What is a dance company?
People often confuse the school and the company. They are two different things, and the distinction is worth making.
A dance company is a group of dancers gathered around a choreographer to create and perform shows. Unlike a school, which teaches, a company produces works and takes them on stage.
School and company: two jobs
A school trains. A company creates. In the school, you learn, progress, prepare the body. In the company, you rehearse a piece to perform it in front of an audience.
The two complement each other, and many dancers move from one to the other. But the goals are not the same.
The role of the choreographer
At the heart of a company is a choreographer. They write the movement, choose a theme, lead the rehearsals, decide what goes on stage.
Without them, there is no piece, only dancers. A company's signature is first of all theirs.
How a company lives
A company rehearses, creates and performs, most often over a season. Some are vast and attached to an opera house. Others are small and rooted in their town.
The means change everything except the essential: gathering bodies around an idea and giving it to be seen.
Mozaïk Ballet', a Nantes company
Founded in 2002, Mozaïk Ballet' is the company of the school L'Atelier du Mouvement, in Nantes. It trains its own dancers rather than recruiting elsewhere, and creates original pieces each season, directed by Alexandra Gérard.
Since 2002, it has signed more than twenty creations. This is its repertoire, and no one else dances it.