Isabelle Guérin

[bingham]

What is I Guerin ,one of the loveliest former POB principal, up to these days?Is she teaching?coaching?I understand that she is now living in the United States.

[cygneblanc]

She's living in the USA with her husband and their little girl. Together they're restaging some Robbin's works.

[glebb]

She is one of my favorites.

[bingham]

Is her husband also a present/former dancer?

[popularlibrary]

Is her husband also a present/former dancer?

She's married to Jean-Pierre Frolich, a former dancer and current ballet master at NYCB. He is also much involved with staging Jerome Robbins' works. They were married, I believe, in 2001.

[carbro]

Guerin, a favorite of mine, too, was one of the most interesting dancers featured in David Michalek's Slow Dancing, shown at last summer's Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors festival. For that project, Michalek filmed several dozens of dancers doing a very short sequence, then slowed the film down to something like 2 percent of its original speed. The figures were projected on screens hung on the face of the New York State Theater.

Here's what she looked like there. --> click!

She's married to Jean-Pierre Frolich, a former dancer and current ballet master at NYCB.

This I did not know! Last I heard about J-P's marital status was that he was married to "some dancer." Some dancer indeed!

Editing to add: Slow Dancing has its own website. Only one pic of Guerin -- not a projection -- but worth a look.

Edited April 26, 2008 by carbro

[bart]

Guerin's segment with Violette Verdy is one of the most interesting in the dvd Violette and Mr. B. Verdy is coaching Guerin for a solo in "Dances at a Gathering." She is the dancer who appears alone towards the end, described by Violette as the oldest in the group, someone who probably doesn't dance much anymore, someone who is trying to remember the steps of something she has not danced in a long while. Part of the interest is that both Verdy and Guerin worked with Robbins himself on this piece, so the segment is more of a conversation than several of the others on the dvd.

[Figurante]

Definitely one of my top ten.

[whetherwax]

Her beauty and delicacy on my DVD of POB La bayadere is enchanting - as well, her wry sense of humour is shown in the Dancers Dream look at this ballet. Wish there were more DVDs .She's certainly tops for me.

[Marc Haegeman]

There is an old Dance View interview with Isabelle Guérin online from late 2000 when she was still dancing with the POB.

[bart]

Thank you, Marc, for linking to that interview. I was moved by her tribute to Nureyev and intrigued by the list of choreographers she says she preferred at that stage of her career: the "theatrical" classics, (Giselle, R&J, Manon, l'Alresiene, Notre Dame de Paris) and also Robbins, Forsythe, Tharp, Preljocaj. And I loved her emphasis on the unified training of the Paris "ecole," with its emphasis on purity and "no cheating."

It would be wonderful to have the chance to watch her working with dancers on Robbins. Her temperament seems so different -- cooler, more deliberate -- from Verdy, though each is intelligent and quite thoughtful about their art.

[Marc Haegeman]

Thank you, Marc, for linking to that interview. I was moved by her tribute to Nureyev and intrigued by the list of choreographers she says she preferred at that stage of her career: the "theatrical" classics, (Giselle, R&J, Manon, l'Alresiene, Notre Dame de Paris) and also Robbins, Forsythe, Tharp, Preljocaj. And I loved her emphasis on the unified training of the Paris "ecole," with its emphasis on purity and "no cheating."

It would be wonderful to have the chance to watch her working with dancers on Robbins. Her temperament seems so different -- cooler, more deliberate -- from Verdy, though each is intelligent and quite thoughtful about their art.

You're welcome, Bart. Actually, Guérin's preferences, tastes and emphases were generally shared by most of her generation at the Paris Opera. You might want to check out interviews with Platel, Maurin, Legris, Hilaire etc and they all more or less fit the same artistic profile (not that there's anything wrong with that.)

[Paul Parish]

Wow, Carbro, that is SOME photo!

Guerin, a favorite of mine, too, was one of the most interesting dancers featured in David Michalek's Slow Dancing, shown at last summer's Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors festival. For that project, Michalek filmed several dozens of dancers doing a very short sequence, then slowed the film down to something like 2 percent of its original speed. The figures were projected on screens hung on the face of the New York State Theater.

Here's what she looked like there. --> click!

She's married to Jean-Pierre Frolich, a former dancer and current ballet master at NYCB.

This I did not know! Last I heard about J-P's marital status was that he was married to "some dancer." Some dancer indeed!

Editing to add: Slow Dancing has its own website. Only one pic of Guerin -- not a projection -- but worth a look.