\n<\/p>\n
The dancers streamed across the stage of a historic Paris theater, leaping and turning, the women lifted high into the air and whirled aloft, before aligning to bow on the final chords of the music. \u201cBravo! Bravo!\u201d cried the enthusiastically applauding audience.<\/p>\n
Then Amy Sherman-Palladino, sporting a white baseball cap, walked onstage with a Steadicam operator, consulted the choreographer Marguerite Derricks, and clapped her hands sharply. \u201cLet\u2019s go!\u201d she called. Moments later, the cameraman was running frantically amid the dancers as Sherman-Palladino peered at a monitor, watching the way their movement was captured from inside the groupings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was great, you guys were fabulous,\u201d she called out at the end. She turned to the audience \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d Much applause. The cameraman took a little bow.<\/p>\n
It was last May at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre du Ch\u00e2telet<\/a>, where Sherman-Palladino; her husband and creative partner, Daniel Palladino; and their team were filming \u201c\u00c9toile,\u201d<\/a> a new Amazon Prime Video series debuting on Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The show (the title means \u201cstar\u201d in French) tells the story of two major ballet companies \u2014 the Ballet National (a thinly veiled Paris Opera Ballet), and the New York-based Metropolitan Ballet Theater (a mash-up of American Ballet Theater and New York City Ballet) \u2014 collaborating on an exchange of artists in order to boost sales and drum up publicity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a dance show; it\u2019s a show about dancers,\u201d Sherman-Palladino said firmly in a recent video conversation.<\/p>\n Sherman-Palladino, the creator of \u201cGilmore Girls\u201d<\/a> and \u201cThe Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,\u201d<\/a> has long been a serious dance fan, incorporating choreographed passages into her series and, in 2012, creating \u201cBunheads\u201d (with Lamar Damon), about a showgirl-turned-ballet teacher. Despite rave reviews, that show was not renewed after its first season. Sherman-Palladino, who danced seriously while growing up, said the abbreviated experience left her and her husband, a producer of that series, wanting to get back into the dance world.<\/p>\n \u201cIt festered in our minds, and we had to do something about it,\u201d she said. She added: \u201cWe wanted to show that ballet isn\u2019t something for someone else. It\u2019s storytelling; it\u2019s athletic; it\u2019s powerful, emotional, transporting. It\u2019s a great, dynamic art form.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The directors of the ballet companies in \u201c\u00c9toile\u201d are informed by the same passionate belief. Luke Kirby (Lenny Bruce in \u201cMaisel\u201d) is Jack McMillan, the head of the Metropolitan Ballet, while Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Genevi\u00e8ve Lavigne, the interim director of the National Ballet.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is something endlessly fascinating about people who choose to do this despite the impossibility of making anything happen in this world,\u201d Kirby said in a video call.<\/p>\n We soon learn that Jack and Genevi\u00e8ve have some history. But romance isn\u2019t a priority in \u201c\u00c9toile\u201d \u2014 rather, the series revolves around cross-cultural French-American encounters, the companies\u2019 fortunes and the dancers themselves. The \u00e9toile of the title is the take-no-prisoners Cheyenne Toussaint (Lou de Laa\u0302ge), who is sent from Paris to dance with the American company. At the same time, Mishi Duplessis (Ta\u00efs Vinolo), a young French dancer based in New York, is dispatched back home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Also part of the exchange is the American Tobias Bell (Gideon Glick), the ballet world\u2019s hottest and most socially inept young choreographer, whose peculiarities don\u2019t endear him to his new Parisian colleagues. Apart, that is, from Gabin, an ambitious young corps de ballet dancer played by Ivan du Pontavice<\/a>, who slowly forges an alliance with Tobias.<\/p>\n And then there is Crispin Shamblee (Simon Callow), the Bond-worthy, English-accented villain of the piece, whose dubiously acquired wealth is financing the trans-Atlantic project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201c\u00c9toile\u201d is ambitious \u2014 it was filmed in both Paris and New York, with troupes of around 18 dancers set up in each city for the duration of the shoot. The dialogue is in both English and French, and there is a lot of dance: Derricks, who has worked with the Palladinos<\/a> on several shows, choreographed around 15 pieces in addition to snippets of ballet classics like \u201cSwan Lake\u201d and \u201cRomeo and Juliet.\u201d<\/p>\n And then, it\u2019s about ballet, which hasn\u2019t resonated with audiences in recent shows like \u201cFlesh and Bone\u201d and \u201cTiny Pretty Things.\u201d<\/a> Like \u201cBunheads,\u201d neither series survived beyond one season.<\/p>\n Addressing these potential negatives, the creators noted that viewers have become more accustomed to watching TV with subtitles in the streaming age. And while other ballet shows have been unsuccessful, \u201c\u00c9toile\u201d has a different take, Sherman-Palladino said.