The Pigeon Dance

Show & Culture

In 1976, Josiane Bal, then director of the Ballet National Folklorique du Luxembourg, created La Danse du Pigeon, an operatic ballet centered on a pigeon’s fantasies of being crushed by a goat. A Luxembourgish cult figure, she brought forth one of the company’s most remarkable and mythical works. Its legacy remains inseparable from the tragic circumstances of her death during its premiere, after which the ballet survived only in fragments and disputed memories. Now, on the 50th anniversary of La Danse du Pigeon and in memory of Josiane Bal’s death, Simone Mousset, the company’s new Executive Director, returns to the stage to revive this jewel of Luxembourgish folklore, with a newly composed score by French composer Nosfell.