Van Cleef & Arpels Choreographs the Future of Contemporary Dance

Among those who closely follow dance, Pina Bausch’s “The Rite of Spring” (1975) is legendary. To bring it up within earshot of anyone who knows Merce Cunningham from Martha Graham is to invite wide eyes and near-breathless urgings to drop everything and go if you ever have the chance to see it live. So last fall, when the Park Avenue Armory joined forces with the Van Cleef & Arpels Dance Reflections festival to stage the production’s New York premiere, the 1,500-seat Wade Thompson Drill Hall sold out almost immediately. Some of the best seats in the house went to the impeccably dressed leaders of the city’s most prestigious cultural institutions, like New York City Ballet. Those in the know, it seemed, did in fact “drop everything” for the German luminary’s ferocious exploration of how pain and fear eat away at humanity.

That production of “The Rite of Spring” is an exemplary case study for how Dance Reflections is shaping the medium’s future. Our readers don’t need reminding that the art world, for all its glamour, is also perennially resource-strapped. But the power of the 118-year-old fine jewelry house transcends borders, institutions, and, yes, balance sheets. Bringing “The Rite of Spring” to New York entailed collaboration between Germany’s Pina Bausch Foundation, Senegal’s École des Sables, Saddler’s Wells in the U.K., and Dance Reflections curator ​​Serge Laurent, who oversaw the novel repertory pairing of Bausch’s composition with “common ground[s],” from École des Sables founder Germaine Acogny and dancer Malou Airaudo.

Even those who don’t closely follow the dance world and its luminaries could hardly escape the marketing blitz that seemed to blanket New York City to promote the festival’s 11 performances. Now, Van Cleef & Arpels is in the midst of preparing for an encore. This fall, the fair will return to New York, including the Park Avenue Armory, where it will collaboratively stage “Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful,” a world premiere from Kyle Abraham. Its patronage will also extend to performances and programming at the French cultural center L’Alliance New York, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Joyce Dance Theater, and beyond.

For all of its moving parts, Laurent, who this fall will oversee the festival’s Kyoto debut and has ambitions to bring Dance Reflections to China, Brazil, South Korea, and beyond, sees his role in simple terms. “We didn’t realize that we were inventing a model,” he told the New York Times. “If you find money to produce, it’s hard to present and tour. So we sponsor creation, and I also tell theaters I can help present the work. It’s not complicated.”