FRANCE – PARIS - Grand Palais, July 21 – August 9, 2008

The Paris Dance Festival, Les Etés de la Danse, returns for a series of performances underneath the beautiful glass dome of the Grand Palais. The festival invites a different company to perform every year and in 2008 the privilege goes to Les Grands Ballets Canadiens of Montreal. With 20,000 spectators for the first season in july 2005, more than 50,000 for the 25 performances of the second season in July 2006, all without mentioning every time the performances were sold out : these figures alone would be enough to legitimize the festival of “Les étés de la danse de Paris.” In the organisers' mi - nd, the festival, which began in 2005, was meant to enrich the cultural life of Paris during the summer with a major event entirely dedicated to dance. This to propose amateurs high quality performances and, lastly, to give the chance for the broader public to discover an art form that is too often limited to a few initiates. After the first and the second seasons, devoted to the San Francisco Ballet and to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater respectively, it is clear that the festival has found its audience, both French people and foreigners, and that fulfills a real need.