“Remember you can’t touch it!” called out Benjamin Millepied as dancers propelled each other high over an imaginary net on an imaginary tennis court.
“One more time,” Millepied said, starting Rosalía’s song “Reliqua” again. “Keep in mind the court is much bigger, so we’ll expand out.”
It was eight days before the final weekend of the French Open tennis tournament, and Millepied, a French choreographer, had an unusual brief: To create two short dances, one to precede each of the finals, the women’s on Saturday and men’s on Sunday.
The request, he said in an interview, came from Amélie Mauresmo, a former French tennis champion who is now the tournament director of Roland Garros, as the championship is called in France.
While the tournament has put on opening ceremonies for the final matches before, this time Mauresmo “wanted bold, big dances to really push things,” Millepied said.
Millepied, the founder and artistic director of the L.A. Dance Project, now spends much of his time in Paris, where, with Solenne du Haÿs Mascré, he directs the Paris Dance Project, which creates educational programs and public performances.
Although elaborately choreographed halftime shows are standard at the Super Bowl and are taking hold in some championship soccer games, tennis doesn’t have a strong tradition of opening numbers — and certainly not of dance routines.
Millepied, who made a dance for 60 or so performers for the French rugby league final at the Stade de France last year, said that the idea was less surprising in France than it might be elsewhere. “There is a history of dance on television here, and of putting the arts forward,” he said, adding that the culture-heavy opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics had further pushed that tendency. “I think it inspired sports organizers to try to create these moments that are unforgettable.”
For the rugby number, set to Ravel’s “Bolero,” Millepied said he was inspired by the sport itself. “Rugby is quite complex in terms of movement and choreography, and I played with those ideas, with lots of rugby references,” he said.
He thought about doing something similar with the tennis assignment: “Tennis is an art of change of direction, as is dance, and at first I really thought about playing with the tennis theme directly. But Roland Garros pushed back; they thought it would be too conventional.”
Millepied decided to let the music provide the inspiration for the movement, choosing the Rosalía ballad for the women’s final and a cover of David Bowie’s “Modern Love” by the popular French singer Zaho de Sagazan for the men’s. Because the songs were shorter than the six minutes that Roland Garros had asked for, Millepied asked his brother, the composer Sylvain Millepied, to write two-minute instrumental additions for each piece.
“It’s quite difficult, you have to come up with something arresting enough that it carries people to the song,” Benjamin Millepied said. “And then the song is a surprise.”
“‘Reliqua’ is so passionate and emotional, and that’s a beautiful thing to create for a moment when millions are watching,” he said. “And ‘Modern Love’ is sheer joy, and because it felt so ’80s, it gave me the idea of using pompoms, which I have never done. When I looked into pompom competitions, it’s insane what they do graphically.”
Millepied said that movement was a range of styles, from ballet to contemporary to popular dance. “I’m excited to show these different things on that stage,” he said, “not necessarily what an audience at these events might expect.”
The opening of “Reliqua,” he added, was “super balletic, because the virtuosity of tennis and the virtuosity of ballet have something in common.”
Daisy Jacobson, a dancer and rehearsal director, said that one challenge was that the dancers were frequently separated by the net and facing different directions. “It’s almost like two stages, so to get everyone doing the steps at the same time and looking good from all sides is hard.”
The choreography, Millepied said, had to be designed not just for the stadium audience, but for millions of television viewers. “I am always thinking about where the cameras are going to be,” he said, adding that they would prepare a filmed version to give to the cameramen working on the day.
On Thursday evening, after the qualifier Maja Chwalińska had beaten Diana Shnaider to reach the women’s finals, the dancers lined up on the empty court. They wore practice clothes and socks, because they couldn’t risk getting the costumes full of the fine dust from the red clay court, and shoes might damage the surface.
“I am a bit shocked still,” said Jean Soubirou, a French dancer. “Sport in France is super important. I played tennis for 10 years and it was my dream to play at Roland Garros. Now I am here!”
“It’s important to take up these opportunities when you have massive viewership,” Millepied said. “How special it is that dance is so valued?”
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