for the Ballet of the Opera de Lyon
proposal, scenography and costumes: christian rizzo
music: gerome nox
lighting: caty olive
performers: ashley chen, julie guibert, peggy grelat dupont, yu otagaki, jeremie perroud, martin roehrich, michael walters
I see the stage as a space of ritual passages, a transformative place. I use forms to allow things to emerge on their own rather than trying to show something (reflections and traces, allowing whatever was there to emerge and/or things happening that you can't see).
Anything visible is the result of what is not visible.
Presence then conjures up that absence.
Just as the face sometimes fades into the background to express an emotion or a secret, the dancers (partly) disappear to express the movement more than the dance.
Ni fleurs, ni ford mustang is a continuation of my work on obsessions.
I will be working with dancers from the Ballet de l'Opera de Lyon, accompanied by several artists without whom my work would not be what it is today - longstanding partners Caty Olive on lighting and Gerome Nox on sound.
christian rizzo
A Groundbreaking Ballet
"a funeral ceremony stretched out over time in which the dancers work on falls and stillness, form vanitas tableaux disguised in bits of costumes, animal masks, or petticoats, and enjoy the loss of their identity as ballet dancers.
You catch yourself eagerly watching their minimalist gestures and poses, the palpable tension threatening to draw you into its throbbing beat and strip away your simplistic ideas about choreography"
Agnes Benoist, Lyon Figaro, Wednesday 15 September 2004
Rizzo, a master of dreams
"In this lacklustre dance biennial, Christian Rizzo's piece was like a diamond in the rough set against the blackness of the Nouvel Opera. Rizzo's seven companions, the cream of the Ballet de Lyon, move around in this special effects piece under shadowy lighting by Caty Olive.íYou could see it as the evolution of movement from its inception to being performed on stage - or simply as a waking dream.
The dancers seem inhabited by elements from old ballets, like second skins, proof of their work with the choreographer in the studio.í The end, with the dancers dressed in puffy petroleum-black unitards, is mind-boggling, as if all the movements contained in the first 40 minutes had finally exploded. Rizzo has pulled off quite a ground-breaking ballet."
Philippe Noisette, Danser n°237, November 2004
" With bated breath, the dancers in flesh-like costumes perform dizzying movements and, in the end, wearing black unitards seemingly cut out of nothingness, go up in a blaze of tricks designed to create an illusion.
With his 7 classically trained performers, Rizzo takes Ni fleurs, ni ford mustang beyond live performance. Even the shadows seem to be part of the aesthetic, furtively poetic movements.
Rizzo is still haunted by the same demons - skin -tight costumes and sound environment in overdrive - and his work benefits from dealing more directly with dancerly bodies, the better to reduce them to stillness.(...)"
Philippe Noisette, Les Inrockuptibles, n°475, January 2005
dates
february 4 and 6, 2005
Centre Georges Pompidou - Paris - France
january 13 - 15, 2005
Opera de Lille - Lille - France
september 12 - 17, 2004
Opera de Lyon - Lyon - France