Luca Branca’s Prix de Lausanne Diary: Part II
Ana Luisa Negrão in Luca Branca’s Les Ombres du Temps, Prix de Lausanne Finals 2023. Photo © Gregory Batardon
One year ago, young dancer and choreographer Luca Branca (18) won the Young Creation Award for young choreographers at the Prix de Lausanne, arguably the most important competition for young dancers. This year, Luca went back to Lausanne to coach his piece as part of the contemporary repertoire of this year’s competition. TWoA asked Luca to keep a voice diary recording his experiences as the competition unfolds, sharing his excitement about being back at Lausanne to coach his work to young competitors from all over the world. Here is part II of the diary!
Friday, 3 February 2023, Hotel Tulipin, 23:19
It was a long day. I am really tired today because I watched the full selection which was really long. But it was really nice because I saw my candidates performing the piece in costume. It was amazing. It just brought a lot of feelings, emotions, memories to my mind. A lot of them were dancing it, so even the public realized that I had a lot of candidates dancing my variation. A lot of important directors and people from the jury came up to me to congratulate me on the piece. They really liked it and thought it was really nice for the Prix de Lausanne to have this variation this year. So, a lot of nice things. I also had my director by my side today, he was also really proud. I was really happy. It was just nice to see the finished product and I can’t wait to see the five finalists who will dance my variation. I can’t wait for tomorrow. I’m really excited and really happy about everything. Just a bit tired. I’m about to go to sleep.
Alexander Mockrish in Luca Branca’s Les Ombres du Temps, Prix de Lausanne Finals 2023. Photo © Gregory Batardon
Sunday, 5 February 2023, 9:33, Geneva Airport
Yesterday, I finished really late, so when I got back to the hotel, I just took a shower and went to sleep because I am already travelling this morning. After the finals, we had a cocktail reception and a really fancy dinner in one of the most beautiful hotels in Lausanne. It was really nice, there were also the princess of Monte Carlo and Jean-Christophe Maillot (jury president; choreographer and director, Ballets de Monte Carlo), Kathryn Bradney (director of the Prix de Lausanne) and many other important people. It was such a nice evening.
I really enjoyed the finals. From the beginning until the end, I felt really happy because I had five finalists (out of twenty-two) dancing my piece. That was a lot. They all did amazing, they danced it really well. Of course, I had some favourites, not just because maybe they were better, but because of the way they worked with me. But they all worked really well, and I am really proud of all of them. I am really happy to have experienced this. I am also really happy because the two contemporary prizes this year were both given to dancers (Alexander Mockrish from Sweden and Ana Luisa Negrão from Brazil) who were dancing my contemporary variation: they were liked and judged to get that prize through my contemporary variation.
I’m proud. I got many compliments from the jury again, from other directors of companies and my director is also really happy, and this makes me happy, of course, to know that he is happy and proud. My close friends, they were all here supporting me. It was such a nice time. Seeing familiar faces and new faces was really an inspiration to me.
This experience just made me understand even more how much I love coaching and teaching, and how I want to go on with my choreography projects and hopefully, in the future, work again with Prix de Lausanne and many other projects for choreography.
The thing that I will keep forever from this experience is how people from all around the world were feeling close to my choreography, and how many people got touched by it and liked it. I am just really happy that people saw it. Now I’m here at Geneva airport, taking a flight to Paris, then two and a half hours to wait and to take a plane to Nuremberg and to finally get home and to start work on Monday. I’m really excited about everything that happened and can’t wait to see what’s coming next.
You might also enjoy:
Luca Branca’s Prix de Lausanne Diary, Part I
Interview: Princess Grace Academy’s Luca Branca and Morgan Johnson