Dance reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels illuminates London with artistic movement and creative dialogue

Van Cleef & Arpels, the storied Maison of high jewelry, has long had an association with the world of dance. From Louise Arpels’ regular visits to watch the dancers of the Paris Opera during the 1920s to the distinctive ballet clips and pendants he made during the 1940s featuring ballerinas made from glistening gemstones capturing the graceful and refined movements of dancers, Arpels translated his passion for the art of movement into timeless high jewelry creations.

The Maison’s creations inspired legendary choreographer and co-founder of New York City Ballet George Balanchine’s dazzling masterpiece Jewels, created in 1967 after he had a chance encounter at Van Cleef & Arpels on New York’s Fifth Avenue where after admiring the diamonds, rubies and emeralds he saw decided to create a ballet inspired by the gemstones, considered today the first full-length abstract ballet.

“Dancing is music made visible,” Balanchine once said. Van Cleef & Arpels certainly agrees as it brings to the stage again dance choreographies old and new at four of London’s leading dance institutions for its second edition of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels in the British capital. These are Sadler’s Wells Theatre, The Royal Ballet and Opera, Tate Modern and, for the first time, the Southbank Centre.

Since 2020 the Maison has built on its longstanding ties with the world of dance with the launch of Dance Reflections, an iterant festival, that inaugurated its first edition in London in 2022, and has since staged editions in Kyoto, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and New York.

The Maison’s continuous collaboration with the world of dance through the staging of Dance Reflections has fostered new conversations between the art of movement, luxury and contemporary culture.

Dance, as Catherine Renier, CEO and President of the Maison, said during the festival’s opening gala dinner, offers “an opportunity to explore new aspects of our heritage.”

“For me, the festival and its continuous program of sponsorship [for dance] is a way to celebrate something,” said Serge Laurent, Van Cleef & Arpels’ dance and cultural program manager, previously head of live performance programming at the Centre Pompidou. “For this edition, I thought about how to make [the genre of dance] consistently relevant. How can we explain dance to the public just like deciding how is the best way to present a work of contemporary art?”

After three and a half years, explains Laurent, Dance Reflections has 60 different partners in 16 different countries. The initiative is revolutionizing the world of dance.

Both contemporary and traditions forms of dance make up the program of this year’s festival. These include Serenade (1935), Prodigal Son (1929) and Symphony in C (1947) by George Balanchine performed by the Royal Ballet and Opera; François Gremaud’s revisit of the classic ballet Giselle (1841) danced also by the Royal Ballet and Opera; In the Fall (2023) a work by French choreographer Noé Soulier performed by Trisha Brown Dance Company and Working Title (1985) one of Brown’s iconic works performed by Trish Brown Dance Company; Merce Cunningham Forever presenting some of the late choreographer’s most renowned works by the Lyon Opera Ballet; and “Age of Content” by the collective (LA)HORDE in collaboration with dancers of Ballet national de Marseille fusing the worlds of contemporary art, technology and design in a performance drawing influences from video games, action films, AI and musicals prompting the audience to ponder the relationship between their digital and everyday lives.

Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels’ is not just limited to the dance festival itself, but also to providing support in the creation of new choreographies and archiving iconic works from the past.

Jamie Scott, Programing Director of Trisha Brown Dance Company where she danced from 2012 to 2017, notes how the Maison through Dance Reflections has served as a vital means to preserve the legacy of iconic choreographic works while also creating new works and educational programs around the realm of dance whether in schools or professional companies. Often, she notes, it is a struggle to find funding to support the transmission and revival of older works which Dance Reflections has provided.

The festival, emphasizes Laurent, hopes to do more so in the Arab world soon, particularly in the Gulf where it has already supported several performances at NYU Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Center.

“Dance is pure visual art,” said Laurent. “When I discovered dance, I found it was like an extension of the medium [of contemporary art]. If you look closely, you will see that the body is probably the most beautiful medium you can use to create.”