The Capitole Theater in Toulouse separates from Kader Belarbi, its dance director who denounces “an expeditious dismissal”

In Toulouse, the Capitole theater has separated from its dance director Kader Belarbi, we learned on Sunday February 12 from Toulouse Métropole and the person concerned who denounces in a press release “an expeditious dismissal” And “a rude settling of accounts”. “An internal administrative investigation carried out within the Ballet du Capitole has indeed, after the unanimous opinion of the joint consultative commission, led the establishment to put an end to the missions of Mr. Kader Belarbi as director of dance”, explains Toulouse Métropole, which exercises its supervision over the theater, in an email to AFP.

Kader Belarbi, 60, choreographer and former star dancer, has directed the ballet of the Capitole de Toulouse national theater-opera since August 2012. He deplores a dismissal decision “as brutal as vexatious” and says to himself “victim of a coarse settling of accounts dictated by a real intention to harm”. In his press release, he mentions a complaint “as belated as it is inconsistent” lodged against him with the public prosecutor by a “dancer no longer part of the ballet”, without specifying the facts referred to in this complaint.

Faced with the facts with which he is accused, he files a complaint “for slanderous denunciation”

According to a source close to the ballet, the facts would be “humiliating acts”, corroborated by several testimonies. In turn, Kader Belarbi filed a complaint with the Toulouse prosecutor’s office “for slanderous denunciation” against the dancer and against “those who have deliberately exploited this unfair challenge”.

According to Yves Sapir, CGT delegate at the Théâtre du Capitole and, as a member of the joint advisory committee, bound by a duty of discretion, the internal investigation highlighted “staff management issues” from the dance director, “interpersonal difficulties” between the latter and the rest of the company as well as a staff management problem, the ballet being subject to a “very high turnover”.

Born November 18, 1962 in Grenoble, Kader Belarbi attended the dance school of the Paris Opera before joining the ballet in 1980 and becoming a star dancer there in 1989 at the age of 27. After his career as a dancer, he became a choreographer and “is the author of about forty ballets”, according to his biography which remained available Sunday evening on the Capitole theater website.