conception, choreography and costumes: christian rizzo
performers: philippe chosson, yoann demichelis, kerem gelebek, julie guibert, christophe ives, i fang lin, lola rubio
lighting: caty olive
original music : robin rimbaud - scanner : http://www.scannerdot.com
artistic collaborator : sophie laly
general manager : patrick laganne or jérôme masson
light manager : arnaud lavisse or olivier desse
sound manager : anthony toulotte or adrien michel
mannequins : pierre traquet
special thanks to all Opera de Lille’s staff and florence bost / sable chaud
executive producer: l’association fragile
coproduction: Opéra de Lille, Théâtre de la Ville-Paris, Arsenal de Metz.
with the support of the Centre de Développement Chorégraphique de Roubaix for making a work spaces available to us, and l'ADAMI.
This creation has been supported by conseil régional du Nord-Pas de Calais.
An enchantment – how rare! A sort of stealthy hypnosis that takes effect gently, imperiously. Right from the first images of the new, very beautiful, but also very grave piece by choreographer Christian Rizzo, le bénéfice du doute for seven dancers and seven mannequins suspended in mid-air, works its charm on you. And, with him, the mystery of a particular and perfect artistic gesture grips you… Rosita Boisseau - Le Monde, 2 February 2012
(…) Thus, a tableau of the banal transforms into a minimal ceremonial were Christian Rizzo evokes the enigma of life and death using as much discretion as he uses elegance and precision. Patrick Sourd – Les inrockuptibles, 1 February 2012
What has already begun…
Christian Rizzo talks about his work, le bénéfice du doute, after two weeks of rehearsals in the studios of the Opéra de Lille. Interviewed by Stéphane Malfettes, 26 October 2011
For now, let’s not be too productive
Earlier today, I told the seven dancers working with me: “For now, let’s not be too productive. We’ll have time for that soon enough.” Being productive, for me means creating a form and trying to reveal its perfection. For now, I’m more interested in the energies that are present than the compositions they might generate. I want the concern for productivity to stay in the locker room as long as possible. I give a lot of on-the-spot stage directions: “exit the stage”, “lay down there”, “grab his right foot with your left hand”… But, that’s just to keep the machine running. We’re on the threshold of the writing process and I don’t want to set in stone the guiding lines of the choreography to come. This indeterminate phase offers great freedom to everyone and allows me to apply my gaze in real time.
Something is already happening
During rehearsals, I act as if I were a total spectator: my gaze spreads 360 degrees and switches on the second the studio door is pushed open. The dancers take off their shoes, put on their work clothes, start to warm up, strike a pose… Something is already happening. I am in front of a space, and bodies in a space. It’s like when you go to someone’s house, you open the door and discover a universe. In dance, there’s no such thing as a blank page. You never start from scratch. At this stage of rehearsals, my work does not consist in “rehearsing” so much as in spotting what is already there, what is right before my very eyes, what has already begun. I take the time to let the truth of situations, which have been put into play by bodies in a given space, float to the surface. I ask just one, simple question: “Will the signs I am seeing feed my quest to reveal the inherent spectacle in the work?” Le bénéfice du doute as a new piece already exists. It’s just that we are unable to truly see it for now.
Observing the real
Two years ago, I left Paris to set up shop in Lille. Throwing myself into a new space has deeply changed the way I look at my surroundings. Since I was unfamiliar with the city, I have become an insatiable observer of public space. I closely examine people’s relationships, the micro-events that erupt out of street corners. I’m interested in situations that bodies sketch out in the most prosaic environments. Two people kissing in the detergent aisle of a supermarket can suddenly metamorphose the atmosphere there. Other customers in the store stop and watch them. Time seems to hang in the air. Cracks appear in banal daily existence. In a way that is neither mimetic nor psychological, I force myself to complete the inspiration I draw from the heart of reality.
Archaic origin
Theatre is, literally, the place from where we look (from the Greek, theatron). I still work with this archaic origin as my basis: placing bodies, in all their phenomenality, before the human gaze. I seek to make situations appear that we no longer see because a priori there’s nothing spectacular about them. The stage allows one to reframe things, to intensify presences and condense gestures in order to liberate their emotional charge. I’m deeply attached to the theatre as the last gathering place of exchange regarding an artistic proposition that, while revealing itself, invents its own language. To me, what we call the performing arts is connected to a higher dimension that is tantamount to the sacred. A form of the sacred outside the religious.
Invisible decor
Contrary to my past works, the point of departure for bénéfice du doute was not scenographic. In other words, the dancers do not live in a preconceived fictional environment, as was the case for example with l’oubli, toucher du bois (2010). I no longer wish to have them evolve in a context that pre-exists them. My concern is to showcase their energies on stage. Bodies are now left to their own devices and must confront the void enveloping them. Out of the abstraction of their movement appear situations and spaces. For all that, le bénéfice du doute is not a performance without scenography: an invisible decor invents itself through the bodies, the light, and the music. Their interactions produce vibrations. Fictional trajectories are embodied little by little. The electronic music composed by Scanner cuts dramatic incisions like a box-cutter blade into Lucio Fontana’s canvasses.
Phosphorescent floor
Without a tangible decor, the dancers’ movement must guarantee its own foundations. The energy they free up constitutes the structure of all their actions. I feel it is important to materialize, in one way or another, this relationship to the production of energy – to “expenditure” as Bataille would say. I imagine that, at one point during the piece, the ground could, in this way, become phosphorescent. This bright epiphany would reconstitute all the energy stored up in the ground. It would be something immanent and telluric.
What keeps us in motion, if not doubt?
There is nothing so delicious as doubt! Doubt is a form of affirmation that puts brackets around everything one is certain about. In a world saturated with more or less hollow convictions, the stage reveals all the value of doubt. Once you start to doubt, everything can be put into motion. Doubt is a promise of newness. The imagination can, indeed, free itself from the material preoccupations holding it back. As a choreographer, I’ve nothing to sell. I have no political message to spread, nor particular belief to instill in others: my benefit, is doubt.