music : gerome nox + didier ambact
light installation : caty olive
performers / builders : didier ambact, eric grondin, helene iratchet, wouter krokaert, eric martin, gerome nox, tamar shelef, maria donata d'urso, david wampach
production manager : jean-michel hugo
sound : roland auffrey
production : l'association fragile
co-production : Theatre de la Ville de Paris - Centre National de la Danse de Pantin Le Quartz, Scene Nationale de Brest - Persectives Festival, Saarbrucken (Germany) Centre National de la Danse Contemporaine d'Angers - Festival de Danse de Cannes Opera National de Lyon - part of the Fondation de France's "Initiatives d'artistes en danse contemporaine".
with the support of the Festival d'Avignon, the CDC - Centre de Developement Choregraphique Toulouse / Midi-Pyrenees and La Chaufferie - DCA special thanks to Yorgos Loukos and Frederic Bonnemaison
Seven dancers inexorably falling and rising to fall again
Presented at the Theatre de la Ville in Paris before going to the Avignon Festival, soit le puits - apparently the Zen vehicle of furtive changing sensations, somewhere between voracious appetite and simple detachment, reflects Christian Rizzo's slightly disturbing connection to life.
His passion for beauty is a mere guard-rail separating him from the world's absurdities, an elegant detour in his advance toward the end.
In ninety minutes, the seven dancers do indeed dig this "well," and their cries, almost lamentations, match the ghosts, the shadows of those who are no longer with us. They fall and rise inexorably, alone or with someone else, but it is together they slide into the depths, only to reappear, stiff as zombies, passing in front of a clown with green hair.
The choreographer's movements are spectacular, fluid.
He spent time at the Villa Arson in Nice, and these shapes reflect somewhat the work of the German plastician and director Oskar Schlemmer. In soit le puits", Rizzo's extensive research translates to the visible volume on the stage, constantly being rearranged by the perfomers who disappear little by little behind the vivid colours of their costumes and masks. The lighting of Caty Olive joins in this conspiracy against Death, and the score, by Gerome Nox and a dazzling Didier Ambact) spins around the stage without disturbing its action, minimal as it may be.
Since 100% polyester (reviewed in Le Monde, June 21,1999), Christian Rizzo explores his limpid, precise visions, touched by the void and its cousin, nothingness.
Their mutual attraction resides in the palpable love Rizzo has for the "black box" space and his ability to reconfigure reality according to the laws of poetry.
Playing with both images and emotions, he drifts instinctively on a fragile skiff of pure beauty which, even wounded, makes us feel good.
Rosita Boisseau, Le Monde, June 30, 2005