Snow White & the Mirror – When Ballet Meets Artificial Intelligence (AI)

A Modern Reflection of a Timeless Tale

This fall, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens unveil an extraordinary creation: Snow White & the Mirror, choreographed by the visionary Etienne Béchard. Presented at Place des Arts from October 22 to 26, 2025, the ballet reimagines the Brothers Grimm classic through the lens of our hyper-connected digital age.

Béchard’s choreography dares to ask the same timeless questions – Who am I? What is real? What do we see when we look into the mirror? But in this version, the mirror is no longer an enchanted object. It is a living algorithm, a piece of artificial intelligence that decides what is beautiful, what is true, and what deserves visibility.

This Snow White & the Mirror is less about a fairytale kingdom and more about our modern obsession with self-image, illusion, and control.

Choreography Between Flesh and Code

Blending classical ballet with contemporary digital movement, Etienne Béchard creates a world where pointe work collides with robotic gestures inspired by avatars. Dancers embody both humanity and simulation, clones of Snow White multiplying like social-media profiles, while the Queen slowly loses her humanity to technology in her desperate quest for eternal youth.

The result is a hypnotic dance language that captures the tension between authenticity and artificiality. Every motion feels like a question: When the reflection looks back, who is real – us or the algorithm?

As Béchard explains, “This Snow White speaks about us,  our fear of disappearing in a flow of falsified images, and our desire to love, even if the object of that love is an illusion.”

The Mirror as Narrator

In Snow White & the Mirror, the Mirror is a full-fledged character, both observer and storyteller. It reflects, distorts, and re-creates what it sees, acting as the voice of our digital consciousness. This reinterpretation transforms the fairytale into a psychological journey through perception itself.

The Queen’s dialogue with her digital reflection becomes a battle against time, ego, and obsolescence, while Snow White’s exile turns into a symbolic journey toward self-acceptance. Guided by seven shadow-like figures through an abstract, enchanted forest, she discovers resilience and the beauty of imperfection.

A Score Between Light and Darkness

Music anchors this universe of contrasts. The live Orchestra of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, conducted by Andrei Feher, performs a rich blend of Bach, Saint-Saëns, Dukas, Johan Ullén, and original compositions by Béchard himself.

From Bach’s radiant Violin Concerto in E Major to Saint-Saëns’s macabre Danse macabre, the score oscillates between light and shadow, echoing the ballet’s exploration of illusion and truth. Each transition between scenes, from the Queen’s sterile palace to the pulsating forest is heightened by this seamless fusion of the classical and the contemporary.

Visual Alchemy: Light, Costume, and Code

The visual dimension of Snow White & the Mirror is equally ambitious. Till Kuhnert’s set design combines reflective surfaces and digital projections, while Emma Paris’s costumes blur the line between flesh and machine. The lighting and video artistry of Tom Vincke and Théo Baudras transform the stage into a living data stream, a realm where human movement meets algorithmic logic.

Every element of design reinforces the ballet’s core metaphor, that our reflection, once magical, is now mechanical. The audience becomes complicit, caught between admiration and unease.

A Ballet for the Age of AI

By reinterpreting one of the world’s most beloved fairy tales, Etienne Béchard brings the language of ballet into dialogue with artificial intelligence. Snow White & the Mirror invites us to reflect on how our own identities are shaped by technology, image, and validation.

It’s a rare work that manages to remain poetic while addressing profoundly contemporary issues. Béchard doesn’t simply update the story he reinvents its emotional core. The fragility and strength of the human soul stand illuminated in every pirouette, every breath, every flicker of the digital mirror.

Performance Information

📍 Venue: Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Place des Arts, Montreal
📅 Dates: October 22 – 26, 2025 (2 p.m. or 8 p.m.)
🎻 Music: Performed live by the Orchestra of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens
🎟️ Tickets: grandsballets.com
💸 Discount: “Je me pointe !” – 30% for patrons aged 34 and under

A special educational matinée for schools (grades 5 and 6 and high school) will take place on October 23 at 1:15 p.m., offering young audiences an early glimpse into the intersection of fairytale imagination and digital-age reflection.

Final Thoughts

Snow White & the Mirror stands as a monumental step for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, an artistic mirror reflecting not just a story, but an era. In merging timeless grace with algorithmic precision, Etienne Béchard offers both a warning and a revelation: beauty may fade, data may distort, but art remains the truest reflection of who we are.

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