In 1926, with the composer’s permission, Russian choreographer Sonia Korty brought Maurice Ravel's La Valse to the stage for the very first time. She did so with the ballet company of the Antwerp Opera, which she had headed since its founding three years earlier. Exactly one hundred years after that world premiere, Ravel's monumental score returns to Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in a brand-new choreography.

This time, it is French-Algerian choreographer Nacera Belaza who is bringing Ravel's dynamic composition to life. Together with American dancer Austin Meitein, she is working on a radical reinterpretation of the work: not as a grand, decadent ball full of ostentatious dazzle, but as a tranquil ritual for a single dancer. For Belaza, La Valse is a search for what eludes the audible and the visible. ‘How can a single dancer avoid being crushed by Ravel's orchestral power, but instead offer a full-fledged counterbalance to it? Not through technical virtuosity, but through a presence that is as audible as the music—contemplative, energetic, existential.’

‘My parents' greatest wish was to give their children the opportunity to study. That's why I went to university instead of dance school. I chose literature and film.’ Meanwhile, self-taught as a performer and choreographer, Nacera Belaza steadily built her career. With the help of the CROUS—a French organisation that supports students in cultural activities and other areas—she was able to realise her first small-scale performances. ‘An important turning point came when the director of the Scène nationale de Reims (now Le Manège) invited me to create a piece for his theatre.’

The shared breath

‘At that moment, I understood that all those small performances I had created had been preliminary studies,’ says Belaza. ‘A choreographic creation requires almost microscopic precision.’ This realisation also meant a break with her former way of working. ‘My focus shifted from the purely physical movement of the dancer to the internal: the breath, the consciousness.’ She created a duet for herself and her sister Dalila: Périr pour de bon (1995). It marked a period of transition: Belaza left Reims for Paris, where she created another duet, Point de fuite (1997). ‘I presented it at a small festival for emerging companies. As it happened, Michel Sala, director of the Centre National de la Danse, was in the audience. He invited me to perform the work at his arts centre—a decisive moment in my development.’

Le Cri (2008) © Laurent Philippe | Le Cercle (2019) © Zed | Point de fuite (1997)

Nacera Belaza continued to search for a deeper artistic principle. ‘Until then, I had the idea that a performance had to consist of different parts, that I had to think out the dance, so to speak. But I felt that wasn’t enough,’ she recalls. ‘I didn’t want to dance in order to subject my body to my intellect. Is the body governed by thought, or can it actually provide access to greater freedom? That was a question I was intuitively exploring.’ In the 2000s, Belaza continued her research. A pivotal moment came in 2006, when she saw a group of traditional dancers and singers perform at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. ‘Their relationship with the audience was of a completely different nature—not representation, but community, a shared presence.’ That revelation formed the starting point for Le Cri (2008), the work that brought her international recognition and opened a new chapter in her artistic journey.

Repetition unlocks the mind

‘Through that traditional Arabic singing and dancing, I understood that repetition is essential: it unlocks the mind, deepens the connection with the audience, and opens the way to inner imagination.’ For Belaza, repetitive, circular movements around the own axis became an essential choreographic tool. ‘Repetitive movement inevitably involves a form of circularity,’ she says. ‘What fascinates me about this is that repetition is not reiteration, but a deepening—a descent into yourself. The circle is the only way to approach the infinite within the limits of a finite body and a finite space. I began to understand that the body can not only perform movements, but can also be the recipient of forces and movements that transcend the purely physical. Everything I can imagine must be able to manifest itself in the body. This research for Le Cri was a turning point. ‘I stopped “choreographing” in the classical sense.’

A new realisation in line with this artistic research arose when Nacera Belaza took a close look at her own body: ‘I asked myself: how can I turn my body, in which I myself live, into a neutral instrument, like a white sheet of paper in other art forms, a place of all possibilities?’ By observing and analysing the body, she discovered how divided it actually is. ‘Head and body, arms and legs – each part has its own function. The search for unity became a way for me to retune the body, to connect the parts into a coherent whole.’ The idea of the ‘white sheet’ grew into a broader artistic and existential vision. ‘Over time, I noticed that this unity could expand: to the surrounding space, the sound, the light, and the audience. This created a way for me to, in a sense, amplify unity.’

In that silence, she heard drums from neighbouring villages in the distance—sounds that, she says, ‘evoked depth and distance, a soundscape full of layers.’ Those early experiences still form the core of her work. ‘I realise that I am still searching for those first impressions, those sensory memories,’ says Belaza. ‘In each of my pieces, I try to evoke something of the invisible and the unspoken, something that runs through us all.’

‘I experience music as a landscape—not as a rhythm to which I must submit.'

— Nacera Belaza

La Valse as ritual

For her latest production, La Valse, at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Nacera Belaza is working for the first time with symphonic music, whereas she usually creates the soundscapes for her performances herself. ‘I experience music as a medium, a landscape, part of an imagination—not as a rhythm to which I must submit.’ Belaza explains that dance and music only truly come together when the dancer enters into dialogue with the music. ‘As long as the body submits to the music, it loses its voice. That’s why I see music as a dark landscape in which the dancer moves, not as a clear cadence that he must follow.’

The art that Belaza pursues is intended as a communal ritual between performer and spectator. ‘We live in a way that is essentially inhuman,’ she says. ‘The spiritual part of our existence is suppressed in favour of reason and material things. But people continue to long for more. This is evident from the fact that they still go to theatres, still searching for a way to connect with something greater.’ In her work, the audience has always been a crucial partner. Belaza explains that ‘if you are looking for a form of community, of real connection, you must want to know not only yourself, but also the other. The audience is not a passive spectator. It is always about an exchange of energy.’ For Belaza, this relationship with the audience is an extension of her artistic quest: an ongoing dialogue in which performer, music, light, and space come together to create something that goes beyond mere perception. ‘It is a work in which every element, including the spectator, can join the movement in a subtle ritual.’