Amazon Prime’s “Étoile”: Emily in Paris, but Make It Ballet

The ballet world has long been fertile ground for good entertainment. It seems that at least once a decade, a new iteration of the latest “It” ballet show or film takes centerstage, and Amazon Prime’s Étoile – set in New York and Paris – is the latest program to put its spin on the ballet ecosystem.

Étoile is the brainchild of Gilmore Girls creator and writer Amy Sherman-Palladino. In 2012, Sherman-Palladino helmed another ballet-focused show, ABC’s Bunheads, starring Sutton Foster. While Bunheads may have been short-lived despite its positive critical reception (it was canceled after just one season), Sherman-Palladino’s latest attempt into the foray of dance has already been renewed by Amazon for a second season.

Smartly, Étoile relies on the ever-popular fish-out-of-water trope, but it capitalizes on two beloved cities: Paris and New York. Given the massive success of Netflix’s Emily in Paris, it’s no wonder that a show that showcases the City of Light is captivating viewers. Additionally, Étoile presents a Paris which even locals and the most seasoned Paris visitors may not be familiar with: the ultra-competitive, rigorous, and demanding world of Paris ballet.

Étoile’s set-up is built on the fact that two sister ballet companies in Paris and New York City are struggling with cash flow and need to shake things up to earn more money. The idea surfaces that a calculated swap of each company’s best and brightest ballet stars could be the ticket to getting more audience members in theater seats. Everyone loves novelty, non?

Appearances in the show by real-life mega-stars in the world of ballet, like New York City Ballet’s Tiler Peck, will make any dancer or balletomane watching Étoile squeal with delight and recognition. For ballet lovers, the show is peppered with Easter Eggs, like Peck and other well-known performers (such as John Lam from the Boston Ballet), as well as insider winks.

Throughout season one’s eight episodes, we see the trials and tribulations of the companies’ talent swap in real-time, as dancers from Paris travel to New York, and vice versa. Cultural clashes abound. Notably, Paris ballerina Cheyenne Toussaint (played by Lou de Laâge) is a scene-stealer as the “bad girl of ballet,” reminiscent of real-life dancers like Sergei Polunin, whose reputation often precedes them. We see Cheyenne being arrested in an early episode, due to her attempted environmental activism on a boat in France. Her unbridled passion and pull towards what lights her up bleeds into her dancing, too. When someone asks her if she loves to dance, Cheyenne replies, “No, but it is who I am; I have no choice.”

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Actress Charlotte Gainsbourg shines at the Creative Director of the Paris ballet company, Geneviève Lavigne, who is passionate about the modernization and future of ballet (and passionate about wearing her high heels, too). As the director, she is the quintessential “French Cool Girl,” with her chic style, commanding nature, and fantastic charisma. Her clashes with the Minister of Culture make for good TV fodder.

The New York company’s director, Jack McMillan (played by Luke Kirby) is also fiery in his own way. And the romantic tension between Geneviève and Jack adds a layer of complexity to the talent exchange.

It wouldn’t be an American-created TV show featuring French people without a few Gallic stereotypes thrown into the mix. The show’s writers make playful jabs about France’s penchant for labor strikes and union issues. There are also amusing moments of confusion about English idiomatic expressions, like “stick a pin in it.” 

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The Paris ballet company portrayed in the show is a fictional version of Paris’s very famous, very real Paris Opera Ballet, the oldest national ballet company in the world, and one of the most esteemed and prestigious companies in the world. Although the show had limited access to Paris Opera Ballet’s famed venue, Opéra Garnier, it was able to film some key scenes at the historical opera. Fans of Opéra Garnier will especially enjoy the behind-the-scenes peak into the building’s spaces, which are all, in a word – stunning. The gorgeous shots of real-life dance spaces, from Opéra Garnier to Steps on Broadway will captivate dance fans.

With its generally positive ratings from viewers, a second season secured, and meeting the Emily in Paris fervor with a well-timed, fun Paris romantic drama (until the real Emily returns later this year), it’s no wonder why Étoile has received a largely positive reception following its debut last month. The show affirms a point (en pointe?) that all dance lovers know to be true: The dance world is a place of passion, which is contagious in the best way, and that’s true whether you’re watching dance on your couch at home, in a seat at Opéra Garnier or Lincoln Center, or making your way across a theater, taking centerstage.