What to Know About the Real Life Dancers in ‘Étoile’

WHen Constance Devernay left the Scottish National Ballet in 2023 after playing for fifteen years, including seven as the highest rank of the main dancer of the company, she did not leave the world of dance behind. Devernay jumped StarA series of eight episodes taking place in the world of Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino ballet companies, the creators behind Gilmore Girls And The wonderful Mme Maisel.

In the show, which was presented on Prime Video on April 24, Devernay plays a dancer and also played as double for Cheyenne (Lou de Laâge), an acclaimed fictime ballerina from Paris who goes to New York when his ballet company and a rival exchange their stars to generate advertising in the midst of ticket sales and the disengagement of the public. She recalled that the dancers and the actors worked in close collaboration with the choreographer Marguerite Derricks to make sure that everyone told the same story, “whether through words or by dance.”

The creators of the show said that precision was important in terms of portraying the dance and that you can feel that in the series: the dancers make a choreography everywhere, and we also see them stretching in the corridors and at the helm and hurrying in the elevators between rehearsals, giving everything to life on the small screen.

Devernay says that the dancers took daily lessons, adding that they came from all places and businesses and were able to exchange experiences. “It's different [from] A company, but in a way, it was not because we created, as dancers, a ballet company, “she told Time.

The size of a space in the wider cultural zeitgeist has long been a work in progress for the ballet, partly due to systemic problems In the art form which prevents accessibility and due to traditional representations which are based on stereotypes, flattening the fact that the ballet is a work to be taken seriously as well as an art. In the Star pilot,, Viewers see snapshots of some of these problems that take place for laughter: there are references to the ballet in “trouble” due to the disengagement of the public, which the dancers continued to “eat and eat”, right -wing donors trying to influence programming and jokes on unions. (Meanwhile, in the real world, the dancers of unionized companies getting Increase in wages, guidelines related to safety and well-being, and other workplace protections that allow them to do their job.)

HAS Star center Are two executive directors, one in New York and one in Paris, and what takes place while they exchange their stars to stimulate enthusiasm for the ballet. Their increased and fictitious ballet world is anchored by the real dancers who appear in choreography and in the background. Many dancers noted that it was one of the first projects they knew who seemed to take their profession seriously, in particular by ensuring that professional ballet dancers were part of the distribution. Having real people who work in the industry in the show, says Devernay, is “beautiful”, because “this is what makes it special and what makes it real and true”.

Derricks, who managed the choreography of the show to do 20 dancers in each From the series “Paris and New York Companies, a process that started typically: an open call. In New York, they saw around 1,000 dancers, she said. Then Derricks chose to receive videos of dancers in interested companies. To ensure that the dancers looked like two cohesive companies, Derricks watched them in daily class. “When I go to the ballet – and I went a lot to Paris, I went a lot to New York – the dancers there are now extraordinary,” she said. “This is what we wanted to show.”

Derricks also brought Tiler Peck, principal dancer of the New York City Ballet, on the project. Derricks was one of Peck's childhood dance teachers, and about three years ago, Peck did a “face exchange” to see if the technology would work so that the face of non-dancer is on the body of a dancer. Finally, Sherman-Palladino wrote to him a character, a main dancer from New York Society whose “personality is very different from me,” says Peck.

One of the differences between dance for cinema and dance for the scene, says Peck, is that when the dancers do a performance, they do one at a time, rather than doing. Dancing the variation of Swan Lake black swans, which says that Peck is the most difficult thing in which she does Starwas difficult. “I remember that I was shooting that – I have the impression that it was like 7:30 am, and normally I would not happen until it was at eight in the evening,” explains Peck.

Peck recalled that Dan Palladino asking for what ballerina she raised the most. She appointed Maya Pisetskaya, Main ballet ballet for the Bolhoï balletto whom the character Cheyenne prays as part of his pre-performance ritual. Peck was delighted to see the reference: “To see it being part of it, I could just say that they really enjoyed our contribution and really wanted to try to do something good.”

Peck thinks that the show could make the ballet more accessible: “I really hope it is a starting point for many people who do not know the ballet world so that it is excited about it.”

Brooklyn Mack, an international main guest artist, who danced in one of the companies in the series, says he appreciated the way the creators wanted the dance to be as realistic as possible in Star. “We train so much, so much, so much time to be able to do what we do,” he said, adding that authenticity can be impossible to reproduce. “A simple solution is to use real dancers, and therefore I am happy that they are really committed to this.”

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There are differences in the dance for the film compared to a scene – in particular, the expectation between the catch, which makes the maintenance of the muscles warm. “We literally use all parts of our body, our fingers, our toes and everything must be worthy,” he says. Even the problems of continuity that seem to be growing can bring the process back to square one. “If you are tired and have made these jumps like 50 times, you don't want to start again,” he said, laughing.

A particularly long filming day, for a scene that may have been cut later (several dancers mentioned having only seen the pilot at the time of the interviews), was one of Mack's favorite experiences: “We were on stage and had the lights, and there were all these different and cool cameras, some who were swinging, then the guy on the current platform after you, trying to follow.”

Taïs Vinolo, who plays Mishi, the “Rising Star” Originally from Paris and Dance in New York, which is sent back to Paris as part of the program's intrigue, notes that the shooting of the choreography does not only depend on the performance of the dancer; It depends on the camera. “It's like choreography with the whole crew on the set,” she says by e-mail. Vinolo was dancing with the National Ballet of Canada when she injured herself, explaining that her days were mainly limited to rest and physiotherapy. So when a casting director asked if she would be interested in auditioning, she thought “why not?” In addition, Vinolo says: “I love challenges.”

John Lam, who did his farewell performance after twenty years with the Boston Ballet the day before his start of shooting, echoed how much it takes place in a “little ribbon” of an episode. Artist oriented towards detail himself, Lam liked to see how the accent put on everything, from lighting to sound through the placement took place.

Lam said that his goal entering the project was great, due to his lived experience as an artist, and he could be a “impactful person” for emerging generations. “” I think that the amplification of Vietnamese American male dancers is something that I am not really heard. “

He says that these moments are missing between filming, when the dancers are waiting together, which allows them to develop “these incredible and beautiful relationships where you can meet everyone wherever they are in their careers,” he said. Outside screen, Lam also helped another distribution member to prepare. Because they were both based in Massachusetts, Lam led Lamy Zhang, who portrays a Ballet student, Susu. Serving as a teacher as such gave him an overview of how to make sure that when they arrived to define: “We really stand in the real foundation of the classic ballet.”

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Make sure that the foundation of the ballet was represented was important for all artists, in particular given the way in which other representations of their profession have been disadvantaged. “This is definitely one thing we like to do, but it's also a job,” said Unity Phelan, main dancer at New York City Ballet, who plays Julie, a dancer from the New York Company of the series.

“In most of the other things I have seen, honestly since Central sceneI have always been like, no, not realistic, ”explains Phelan. But many parts, in particular the dynamics of the dancers of the classroom entry with together, chatting at the helm, their running dogs, felt on the point, explains Phelan.