Amateur Dances the Grand Palais: A Deep Dive Into Cercles

Marie Plantin

In July 2025, choreographer Boris Charmatz and his dancers took over the Nef (nave) of the Grand Palais with 200 amateur dancers to perform Cercles. CN D Magazine attended this extraordinary event, halfway between workshop and performance, to gather impressions, images, and testimonials from the participants.

Over 1,000 applications were received. 200 participants were selected. Three three-hour rehearsal sessions across three days, followed by three public performances. Not a lot, but enough. Enough to create an extraordinary synergy, a frenzied flow of energy, and an intense cohesion within a massive group.

Under the glass roof of the Grand Palais, Boris Charmatz invited the audience to experience a hybrid form he has been exploring for some time: an “educational hive,” where professional and amateur dancers share a stage, a giant choreographic workshop that does not prioritize technical mastery but instead demands full commitment from everyone, reimagines existing choreographic material, and expands dance into non-traditional spaces—a democratic, and therefore political, dance. 

This isn't a new experiment. Movement and hospitality are at the heart of the choreographer’s approach; the former director of Tanztheater Wuppertal had previsouly brought La Ronde (2020) into this cathedral-like space before it closed for renovations. Later, Happening Tempête (2021) inaugurated the Grand Palais Éphémère, and now Cercles returns to the immensity of the Nef for its reopening, after first being performed at the Stade de Bagatelle in Avignon in 2024, and, later that year, on football fields in Wuppertal. 

“I started late in life. I mainly practice African dance and I love everything about non-professional projects. It’s demanding, it’s challenging for you and your body, and it’s taking place in a fabulous location. I feel very lucky.” Zowie Bel

A year later, Cercles has found its place in this heritage space of exceptional scale. “It’s a bit like the Church of the Republic; it’s heavy, but the place also carries us,” admits Charmatz an hour before the premiere. Leading his company TERRAIN, Charmatz enjoys inventing new stages, reaching audiences directly, bringing dance into public spaces, and drawing new gestures from them.

The group is intentionally eclectic, with great diversity of age (from 16 to 75 years old), gender, origin, socio-professional background, body type, and athletic ability. The evening begins with a warm-up. In clusters, participants follow lead performers. Charmatz directs the event from the edge of the stage, wearing a pristine white T-shirt inscribed “Good luck,” which serves as a mantra. 

“I enjoy the intense rush you get from galvanizing projects. The osmosis with 200 other dancers, a week-long creation, being in contact with very different people—it’s very human, and as intense psychologically as it is physically.” Ludivine Boizard

The audience gathers around, free to wander or settle down on mattresses on the floor. Horizontality is key; nothing is fixed. The choreography begins with a slow march converging towards the center, bursting into individual dances and then coming together in a reprise of Etude révolutionnaire (1921) by modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan. 

The circle, a recurring motif in the history of dance, spins a metaphor of unity and cyclical motion. Drawing inspiration from various traditional dances and his own repertoire, Charmatz continues his emancipatory pursuit, liberating bodies and freeing the discipline from its academic shackles. He is accompanied by regular collaborator and lighting design prodigy Yves Godin, and a soundtrack by MEUTE, the phenomenal German electro band.

“We met here. It’s going to be difficult to part ways after this project. Something has been created in this bond between us. There is genuine consideration on the part of the professional choreographers and freedom in the interpretation of the movements.” Mathilde Alexis and Sayaan Nara Lan

The experience evokes a flood of memories: Jean-Claude Gallotta’s Des Gens qui dansent (2002) and Trois Générations (2004), and Thierry Thieû Niang's Sacre du Printemps (2012), choreographed with and for elderly people. We come to realize that while Charmatz breaks with certain aesthetic conventions—dance’s long preoccupation with perfection—he nevertheless cultivates a connection with history.

Connections to archives, history, and his peers. Embraces, floorwork, frenzied runs, pockets of slowness, and this immense circle of bodies that contracts and swells like a breathing organ, a choreographic vortex. The dramaturgy alternates ensemble movements with bursts of form in electric improvisations. Duncan’s score returns in a loop like a collective epiphany. In astronomy, “revolution” denotes the orbital movement of one celestial body around another; here, the fertile circularities of this spectacular workshop make the audience satellites of a memorable, frenetic trance.

Marie Plantin is a journalist and critic specializing in the performing arts. She has written for Sceneweb, Paris Mômes, Version Femina, and L’œil, and teaches at the Institut d’études théâtrales at Sorbonne Nouvelle University. After studying cinema and French literature, she trained in acting, performance, and contemporary dance, performing in a variety of projects. She also contributed to L’Annuel du Cinéma and is a member of Plurimedia press agency, where she focuses on performing arts coverage. From 2015 to 2020, she was a cultural columnist for Pariscope.fr and wrote for the journal Théâtre(s).

Christophe Berlet is a self-taught photographer. He considers photography as a means to be open to others, a testimony, and both a personal and collective repository of memory. Photography allows Berlet to find balance between introspection and an openness to the world. His images are conceived as words put together or sounds with different densities and volumes, in order to transcribe atmospheres, interactions, implications that lie beyond what is visible, beyond appearances. As an athlete, he likes to combine his two passions, which is why he often works with dancers and athletes.

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at the Théâtre de Nîmes

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at Le Vivat, Armentières

Emmitouflé
Choreography: Boris Charmatz
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at the Parc du Vivier, la Manufacture CDCN, Mérignac 

Sylphides
Choreography:  Cecilia Bengolea et François Chaignaud 
From December 7 to 18
at Grand Palais
as a part of Festival d’Automne à Paris 2025