The July 2012 issue of Dance magazine described Marie-Agnès Gillot, then 36, as “one of the Paris Opéra Ballet’s most magnificent ambassadors. Tall and broad-shouldered with long limbs, she makes a striking silhouette onstage. Although she shows all the refinement one expects from a POB étoile, she also possesses a raw, emotional power.”

Gillot sounds like a goddess to me, an attribute confirmed by her frequent dance partner Kader Belarbi. “She has a wild energy that has to be tamed,” Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse. Admiring her sheer physical force, Belarbi says “She rips up the wooden floors with her teeth!”

American choreographer Carolyn Carlson agrees, adding her own observations about Guillot. “She is especially gifted in a cosmic, mystic realm, capable of transforming that mysticism into movement.”

Guillot is the first in-house woman choreographer to receive a commission from the Paris Opera Ballet. These images showcase her mama skills, lensed by Matthew Brookes and styled by Mike Desir in ‘Etoile Brillante’ for children-focused Milk Magazine’s December issue.