First dancer at the Paris Opera and actress of a phenomenally successful film –
En Corps,
by Cédric Klapisch, which has exceeded one million spectators since its release in March – Marion Barbeau, 31, has gone from the stage from the Palais Garnier to the red carpet of cinema premieres.
A dizzying change, which reshuffles the cards of a career that seemed all mapped out.
Wise classic ballerina who has to reinvent herself after an accident in the film, we find her, that day, in a photo studio and under a completely different aspect for
Madame Figaro
, who has chosen her to embody haute couture.
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Marion Barbeau, the Cover Story
In images, in pictures
See the slideshow13 photos
See the slideshow13 photos
Short hair, half peroxide, grunge version, she twirls around in a Chanel tulle and organza dress with cowboy boots, she levitates, happy to evolve in the Neoprene dress by Balenciaga, the elaborate bodysuit by Zuhair Murad or the flower dress by Schiaparelli.
“Participating in this Special haute couture issue for
Madame Figaro
is a celebration.
Haute couture is a titanic work, precise, meticulous, rigorous, which is close to the dance world to which I belong.
It's the same requirement and the same emotion.
It is also a new world for this revelation to dive into another light, that of cinema.
In video,
In body
, the trailer
Marion Barbeau has always danced.
On weekends, his father, a dentist, pushed the music to the max.
“It was The Cramps or The Bee Gees.
We were dancing, my sister and I, to these syncopated rhythms.
Her love for classical dance came later.
She couldn't figure out why.
“What I know is that at 5 years old I started my first lessons in a small school in Fontenay-sous-Bois, near Paris, with a wonderful teacher who taught me discipline without tyrannizing me.
I remember his dog and his cat.
The atmosphere was family.
I loved."
She continued at the Conservatoire des Abbesses, then entered the Nanterre Opera school.
Five years of internship.
“It was austere.
But I had a friend, Silvia Saint-Martin, who is also at the Opera today.
We challenged each other during class, we supported each other, and we managed, despite everything, to have a good time.
We were passionate.
If you are not, this vocation is difficult to bear.
Marion Barbeau's life has been guided by work.
“I had some benchmarks, Nureyev, of course, for who he is and for the richness of the repertoire that the Opera owes him.
And the American Gelsey Kirkland, my favorite ballerina, with all her delicacy, her strength, her subtlety and her lightness in her pointe descent and the work of the lower leg.
of course, for what he is and for the richness of the repertoire that the Opera owes him.
And the American Gelsey Kirkland, my favorite ballerina, with all her delicacy, her strength, her subtlety and her lightness in her pointe descent and the work of the lower leg.
of course, for what he is and for the richness of the repertoire that the Opera owes him.
And the American Gelsey Kirkland, my favorite ballerina, with all her delicacy, her strength, her subtlety and her lightness in her pointe descent and the work of the lower leg.
The director Cédric Klapisch, who often comes to see the Opera ballet dance, had noticed this talented young woman.
When he told her about his film project, she accepted without hesitation.
Then she liked filming and the cinema experience.
In body
allowed him to pass from
La Bayadère
to Hofesh Shechter, a famous Israeli choreographer, and to cross a stylistic boundary (“Of course, contemporary dance has its place at the Opera, but that is not what it was originally intended for”) and… to become the revelation of the year by capturing the light as a dancer but also as an actress.
How disturbing is it to pass from one world to another?
“Am I at a crossroads?
I do not know.
Doors are opening and I don't want them to close.
I like meeting choreographers, creating, seeing other worlds…”
Full screen
Marion is wearing a caged mini-dress in woven faded denim, and jewelry, Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture by Olivier Rousteing.
Bojana Tatarska.
The dancer has just chosen a freelance adventure, outside the walls, for a year.
During this parenthesis, she will carry out two projects.
On the one hand, creating a creation with Laura Bachman, former principal dancer at the Opera who followed Benjamin Millepied to Los Angeles;
on the other hand, sign his first choreography.
In the meantime, she is shooting another film, that of Baptiste Debraux, who gave her the role of a young woman who fights to keep a factory open during a strike.
The future ?
“Cornelian choices…”, she eludes.
We guess that she is torn between the visceral attachment to her house which could one day soon name her star dancer, and the call of the sea, of adventure, of choreographic creation and cinema.
She says nothing, probably because she doesn't know, but smiles: "What is certain is that Cédric Klapisch's film caused a hell of a storm to blow over my life."