Pierre Rigal
Pierre Rigal is a precise man: his gestures, his words and his life are governed by the same rigour, which makes them all accurate. Undoubtedly the training required to run 400 meters, the most demanding race for athletes, disciplined this former track-and-field specialist for many years. His double intellectual training - mathematical methods in economics, then the cinema is unquestionably no stranger either to that subtleness, that rigour down to the slightliest details. Through an assortment of encounters, it was finally the dancing body that attracted all Pierre Rigal's attention: he crossed paths with choreographers like Heddy Maalem, Bernardo Montet and Wim Vandekeybus and joined Gilles Jobin's company in 2002 for the premiere of Under Construction and the revival of The Moebius Strip. In 2003, he founded his own company, the compagnie dernière minute, then created and interpreted his first play, the solo erection, co-signed with Aurélien Bory. Next came Stop the Game (still with Aurélien Bory) and Press, premiered at the Gate Theatre in London, which has been an international success ever since. Alone in his tiny black box, Pierre Rigal plays all the contemporary moods in it with a single instrument that he handles with virtuosity: his own body. Going beyond appearances, with movements and gestures, sometimes the strangest, sometimes the simplest, for brushes, the choreography depicts the depths of a melancholy and anxious interiority. After Asphalt, a play for five hip-hop dancers, he is coming to the Festival d'Avignon for the first time with Micro.
ADB, avril 2010