Benjamin Millepied's L.A. Dance Project will stage the U.S. premiere of City of Dance in June, a series of free public performances held across Los Angeles. The co-production with Millepied's Paris Dance Project follows the work's Paris iteration in 2025, presented there under the title La Ville Dansée.

The multiday presentation features a single 72-minute dance with contributions from five choreographers: Dimitri Chamblas, Madeline Hollander, Millepied, Jamar Roberts, and Pam Tanowitz. Performances will take place at several locations across the city, including Tongva Park, Century Park, the Marciano Art Foundation, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Gloria Molina Grand Park.

The piece is set to Philip Glass' score for Koyaanisqatsi, the 1982 nonnarrative documentary that interrogates how humans use and misuse nature in the service of technology and industrialization. Each choreographer received a portion of the score and created movement for the same 15 dancers, reflecting on the film's themes. Their segments will be stitched together to form one work.

Millepied says the title "City of Dance" refers to the way bodies and landscapes carry the history of a city's culture. He wants the project to bring that idea, and the beauty of dance, to a wider public. "The idea is to show this work to as many people as possible," he says.

Chamblas, who also took part in the initial Paris version, found working on the Los Angeles premiere vastly different because of the energy of the American dancers. "The dancers move so generously, to exhaustion," Chamblas says. "My segment is like a choreographed fight or game, but it's all about the energy between the bodies and big parties, the run and fall."

The two cities demand different approaches. In Paris, with its high population density, residents could stumble upon dances that popped up in train stations, business centers, or historical buildings. "You start making noise and moving, you potentially have, like, 500 people watching you," Chamblas says. Los Angeles, by contrast, sprawls, so City of Dance has required strategic planning and marketing. The outreach includes public conversations at selected sites with experts in environmental studies, technology, urbanism, and sociology, plus free public dance classes and open rehearsals at L.A. Dance Project's studios.

"In the toughest city for dance in the country, you have to be pragmatic," Millepied says. "Take venues where you're welcome and that feel adequate for the piece."

For Chamblas, Los Angeles suits Koyaanisqatsi because of California's green initiatives and emphasis on environmental justice. Both the film and the dance work consider how human choices influence nature. After last year's devastating Los Angeles wildfires, City of Dance carries a message about nurturing the landscape.

"I think that's a big component of the arts being for everyone, and the arts being a reflection of the times we live in," Millepied says.