Christian Rizzo works hand in hand with other artists and performers, notably Cathy Olive, a lighting designer and Gérôme Nox for his music. Out of this delicate work of composition, Rizzo extracts a type of poetry that is visual, carnal, essentially based on mystery. After having set-up his own rock group and a clothing label, Christian Rizzo turned to plastic arts and then discovered dance. A surveyor of the contemporary choreography scene, a performer with a number of choreographers, he developed a multi-faceted artistic approach which, at the end of the 1990s, culminated in the making of portable architecture, costume-spaces and other projects. Installations - 100% Polyester, Performances, Autant Vouloir le Bleu du Ciel, and peformances including, Ni Fleurs ni Ford Mustang with the Ballet from the Lyons Opera. A process where he cuts up gestures which, from travesty to metamorphosis, has him directing plays with hypnotic effect. The choreographer processes the different elements on the same level. He likes to mix things, music,or clothing, the history of the representation of the body with the history of costume. His approach depends on a certain art of modification that he defines as, "an attitude, aptitude or activity that can change the pattern of the body". At the Avignon Festival, Christian Rizzo presented Skull*Cult in the Vif du Sujet programme in 2002 and took part in the 25th Hour in 2004.
In Christian Rizzo's work, everything begins with a title, preferably a long one. It is the case for his sumptuous and fascinating shows. The adaptation of a sentence from Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland that was chosen for this new piece contains the fundamental aspects – space, time, movement, view – which interest this artist-choreographer-plastician. Then there is his scenography. On stage, one colour is dominant, white, and the monolithic volumes displaced by the dancers create different and particular places, separate or together. This creation of tension by bodies within a space, by the matter of flesh, crystallizes fleeting visions. With questions such as how to be together, how to fall together, how to change one's point of view, how to hear the space in between things, this artist rocks the images with theatre and dance. Voices and whisperings, the piece begins with a list of names and things, and ends in a metaphor. A sculptor of space, Christian Rizzo turns each of his creations into a sensorial experience born out of the gestures and positions of the performers, of a certain way of being inside the costumes and clothes, of handling objects, of haunting the stage. Orchestrated in accordance with mysterious rituals, voluptuously set in moving images, in danced fragments, his pieces are like riddles, signs, markings. It is an unending game of appearing and disappearing. At the same time baroque and minimal, this theatre of metamorphosis loves parties, the night world, masks and phantoms. This is an invitation to watch, a luxurious moment in which to lose oneself in time.
Distribution
Proposed by : Christian Rizzo
choreography Christian Rizzo
Action / construction : Didier Ambact, Hélène Iratchet, Wouter Krokaert, Eric Martin, Gerome Nox, Christian Rizzo, Tamar Shelef, Maria Donata d'Urso, David Wampach
Création musicale : Gerome Nox + Didier Ambact
Installation lumières : Caty Olive
Scénographie, costumes et objets : Christian Rizzo
Production
En compagnie : de l'Adami
Production : l'association fragile
En coproduction avec : le Théâtre de la Ville-Paris, le Centre national de la danse, Le Quartz - Scène nationale de Brest, le Festival Perspectives de Saarbrucken (Allemagne) et le Centre national de Danse contemporaine d'Angers
Spectacle dans le cadre : du programme Initiatives d'artistes en Danse contemporaines de la Fondation de France, Festival de Danse de Cannes, Opéra National de Lyon, Biennale d'Art Contemporain de Lyon
Avec le soutien : du Festival d'Avignon, du CDC - Centre de Développement chorégraphique de Toulouse-Midi-Pyrénées et de la Chaufferie- DCA