avant un mois je serai revenu et nous irons

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avant un mois je serai revenu et nous irons
ensemble en matinée, tu sais, voir la comédie
où je t’ai promis de te conduire.
(2002)
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Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Long way from my home
Sometimes I wish I could fly
Like a bird up in the sky
Oh, Sometimes I wish I could fly
Fly like a bird up in the sky
Sometimes I wish I could fly
Like a bird up in the sky
Closer to my home
Motherless children have a hard time
Motherless children have a such hard time
Motherless children have a such really hard time
A long way from my home
Sometimes I feel like freedom is near
Sometimes I feel like freedom is here
Sometimes I feel like freedom is so near
But we’re so far from home
Gospel / (tr)aditional song
avant un mois je serai revenu et nous irons
ensemble en matinée, tu sais, voir la comédie où je
t’ai promis de te conduire.
(2002)
a proposition by christian rizzo
with : matthieu doze, cédric courtois, wouter krokaert, la bourette,
éric martin, pascale paoli, pascal queneau, gaël sesboüé.
light installation : caty olive
sound creation : gérôme nox
costume accompaniement : misa ishibashi, didier despin & la bourette
video accompaniement : charles carcopino et jean gabriel periot
stage manager : judicaël montrobert
Christian Rizzo strives, since his first plays, in a complete interdisciplinarity. Choreographic, plastic,
musical art as well as fashion and the importance he gives to the light work (in collaboration with
Cathy Olive) are elements which are indissociable to him to bring magic to the show.
“I listen to the riffs of saturated, amplified, electric guitars and I dream of a labyrinth in which all the
steps would bring light on the shadow to put light on post-tempest creatures. I imagine a community of
men, and a woman, characters from scorpio rising played by Bernard L’hermitte, hybrid creatures,
alternately decadent dandies, gothic faces, pop emanations, (un) restrained bodies which put on
pearled carapaces, golden prosthesis which are there, waiting for someone to live in them. Avant un
mois… is a perceptive walk-rebus in a skeleton of baroque gardens where sculptures and clumps
have been replaced by composite relics, in which rock, preciosity and mystery live.
Thus, this project is the place of transformation, like the Shakespearian island or forest, the theatrical
place envisaged like a springboard to phenomenons of initiatory passage rituals (for a community to
change?)
I want to question the observation of a geography of the body which is put into pieces, flirts with the
notion of disappearance to reconstitutes itself by hybridization / contamination with the other (this other
containing also the artifices of theatre)
The exchange, the gift, the offering are simple words which trace lines of desire which I would like to
explore with danced, plastic and musical figures.
The influence of James Lee Byars’s work, William Blake and Mario de Sa-Carneiro’s poetry is with me
today…..
Avant un mois… is a dreamlike wandering in a cinemascope format, a panoramic vision. »
Christian Rizzo
We feel very lonely with the scenes, always single, of our dreams. Lonely in them and lonely because
of them. On the one side they prevent us from repeating, from telling the others about their importance
for us, an importance we don’t understand ourselves; on the other side they leave us, by often leaving
only scraps of images which, we realise, are watching us, deeply touching us but which ultimate ins
and outs we will never know. The scenes of our dreams leave us alone, sometimes until we reach
despair, when we fail to bring them out of this mass of oblivion –our own sleep- in which we feel, yet,
that all our lucid life and our thought is brewing (…). What does it mean? That all our extreme images
of loneliness are the body by which we touch the community in its largest, most entire, most extreme
dimension: for example the community of things to ward off but which happen all the same and
agglutinate us in catastrophes, misfortune, worries without bounds. This might mean that all real
solitude is a partner solitude. That it collides with scenes, scraps and vestiges, with confusions,
displacements and ruins of history. The ultimate point of our imaginary solitude would be nothing else
than the ultimate point of our common situation of what takes the shape of destiny for us (…)
Think again about Shakespeare: all the world is a stage…. And think about the converse. The
converse is true, if the scene does not represent the world in a figurative drawing but in a rebus of
acts, intensities, calculations, paradoxes, disfigurements. Harsh scraps and sovereign vestiges.
