Van Cleef & Arpels mild up London with the Dance Reflections competition

Van Cleef & Arpels’ affiliation with the world of dance may be traced proper again to the early days, when ballet fan Louis Arpels was a daily customer to the Paris Opera through the Twenties. It was a ardour quickly translated into jewelry, with the primary ballet clips showing within the Nineteen Forties. With a particular rose-cut diamond face, jewelled ballet dancers had been wreathed in tulles of vibrant treasured stones.

In 2022, Van Cleef & Arpels nodded to the maison’s hyperlinks with choreography first established within the partnership with George Balanchine, co-founder of the New York Metropolis Ballet, within the Sixties, with the primary version of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Pageant in London. Now it returns, greater and higher than ever, with a line-up of thrilling occasions throughout Sadler’s Wells, Royal Ballet and Opera, Tate Trendy and Southbank Centre.

‘Once I joined the maison, we actually began Dance Reflections from zero,’ says Serge Laurent, Van Cleef & Arpels’ Director of Dance and Tradition Packages. ‘It was actually an journey, as a result of there was no title, no brand, no group. We determined the concept was first to create a competition in London, and we actually wished to help dance corporations and to help establishments to current the works. Now, inside three and a half years, we have now 60 completely different companions in 16 completely different international locations. It is actually an formidable mission.’

Conventional and modern cultures mix on this yr’s formidable programme, composed of performances, dance workshops and artist boards. Excitingly eclectic occasions, from François Gremaud revisit of the basic Giselle (1841), to Shu Lea Cheang and Dondon Hounwn’s staging of Hagay Dreaming on the Tate Trendy and Noé Soulier’s interpretation of dance via video, sit alongside main items from George Balanchine’s repertoire – Serenade (1935), Prodigal Son (1929) and Symphony in C (1947).