Opera, theater, events, installations
Outside her company, Blanca Li has choreographed and produced a great number of projects for major institutions.
In 1997, she was commissioned by the Nancy Opera to direct and choreograph two operas, La vida breve and El amor brujo, and, in 1999, the world premiere of Un Tango Pour Monsieur Lautrec. In 1999, the Paris Opera asks her for a contemporary choreography for the Baroque opera Les Indes galantes conducted by William Christie and produced by Andrei Serban. (Rameau's ballet opera, now part of the Opéra's repertoire, was released in DVD in 2005). For the turn of the millennium Blanca Li creates, together with trapeze artists, the air ballet Univers Unique. Monique Loudières, Danseuse Etoile of the Paris Opera Ballet company, asks Li to create a solo for her: Silhouette, to be performed at the Avignon Festival in 2000.
Highest honors in the dance world in 2001: the famous Paris Opera Ballet invites Li to create a new ballet on Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov, together with Christian Lacroix as costume designer.
In 2001, Blanca Li is nominated artistic director and choreographer of the Berlin Ballet at the Komische Oper Berlin in Germany, a company of 24 dancers, for whom she creates a new version of Le Songe du Minotaure, which is also performed at the Mérida Festival in Spain. Borderline is produced as world premiere by the Berlin Ballett in June 2002.
In March 2003, Blanca Li creates at the Paris Opéra Bastille a choreography for William Tell, produced by Francesca Zambello. Al Andalus, featuring El amor brujo by Manuel de Falla is premiered at the Massy Opera before being performed at the Alhambra Palace for the International Festival of Music and Dance of Granada in June 2004.
In March 2004, Blanca Li is invited as choreographer for the new Don Giovanni production at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC produced by Marthe Keller. In 2005 she creates the choreography for the musical comedy Bagdad Café together with Bob Telson and Percy Adlon. In October 2008, she creates Enamorados Anonimos, a musical played for seven months at the Movistar Theatre, in the Gran Via in Madrid.
In July 2009, she choreographs Am Anfang by Anselm Kiefer at Opéra Bastille, a special event for the departure of Gerard Mortier as director.
Blanca Li choreographs Quel Cirque! (What a circus!) in January 2010, a short piece (25 mn) for the Collective Jeu de Jambes, pioneer of jazz-rock in France, commissioned by Festival Suresnes Cités Danse.
In March 2010, she directs and choreographs the opera Treemonisha (by Scott Joplin) at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. In June 2010, she stages in Spain two operas of the contemporary composer Luis de Pablo, Very Gentle and Un parque (Teatros del Canal, Madrid).
In the field of visual arts and multimedia, Blanca Li is invited by the MUSAC, Contemporary Art Museum of Castilla y Leon, for her first exhibition "Te voy a enseñar a bailar" ("I’ll teach you how to dance") (from January 26 to May 4, 2008).
As part of the Noche en Blanco (White Night) to Madrid, in September 2009, Blanca Li designs "Ven a bailar conmigo" ("Come dance with me"), an audiovisual and interactive installation, with tens of thousands of people dancing in the streets of the Spanish capital. The French edition of "la Fête de la Danse de Blanca Li" ("The Dance Fest") becomes a major popular event at the Grand Palais in Paris, in September 2011 with more than 15 000 participants, and is later commissioned by Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in 2012 and Odyssud in Toulouse in 2013.
She stages numerous fashion shows and events for Stella McCartney, Hermès, Jean-Paul Gaultier, H&M, Target, Just One Eye and many others in Paris, London, New York City, Los Angeles or Shanghai.
