As the Paris Opera Ballet announces the Opéra National de Paris’ new season today, the appetite for dance is heating up in our shared cultural landscape. Newly appointed Director of Dance Benjamin Millepied is working alongside Paris Opera Director Stéphane Lissner and Musical Director Philippe Jordan, with the aim to find balance between the classical and contemporary components fuelling the institution’s many crafts. Under Millepied’s helm, Le Ballet will flirt with off-stage disciplines from photography to film to cartoons and fashion design as he moulds the ballet company into a giant, collective gesamtkunstwerk.

The Paris native has directed filmic portraits of each of the company’s 17 Étoiles. Three of his charges are profiled here: Émilie Cozette, Mathias Heymann and Marie-Agnès Gillot, the latter herself a burgeoning choreographer, who recently appeared in the latest Céline campaign alongside American author Joan Didion. "The most important quality of a director in ballet is the ability to bring his dancers' talents to their full potential," says Millepied. "It takes observation, sometimes psychology, to unleash the confidence an artist needs to be him or herself on the stage."