
Damien Jalet
Crew
Biography
Damien Jalet (born August 17, 1976) is a Belgo-French freelance choreographer, dancer and performer working internationally. His work is often collaborative, creating intricate bounds between dance and other artistic media such as visual art, fashion, theater and music.
Known For

Rita, an underrated lawyer working for a large law firm more interested in getting criminals out of jail than bringing them to justice, is hired by the leader of a criminal organization.
Emilia Pérez

A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the artistic director, an ambitious young dancer, and a grieving psychotherapist. Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up.
Suspiria

In a short musical film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Thom Yorke of Radiohead stars in a mind-bending visual piece. Best played loud.
Anima

Desperately seeking inspiration for the follow-up novel to his bestseller "Inexorable", Marcel Bellmer moves in his wife's old family mansion with his family.
Inexorable

Go behind the scenes of this Oscar-nominated, genre-defying film with director Jacques Audiard and stars Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez.
Making Emilia Pérez

A ballet dancer is late for an audition for a show inspired by Plato's Allegory of the Cave. She arrives with her seven-year-old son, Jay, and begs the director to give her a chance.
An Urban Allegory

DuEls is a journey through the Vigeland Museum by Belgian and French choreographer Damien Jalet and Erna Omarsdottir from Iceland, where groundbreaking contemporary dance meets Vigeland's classic sculptures.
DuEls

The documentary reveals the unique artistic collaboration between visual artist JR, former Daft Punk member Thomas Bangalter, and choreographer Damien Jalet. By combining their respective talents, they created "Chiroptera": 154 dancers from around the world perched on the scaffolding of the Palais Garnier in Paris. Together, they offer us an extraordinary performance. In the fall of 2023, the Paris Opera asked artist JR to transform the construction site on the façade of the Palais Garnier into a creative playground. By inviting Damien Jalet and Thomas Bangalter to create a performance for 154 dancers with him, he embarks on a human and artistic adventure with complex technical challenges. This documentary takes us behind the scenes of this show. How will the challenge be met?
Dans la lumière: Les coulisses de Chiroptera

A creation for 17 dancers performed on a 34 degrees oblique-built platform. In "Skid", human beings relationship to the law of gravity, to the poetry of resistance and abandonment from gravity itself, sets the dancers in motion.
Skid

In between performance, dance and cerémonies, "The Ferryman” is a choreographic exploration of rituals and animistic roots, a luxurious visualisation of a bewitchment and an exorcism of a man-deer in the borders of the world.
The Ferryman

Mist is a multidisciplinary dance film created by the Franco-Belgian choreographer Damien Jalet (1976) and filmed by Rahi Rezvani, inspired by the phenomenon of fog banks that are often associated with the Netherlands. The presence of wind and sea and the fact that a third of the Netherlands is below sea level served as some of the main sources of inspiration for the Jalet. Mist is part of a three project collaboration between Jalet and Japanese visual artist Kohei Nawa, following their critically acclaimed pieces VESSEL and PLANET [wanderer]. The work explores the ephemeral space between reality and mirage, and a physicality that recalls the dynamics of evaporating, condensing and falling water. For this creation, Jalet is also collaborating with choreographer Aimilios Arapoglou, composer Fennesz, lighting designer Urs Schonebaum, costume designer Sruli Recht and photographer and videographer Rahi Rezvani.
Mist

Wave-Breaker' is a choreography created by master of visual dancing Damien Jalet inspired by the movement of the waves, seen here as a metaphor of what passes through us, overwhelms us and eventually saves us.
Brise-Lames
The concept, developed in collaboration with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet and Antony Gormley, strongly questions our prejudices and social norms as it tackles the idea of language, identity, communication and stereotypes.
Babel 7:16

Noetic, Faun and Boléro: Three elements, three visions, three journeys through dance. Choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's show offers a profound reflection on our intimate connection with the world around us. From putting mathematics in movement to Ravel's Boléro as a dance of death, Cherkaoui transcends the boundaries of the stage to offer us a unique philosophical perception of the world.
Elements Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui with Damien Jalet and Marina Abramovic

On November 12, 2023, the façade of the Opéra Garnier was transformed by “Chiroptera,” a performance featuring 154 dancers created by the artist JR in collaboration with choreographer Damien Jalet and composer Thomas Bangalter.
Chiroptera - JR, Damien Jalet, and Thomas Bangalter

JR show on November 12, 2023 on the facade of the Palais Garnier. Chiroptera in the cave. Darkness holds the grace of the light
CHIROPTERA

Lost in a forest, a prince meets a mysterious woman and takes her home to a dark castle haunted by repressed longings. There she grows fonder of her new husband's half-brother, sparking a fatal love triangle between the three of them. In a perfect synergy of the arts, choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet, together with the legendary performance artist Marina Abramovic, stage Pelléas et Mélisande as a cosmic dream. Like Debussy through his impressionistic music, the performers and creators of this production dispense with any illustration and instead bring out the hidden emotions of the characters.