After collaborations with Florence and the Machine for the song “No Light, No Light”, with filmmaker Luca Guadagnino for the horror-film “Suspiria”, and with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Paul Thomas Anderson for the Netflix short film “Anima”, Jalet’s cutting-edge work caught the eye of Madonna.
For the “Madame X” tour, the choreographer had the queen of pop sing her 1998 ballad “Frozen” behind a video screen of her eldest daughter Lourdes performing an interpretive dance.
“She’s someone who has had enormous influence on the person I’ve become. ‘Frozen’ and the pas de deux with her daughter was a way of showing her as more vulnerable, from another angle,” Jalet said.
– ‘Dissolution of gender’ –
Perception is everything for the man who was first a dancer before being an assistant to the legendary Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.
“Without technology, without make-up, without costumes, only with the distortion of bodies and the way of choosing certain angles, we manage to create an elsewhere.”
Gender boundaries are ripped apart in “Vessel”, which Madonna herself saw in dress rehearsal on March 5.
Assigning a male or female identity to the dancers’ folded bodies and bony rib cages is a near-on impossible task.
“The traditional pas de deux between men and women doesn’t interest me at all. I like this idea of dissolution where gender is more associated with a state of mind,” said Jalet.
For the artist, the journey is not only visual but also spiritual. He draws inspiration from rituals and traditions around the world.
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