In 1988, Angelin Preljocaj was commissioned by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris to create a choreography for a short film entitled Les Raboteurs, based on Gustave Caillebotte's painting Les Raboteurs de parquet.

More than 30 years later, on the occasion of a major Caillebotte retrospective at the same Musée d'Orsay, he was once again asked to create a new piece based on another of the painter's works. To explore the intimacy of a singular moment, he chose the painting Man at his bath, which brings each of us back to our daily concerns about the body and questions the boundary between the intimate and the extimate.

For the fourth edition of the Tirana International Dance Festival, Angelin Preljocaj decided to create a female counterpart to this project, based on certain paintings by Edgar Degas that had particularly struck him during his exploration of the Musée d'Orsay.

The idea was to create two choreographic miniatures that face each other, mirror each other, and question gender and intimacy.

For the 2026/2027 season, this programme will be expanded with a third part to round out the evening. Angelin Preljocaj could take on two other masterpieces on display at Orsay:Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe by Edouard Manet and Claude Monet’s version.