In the week of Sylvie Guillem’s final performances on the Sadler’s Wells stage, the theatre gave her the title of Associate Artist Emeritus, coming into effect in January 2016. Guillem, an iconic dancer of the twenty-first century, has been an Associate Artist at Sadler’s Wells since 2006. She announced her retirement from the stage in November 2014, and her final dance production – Life in Progress – has toured nationally and internationally so far throughout 2015.
Guillem has had an extraordinary career encompassing both classical ballet and contemporary dance, beginning with the Paris Opera Ballet School, and in 1981 she joined the company’s corps de ballet. She was promoted to the rank of “Etoile” by Rudolf Nureyev at the age of 19. 2015 now marks a poignant moment in Sadler’s Wells’ recent history in housing Guillem’s work. Guillem’s first commissioned work for the theatre, PUSH, was its first in-house production. The title of Associate Artist Emeritus is therefore a celebration of the wonderful contribution she has made to the world of dance through her incredible artistry.
Life in Progress, Guillem’s final tour, features both existing and new works by choreographers who have influenced Guillem’s contemporary career. The new works include a solo by choreographer and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Akram Khan, titled technê. The piece encompasses the dancer’s body, and how it carries the memory of all the lives it has described. Khan described the body as giving itself away in the moment of performance, so that as soon as each image is created, it is shed, and exists only in memory, so art is the memory of movement.
Life in Progress opened in Modena, Italy, on 31 March. It tours worldwide until its final performances in Tokyo in December 2015. The tour includes UK performances at Sadler’s Wells, London Coliseum, Edinburgh International Festival and Birmingham Hippodrome.