© Laurent Philippe / Philharmonie de Paris
Dear Shaded Viewers,
There is something bittersweet about a final performance. The house knows it. The dancers know it. And today, at 4 o’clock in the Grande Salle Pierre Boulez, the Philharmonie de Paris will draw the curtain on Concerto Danzante — a double bill that pairs two distinct female choreographic voices in conversation with music, history, and the intoxicating mythology of stardom. For those who have not yet seen it, this afternoon’s showing is the last chance.
Garbo, choreographed by Josépha Madoki, opens the program. It is a piece that celebrates the golden age of Hollywood and the aura of mysterious stars — Greta Garbo herself lending her name and her sphinx-like mystique to the work. Directed musically by violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte with the ensemble Les Arts Florissants, and performed by the dancers of the CCN-Ballet de Lorraine, it conjures a world somewhere between a deliriously off-kilter Cannes red carpet and a fantastical Met Gala. The conceit is bold: baroque music in dialogue with the language of celebrity, glamour weaponized as choreographic grammar. The piece arrives with the weight of a commission — Concerto Danzante was commissioned by the Philharmonie de Paris from Maud Le Pladec, director of the CCN-Ballet de Lorraine, and the ambition of the project is visible in every element of its production.
Oscillating between contemporary dance and waacking, the performance is vibrant and highly musical, tracing a journey through the history of the concerto with iconic works by Vivaldi and Bach. Madoki’s movement vocabulary is precise and theatrical, her dancers moving with the knowing self-awareness of people who understand they are being watched — which is, of course, the entire point. Garbo the woman lived to be unseen; Garbo the ballet lives to be nothing but seen.
If Garbo is a meditation on the performance of identity, then the costumes by Arturo Obegero are not merely clothing — they are the argument itself. The costumes for Garbo are signed Arturo Obegero AO, and they are, without question, one of the most compelling reasons to be in that hall this afternoon.
Obegero is a designer whose sensibility was practically engineered for a piece like this. Born in Tapia de Casariego, a fishing village in northern Spain, he grew up surrounded by nature in a place he himself describes as “captivating, poetic and aggressively beautiful” — epithets that apply just as well to his aesthetic. Stimulated by the world of performance, the surrealist and neo-noir movements, he creates a romantic, seductive and effortlessly chic wardrobe for men and women. Every collection he has built carries that tension between the melancholy of his northern Spanish roots and the theatrical extravagance of his Paris-based atelier — and nowhere does that tension resolve more beautifully than in a work about stars who burn brightly by refusing to be ordinary.
For Garbo, Obegero brings to the stage what he has long perfected in his fashion work: the costume as character architecture. Dance gave him the early awareness that costumes are intrinsically connected to building a character who goes on stage — a formative understanding that makes this collaboration feel less like an assignment than a homecoming. His pieces for the Ballet de Lorraine dancers carry that signature duality: glamour with an undertow of darkness, drama tempered by precision tailoring. The silhouettes are unmistakably his — high-waisted, sculptural, unafraid — and they move through space not as costumes supporting choreography, but as co-authors of it.
Obegero describes his collections as “minimal drama” or “brutally romantic and seductively melancholic” — a balance between “masculine” and “feminine” where he finds the most beauty. In the context of Garbo, a work explicitly about the mystique of a woman who refused categorization, the choice of Obegero feels almost inevitable. His costumes do not dress the dancers so much as they allow them to inhabit a mythology.
Known intimately as Turo, Arturo Obegero is the Founder and Creative Director of the house that bears his name, operating from Paris with roots firmly planted in Asturias. A Central Saint Martins graduate, he launched his eponymous brand during the pandemic, a tough time to enter the industry — but one he navigated with remarkable self-possession. In the years since, the label has grown from a Paris underground sensation into an internationally recognized atelier. His collections drip with romance, sensuality, and drama — pearls, silks, lace, and feathers — while craftsmanship, tailoring, and storytelling remain central to his aesthetic.
The world took notice quickly. He created the sequined jumpsuit for Harry Styles’ “As It Was” music video, helping cement his footprint in the fashion industry, and went on to dress Beyoncé for the Renaissance World Tour, Lady Gaga, and Adele. Yet for all that celebrity glitter, Turo has remained philosophically grounded. He is pivoting toward a more bespoke, made-to-order approach, with a stated belief: “I don’t believe in having stock or over-producing.” It is a position that aligns seamlessly with the world of ballet costume creation — one-of-a-kind objects, built for a specific body, a specific moment, a specific story.
His involvement in Concerto Danzante marks an important juncture: a designer whose fashion DNA is the stage, returning to the stage in its most elemental form.
The second piece on the program, Ad Vitam Aeternam by Maud Le Pladec, also directed by Théotime Langlois de Swarte with costumes by Jeanne Friot and lighting by Éric Soyer, offers a counterpoint — different in tone, equally committed in craft. Together, the two works make for an evening that is rich, contentious, and alive.
Garbo is not a flawless work. But it is a daring one — and in this, its final showing, there is something almost poetic about a ballet named for a woman who wanted to be left alone being witnessed by an audience gathered specifically not to let it go. The costumes will shimmer, the baroque strings will soar, and for a few hours in the 19th arrondissement, Hollywood’s golden ghosts will dance again.
Later,
Diane