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople have tended to lean into the darker aspects of ballet \u2014 pushing people off buildings and throwing up,\u201d she said dryly. \u201cYou see the beautiful dancers onstage, so effortless and soft and fluttery, and I understand the impetus to say offscreen they must be murderers. But it\u2019s so much more fun, strange and weird than that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Palladinos said they began with the two-company concept, then fleshed out the characters. Many were created with specific actors in mind, they said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n They approached Kirby about playing Jack just after \u201cMaisel\u201d ended production. \u201cIt was a happy moment,\u201d Kirby said. \u201cLiving in the world they created had been a joy.\u201d<\/p>\n To prepare for the role, he read books about ballet history, went to see performances and took a few ballet classes. He learned \u201chow much it asks of the body, what it has to go through to look effortless,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Glick, who had played the magician Alfie in \u201cMaisel,\u201d began his work on \u201c\u00c9toile\u201d in the writers\u2019 room.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time they talked about Tobias, they kept gesturing to me,\u201d Glick said. \u201cFinally they offered me the part.\u201d He said the character was informed by his own teenage experience of working on the musical \u201cSpring Awakening\u201d with the choreographer Bill T. Jones<\/a>, who had been \u201cvery exacting, very, precise, very blunt and eccentric.\u201d<\/p>\n The character Shamblee, written specifically for Callow, was \u201ca bit modeled after a David Koch type<\/a>,\u201d Sherman-Palladino said, referring to the billionaire businessman who before he died in 2019 used his wealth both to generously support the arts and to powerfully influence politics \u2014 often to the benefit of his companies, critics said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Callow said Shamblee \u201cobviously wants to control everything, but behind this ruthless monster is someone who absolutely loves the ballet, has studied and worshiped it.\u201d (Asked if he had drawn inspiration from Koch, Callow said, \u201cI couldn\u2019t possibly comment.\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Palladino added that a figure like Shamblee can wield that kind of power over a ballet company \u201cin America but not in France, where the company is controlled by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are great things about that and not-great things about that,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe wanted to highlight those differences.\u201d<\/p>\n Shamblee is constantly popping up in New York and Paris, where Jack\u2019s counterpart, Genevi\u00e8ve, is wrangling with dancers threatening to strike; with the imperious minister of culture; and with a recalcitrant bull. (It\u2019s a long story.)<\/p>\n Gainsbourg, the daughter of the French singer Serge Gainsbourg and the English actress Jane Birkin, hadn\u2019t previously done a comedic role in English. But she was keen to take it on after she read the scripts.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a very precise sense of who she was, through the lines,\u201d she said in a telephone interview. \u201cA very solitary character who has her heels on, pretends to be a very strong boss, but on her own is vulnerable. It spoke to me, that double face.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The most challenging part of the role, however, said Gainsbourg (and every other actor interviewed), was the signature speedy line delivery the Palladinos required.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very difficult at first, but once I got into the rhythm of learning that much and delivering it quickly, I understood that\u2019s Amy\u2019s style,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was such fun, and a kind of freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n De Laa\u0302ge, who didn\u2019t speak any English before taking on the role of Cheyenne, said that at first she thought \u201chow is it possible to speak so fast in English, with this very American dialogue, in this French accent?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I worked hard,\u201d she continued, \u201cand I found the Amy tempo.\u201d<\/p>\n De Laa\u0302ge prepared intensively for the role, taking ballet, English and voice lessons \u2014 helped, she added, by the delay created by the Hollywood writer and actor strikes. She took some inspiration from the French ballet star Sylvie Guillem<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s a comedy,\u201d she added. \u201cSo I had to create someone not totally realistic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u00c9toile\u201d uses dancer body doubles, including Constance Devernay for Cheyenne and Arcadian Broad for Gabin. But de Laa\u0302ge and du Pontavice<\/a> still had to learn the choreography to enable what Sherman-Palladino described the \u201cmagic and witchcraft\u201d of digital effects.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always approach the dance sequences from a story viewpoint,\u201d Palladino said. \u201cYou want the audience to feel they are in the middle of the dance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sherman-Palladino said, \u201cA great ballet can change your life, your thought process, make everything better for a couple of hours.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe arts are under siege, particularly in America<\/a>,\u201d she added. \u201cIf this show could do a small, tiny something to show that life with art is a better life, we would like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n