-2015)
- Iolanta - The Nutcracker directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov, choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Edouard Lock and Arthur Pita (Bel Air Media-2016)
- A Midsummer Night's Dream - George Balanchine (Telmondis-2017)
- Play - Alexander Ekman (Bel Air Media, 2017)
- Thierrée/Shechter/Pérez/Pite - The Male Dancer d'Iván Pérez (Bel Air Media 2018)
References
Books
- Elina Brotherus, Etudes d'après modèles, danseurs. Paris, éditions Textuel, Opéra de Paris, 2007, 64 p.
- Anne Deniau, 24 hours in a man's life. Anyway Editions, 2011, 96 p.
Articles