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Margaret Qualley and Shameik Moore transport Shakespeare’s tragic lovers to Los Angeles in a dance-led retelling by Benjamin Millepied
Casting Margaret Qualley and Shameik Moore as Shakespeare’s fated star-crossed lovers, French director-choregrapher Benjamin Millepied reframes Prokofiev’s iconic ballet through a contemporary lens for the short film Romeo + Juliet.
A dance-narrative hybrid, shot on the streets of Los Angeles in 2019, Millepied enlisted Qualley and Moore to retell the universal love story from a modern, everyday setting, incorporating his propulsive choreography to build a new climax around the play’s famous balcony scene. The film went on to become the foundation of Millepied’s multimedia production ‘Romeo & Juliet Suite’, created for L.A. Dance Project, in which choreography, theater, and live cinema interweave on stage, distilling the narrative to its core emotions.
“Setting the story in contemporary Los Angeles felt inevitable. L.A. is a city of light and fracture, intimacy and distance. I was drawn to Margaret Qualley and Shameik Moore because they are physical storytellers – emotion travels through their posture, timing, and stillness.”
Layering Prokofiev’s classical score against dynamic movement – leaning into Moore’s beginnings as a dancer, and Qualley’s as a former professional ballet dancer – Millepied’s Romeo + Juliet captures the creative hybridity of its leads by allowing dance to shape the film’s language, translating Shakespeare’s enduring tragedy to a familiar experience of love and distance.
Park Avenue Armory presents the New York premiere of Benjamin Millepied's Romeo & Juliet Suite, performed by L.A. Dance Project.