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 International Dance Festival of Tirana in 2025, Angelin Preljocaj decided to create a female version of this piece, Women at their bath, that evokes some of Edgar Degas’ work. The idea behind this new piece is to create two choreographed miniatures that face and reflect one another, examining 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 an another impressionist masterpiece.