Children's tales have nourished generations with their imagination, whimsical characters, and morals. Ravel, by setting to music some tales by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, and Charles Perrault, knew, thanks to his so particular writing, to capture the innocence of childhood, the lightness of this period of life that forges a personality and everything that constitutes the essence of a human being.

The ballet I created for the Paris Opéra Ballet School reflects this innocence and lightness of the soul through different characters of the tales evoked in the musical work as well as some personal additions, and through them, talk about us, sensitive, living and loving beings, - in short, human - at the heart of these fables.

In close collaboration with Camille Dugas for the sets, Alexandar Noshpal for the costumes, and Tom Klefstad for the lights, the ballet takes place in a magical and poetic environment. It is a tribute to books, those of these storytellers and other more current ones, those read to the little ones to fall asleep and make them dream, and those for the older ones who want to escape from reality - or virtuality - often heavy.

The ensemble is a luminous setting in which dancers evolve to evoke different characters. Through their stories, they talk to us about joy, fear, love, and, quite simply, about them—about us.