Preview

Ma Bayadère

Legacy Reframed

The classical reinterpretations Jean-Christophe Maillot creates for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo are never mere revivals. They are carefully constructed theatrical systems—precise, lucid, and visually striking. With Ma Bayadère, he takes on one of ballet’s most burdened inheritances, shaped by exoticism, projection, and unresolved questions of representation. This review traces how Maillot negotiates that legacy: which narrative and aesthetic elements he preserves, which he reframes, and where he decisively breaks with tradition. The result is a production that dazzles the eye while asking whether contemporary classicism can be both beautiful and critically aware—without collapsing into either nostalgia or moral didacticism.