Blanca Li is Fashion's Favorite Choreographer
Blanca Li might the world's busiest choreographer. The Spanish-born Li, who lives in Paris but seems to spend most of her time crisscrossing the globe, is one of the dance world's most prolific forces; she's got three works currently touring the globe, including Goddesses and Demonesses, which premieres March 30 at City Center in New York. (Tickets are available here.)
But her work doesn't stop there: She's also a favorite collaborator for fashion designers (she recently choreographed campaign videos for Stella McCartney), filmmakers (a director herself, Li worked with Pedro Almodovar on I'm So Excited), and musicians (she's created pieces for Beyoncé and Daft Punk).
On the eve of Goddesses and Demonesses's American premiere, Li paid a visit to T&C to talk about her new work, a life in dance, and what makes an ideal collaborator.
You've worked in film, in television, in fashion, and in music. What keeps you coming back to traditional dance?
Dance is, for me, still important because it's what has brought me everywhere. While I've been able to use dance to see life through the eyes of other people who work in other kinds of art., it has been important to have a space that's 100% for me, to express what I want without compromise.
You've done such notable collaborations, though. How did you start finding a way in to other art forms via dance?
My company and my studio are things I need to create in total freedom, but the first time someone called me to do choreography for cinema, it was Michel Gondry who needed help with a project for Daft Punk. It was from that I realized that dance was a way to talk to people through cinema and not just on the stage. When I saw what happened with that video, I understood the strength of cinema. Then, when other people called me-Pedro Almodovar, Jean-Paul Goude-creating choreography for the camera was a whole new language for me to do what I know how to do best in a whole new way. From there I also went into fashion, with collaborators like Jean-Paul Gaultier, Azzedine Alaïa, and Stella McCartney. These people are putting their trust in me to create for them and to use dance to give life to other ideas.
And now you're back on stage with a new piece that you've choreographed and are performing in. How did that come about?
I wanted to do it because I have danced professionally since I was 12 years old. I've spent my life doing things through and for dance. My life is that one of a woman in the world of dance; it has brought me incredible adventures and beautiful things. Now, I'm at a moment when I'm not the same dancer I was. I wanted to do a show about the life of a woman, and I had the idea of doing a duet with another dancer who'd also been working her entire life but in another culture and another way. I decided to do a show called Goddesses and Demonesses to talk about women through ancient mythology, when goddesses were the center of the world. I was inspired to create a show for dance but also evoking women who are choreographers and dancers and who've given their lives to dance.
For Goddesses and Demonesses, you're collaborating with another dancer, Maria Alexandrova of the Bolshoi Ballet. How did you team up?
I talked to the director of the Paris Opera Ballet about how I needed to find the right person to dance with me, someone who's totally my opposite to show that you can live your entire life in dance but be entirely different. She told me, there is this amazing dancer, Maria Alexandrova from the Bolshoi ballet, and that she had a feeling Maria could be the person to do this show with me. So, I went to the Bolshoi and I met Maria and I found her very interesting. She's a prima ballerina, she's one of the Bolshoi's main dancers. She's all her life been devoted to classical dance in Russia. But she has something different: there's a strength that I liked very much and that I thought would be perfect to work with me. She said OK, and we started to rehearse and the whole thing came together. Then we did the premiere in Paris one year ago and since then we've been touring.
The last show you did in New York was Robot, which features humans dancing with machines, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Why do something so pared down-just two people-on the heels of something so futuristic?
I was dancing with my company for 20 years, and then for the last two shows I wasn't on the stage. I love being on stage, but can't do it in the same way. I had to find another way of expressing the way I feel today. I wanted to do something more personal and intimate, but with strength. Dance is my way of talking, of saying what I think and feel and see around me in the world, so this was important to me as a way to speak through the work.
While robots aren't part of Goddesses, you are working with big-deal fashion designers. The costumes for the piece are by Alaïa, Gaultier, McCartney and Sophie Théallet. What about them was important for this piece?
I love them very much. For example, Alaïa, when he launched his perfume a few years ago, wanted to do a party but asked me to give it life. I created choreography to present the perfume and then I did a solo in a dress I loved. That dress made me dream. Then, when I started to work on Goddesses, I realized I had to find a way to look like that. Who better to help than these great creators who do that though their fashion? I spoke to each of them and asked them to give me a dress for one of the characters, and in doing so they gave me part of the show.
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