Named star in April, the dancer announced on Wednesday that he was leaving the ballet of the Parisian company. Invited to France Inter, he looks back on this departure, motivated by a desire for artistic emancipation.
He created the surprise this Wednesday by slamming the door of the Paris Opera. Barely seven months after his appointment to the supreme title of star dancer, François Alu, who is also a sworn in the program Danse avec les stars, announced that he was leaving the famous ballet of the Parisian institution.
This news is all the more surprising as the dancer leaves without having played the slightest role after having reached the supreme title, a first for the Paris Opera, whose number of male stars is reduced to five for 154 dancers.
Invited in the morning of France Inter this Thursday, the dancer returned to the reasons for this departure, motivated above all by a desire to regain complete professional freedom.
“It turned out that as I went along I realized that I wanted more and more to emancipate myself. […] It seemed obvious,” explains François Alu.
And to add: “I want to undertake my artistic life more fully, I want to be able to produce projects, to be able to play again in the cinema, in the theater.”
“Alu-cinant”
Virtuoso, darling of the audience of the Ballet de l’Opéra who nicknamed him “alu-cinant”, François Alu, had joined the company in 2010 and, in four years, has experienced a meteoric rise, rising to the rank of “first dancer”, preceding the star title.
If this departure coincides with the arrival of José Martinez at the head of the Paris Opera, François Alu ensures that his decision was in no way motivated by this appointment.
“I love José Martinez. I think he will bring a breath of fresh air to the Paris Opera. He is someone who has a lot of energy. He has lots of ideas, he is up to date. listening, in the dialogue …”, specifies the dancer at the microphone of France Inter.
François Alu also gained fame outside the Opera by joining the jury bench for the program Danse avec les stars. But his fans had been indignant for many years not to see him access the supreme title and to be poorly distributed. On Wednesday, some spoke of a feeling of “waste”.
However, the star dancer does not close the door to possible future collaborations with the Paris Opera. In the meantime, he will find his audience during his only-on-stage, Completely thrown, which will pass in particular by the Olympia in Paris, on February 5, 2023.