The stress of the past few months is superficially not noticeable. It may be that it is because it is a holiday season or because they have often had to practice calm in the face of adverse circumstances: Stéphen Delattre and Martin Opelt, the directors of the Delattre Dance Company, are relaxed in the dance room, in elegant summer clothes To meet in Mainz for a conversation. It can't have been easy for the two of them and their Mainz dance company in Corona times. The company is based on a rare model in Germany: it is largely privately financed and receives little cultural funding. In order to finance the company, therefore, the income from performances is crucial, and so it is obvious that with the pandemic they also faced some difficulties.

The choreographer Stéphen Delattre and manager Martin Opelt have proven time and again over the past nine years that their model works in principle.

Even if they themselves describe the path as rocky, in the coming year they can celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Delattre Dance Company.

Worth a try

At the beginning it was by no means certain that their concept would work.

But after Delattre had presented successful dance evenings two years in a row in the also privately operated Mainzer Kammerspiele and the theater wanted to include her regularly as a dance ensemble in its program, the two said in 2012 that it was worth a try.

Martin Opelt drove this forward at the time, according to the French-born Delattre.

He himself, who danced for the Mainz Ballet from 2009 to 2012, had experience in choreography and was already networked internationally, but he could not have taken on the bureaucratic, contractual and tax matters in Germany.

"It was still not an easy decision because for me it also meant that I would end my career as a dancer," says Delattre today.

At the same time, it had long been clear to him that he wanted to turn to choreographic work.

Stéphen Delattre was trained at the renowned École Nationale Supérieure de Danse de Marseille.

From childhood on, his training was geared towards ballet, which is known as “classical”, but he also turned to neo-classical and modern ballet in terms of dance, not least because both of these meet his somewhat smaller stature.

The combination of neo-classical and modern directions with his classical training had a decisive influence on his dancing and remains characteristic of his current choreographic work.

He likes to compare it with that of a poet: “What drives me is the possibility of communicating ideas and feelings through movement,” says Delattre.

This is well received by the audience.

At the beginning they had around 1200 viewers a year, now it should be around 7000 a year, in Mainz alone.

First encounter strange

There are also guest appearances in Germany and neighboring countries, explains Martin Opelt.

The trained carpenter and studied business administration actually had little contact with ballet before he supported Delattre in founding the company.

His first encounter with classical ballet was rather strange.

At Delattre he then experienced that things can also look different, less stiff.

He believed in Delattres ability and talent right from the start and therefore promoted the establishment of the company.