JULIEN LESTEL

Choreographer – Director of the Ballet Julien Lestel
Principal Dancer of the National Ballet of Marseille (1999-2011)
Ballet of the Paris Opera (1993-1998)

Following in the footsteps of Jirí Kylián, Ohad Naharin, and Crystal Pite, choreographer Julien Lestel has established a distinctive style with creations that are resolutely modern, aesthetic, and powerful.

Trained at the Dance School of the Paris National Opera Ballet and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, where he earned a First Prize, Julien Lestel then worked with Rudolf Nureyev, who invited him to perform in Cinderella at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. He later joined the Ballets de Monte-Carlo, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Zürich Ballet as a principal dancer, and finally, the National Ballet of Marseille as a partner to Marie-Claude Pietragalla.

He has collaborated with Rudolf Nureyev, Jerome Robbins, Jirí Kylián, William Forsythe, Angelin Preljocaj, Roland Petit, Pina Bausch, Thierry Malandain… and has danced works by Marius Petipa, George Balanchine, John Neumeier, Uwe Scholz, Serge Lifar, Frederick Ashton, Vaslav Nijinsky…
As both choreographer and dancer, he has accompanied actors Pierre Arditi, Marie-Christine Barrault, and Macha Méril in staged readings of literary texts.

He has also collaborated with pianist François-René Duchâble, who performs live on stage in several of his creations – Anastylose, Rachmaninov, Solo, and Opus – as well as with composer Karol Beffa, who composed the music for Corps et Âmes. He participated in the Gala des Étoiles du XXIe siècle at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, where he performed Les Âmes Frères, one of his own creations. He has also choreographed the dance sequences of operas: Les Pêcheurs de Perles, Aida at the Opéra de Massy, Manon, and La Vie Parisienne at the Opéra de Marseille.

The Ballet Julien Lestel was founded in January 2007 at the Espace Pierre Cardin with the premiere of his first choreography, Les Âmes Frères. Today, it brings together eleven dancers from diverse backgrounds and boasts a repertoire of more than twenty choreographies performed in France and abroad, where each dancer can express their individuality while remaining faithful to the modern neoclassical style that defines his creations.

In 2018, he collaborated with Éléonora Abbagnato, Director of the Rome Opera Ballet, adapting his choreography Puccini for dancers of both the Ballet Julien Lestel and the Rome Opera Ballet.

In 2021, he produced a fourteen-episode web series, L’Éternel et l’Éphémère, in collaboration with Alexandra Cardinale, with choreographies performed at the Rodin Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, and the Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Museum.

Julien Lestel is deeply committed to outreach and awareness initiatives. He engages with diverse audiences through educational projects and choreographic workshops: in schools from kindergarten to high school, with adolescents affected by autism spectrum disorders or mental disabilities, in correctional facilities, as well as in retirement homes and hospitals.
Since January 2023, in Marseille, he has been leading workshops for a group of blind and psychotic adults living in an IRSAM (Regional Institute for the Deaf and Blind of Marseille) residential facility, creating choreographic workshops with staged performances.

In April 2025, he created a choreography in China for the dancers of the Shenyang Academy on the occasion of the opening of the Croisements Festival, initiated by President Emmanuel Macron.

« My research focuses on creating a fluid, unrestrained movement vocabulary, combined with fractured gestures and broken rhythms, so that the spectator is carried toward emotion while immersed in a dynamic interplay of power, sensuality, and poetry, brought to life by the performers. »

The Ballet Julien Lestel was in an exceptionally long residency at the Opéra de Massy (2012-2021). Today, the Ballet receives support from the City of Marseille and the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region, as well as funding from foundations and private partners.

With the support of the Ministry of Culture / Directorate-General for Artistic Creation and the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.

Julien Lestel is also a professor at the National School of Dance of Marseille.