Emma Portner, All My Solos Were Prayers
Monday 26 May 2025 from 7pm to 7:45pm
Tuesday 27 May 2025 from 7pm to 7:45pm
8 € - 10 €
Lafayette Anticipations is honored to host a unique encounter with choreographer Emma Portner : over the course of two evenings, Portner will draw the audience into her current solo-work, accompanied by pianist Guillaume Ferran.
Poet Anne Carson once stated : « If prose is a house, poetry is a man on fire running quite fast through it. » Emma Portner does to dance what poetry does to prose : she enters into its very fabric and sets it ablaze with a fervent commitment to movement. Indeed, as one of the most striking voices in contemporary dance, Portner crafts worlds out of her own singular sensibility, shifting away from classical conventions. Driven by « the actual inventiveness of the physical form itself », Portner, with great rigor and openness, deftly composes narratives that translate fluctuating inner lives, while transforming the ephemerality of dance into enduring possibilities.
These two intimate evenings at Lafayette Anticipations afford the opportunity to discover the choreographer’s practice and process, marked by collaboration and interconnectivity.
Curator of the performance at Lafayette Anticipations: Madeleine Planeix-Crocker
Production Manager: Matthieu Maytraud
The actor, dancer and director-choreographer has been recognized for her unique and “almost-paranormal” ability. Emma Portner's dance training was influenced by summer courses at the National Ballet of Canada and in 2012, Emma moved to New York City to study at The Ailey School. Soon thereafter, she choreographed the musical BAT OUT OF HELL, making her the youngest woman in history to choreograph a musical on London’s West End. Before the age of 20, she’d garnered millions of international views through dance on film and worked with some of the music industry’s biggest names including Maggie Rogers, Blood Orange, FKA Twigs, and Sylvan Esso.
Her most recent work includes collaborations with Apple, Netflix, Vogue, Adidas, The Norwegian National Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, Sony Studios, and indie music stars. Emma’s work has been featured by the Guggenheim Museum, Jacob's Pillow, New York City Center and Théâtre Champs-Élysées, to name a few. She has been hailed as “beguiling” by the NY Times and was listed as one of Paper Magazine’s “100 people to watch in 2019".
Most recently, Emma’s work Bathtub Ballet premiered to critical acclaim at the Royal Swedish Opera and her ballet islands shared a tour with quintessential choreographers Crystal Pite, Jiří Kylián and Ohad Naharin with the National Ballet of Canada. Emma’s work for Göteborg Danskompani Forever, Maybe premiered to critical acclaim in Spring 2024. Emma portrayed Gozer the Gozerian in Ghostbusters: AFTERLIFE and stars in A24’s festival darling I SAW THE TV GLOW (2024) directed by Jane Schoenbrun.
‘I know that you can do well with little. I'm not at all into equipment overkill. Song and emotion come first’.
This taste for simplicity comes from his favourite instrument, the piano, which he has been playing since the age of four at the Conservatoire, winning several prizes in classical, jazz and contemporary music.
‘I feel like I can say anything with the piano. It's become an extension of my brain, and it's an incredibly versatile instrument.
With whom he has recorded three solo albums in 2017, 2019 and, more recently, ‘Transclasse’, released on 25 April 2025, his major influences include Brahms, Debussy, Grieg and, more recently, Keith Jarrett. His aim is to use the classical theory he learnt at conservatoire to compose pieces that resonate with the contemporary.
Guillaume's compositions naturally found their way into the soundtracks of series such as Calls (Timothée Hochet), Escort Boys (Ruben Alves) and the films Marie-Line et son juge (Jean-Pierre Améris) and Brûle le sang (Akaki Popkhadze). In 2024, he was awarded a Pegasus for creating the best soundtrack for the video game Jusant (Don't Nod).
When he composes for film, Guillaume Ferran likes his music to tell a story that cannot be seen on screen. For him, music has to be able to combine opposites. And that's how he sums up his general approach to his work.