Georges Didi-Huberman in « phasmes, essai sur l’apparition »1992
production : l’association fragile
coproductions : Création résidence Le Quartz / Scène Nationale de Brest - Maison des Arts et de la
Culture de Créteil - Le Manège / Maubeuge – DSN / Scène Nationale de Dieppe - Centre National de
la Danse
with the support of de la Fondation de France, de l’association Beaumarchais, du Ministère de la
Culture et de la Communication / DRAC Ile de France (aide à la création) / DICREAM-CNC.
Since 2007, l’association fragile / Christian Rizzo has been in residence at the Opéra de Lille.
press clips
‘‘The floor is strewn with high heels, masks, dwarves and other figurines, the ghostly presence of
asexual beings, indirect lighting effects by Caty Olive at the top of her game, as well as earsplitting
sounds by Gérôme Nox like an industrial – but not industrious – symphony. Rizzo throws everything
into this closed-off world and proceeds to confuse the issue with contrasts, absences, and shifts. Life
becomes inanimate, matter comes alive, and our usual notions are reversed. Out of this desolate
splendour he creates the setting for a waking dream. Reaching back for a comparable conjuring trick,
one is reminded of William Forsythe’s deconstructions (and that’s quite a compliment!). Coming back
to the stage, entirely white and strewn with balls (presumably a tribute to James Lee Byars), you are
transfixed and full of admiration. Christian Rizzo has finally let go of the excess references in his
previous pieces and arrived at the essence, offering the gift of beauty.’’
Philippe Noisette, Les Inrockuptibles – 26 March 2003
‘‘The stage is transformed into a kind of room with a view onto the subconscious peopled by
mythological creatures – demigods with horse or bird heads, headless bodies, bizarre Janus figures,
and funny but disturbing drag artists. The choreography is like an ongoing metamorphosis, an
enchanting kaleidoscope that surreptitiously establishes a grandiose world. The passage from one
attitude to another is nearly imperceptible, with striking accelerations that further disturb our visual
perceptions and images of the body. The silence onstage at the end of the show is so total that it feels
like you have seen a new genre called body opera. And traditional choreography suddenly seems very
old-fashioned!’’
Agnès Izrine, Danser – January 2003
Christian Rizzo goes his own sweet way
‘‘This refined rock comedy raises certain questions. Since it isn’t trying to be a typical dance
performance, does it really belong on a stage rather than being shown in a shorter form in a gallery,
studio or outdoor venue? Definitely. Why is this kind of protean project always accompanied by dance
or other related forms? Probably because dance doesn’t deny itself these least identifiable forms. It’s
heartening to see Christian Rizzo’s dreamlike landscapes finding their place in today’s theatre world,
because he opens up and sculpts space while paring it into an act of contemplation.’’
Marie-Christine Vernay, Libération – 14 November 2002
Models in the Window
‘‘This time Rizzo has designed the stage like an installation. The visual effect of motionless bodies
seems to be a reference to a current hyperrealist form of sculpture that can be used effectively in
many different situations, but here the hyperrealist poses oscillate between truth and error since they
involve living bodies. The hoods might suggest a sadomasochistic ritual. This is a young man who
knows how to portray his times with the right dose of convincing madness. He stuffs the stage with
masses of clues, with the skill and cunning of a detective novelist. As a ‘writer for the stage’ Christian
Rizzo seems to have taken the perspective of things. His dancers are no more important than objects
– a skull, a motorcycle helmet, a bouquet of flowers in a vase, a stuffed crow, high-heel shoes – a
whole range of cold objects meant to signify death and eroticism, kept at a distance from the bodies
standing in front of them that are wading through a stream of white plastic balls.’’
Muriel Steinmetz, l’Humanité Hebdo – 12 October 2002
schedule
2003
may 7
march 18
march 12
Théâtre de la Cité – Toulouse – France
DSN, Dieppe Scène nationale / festival « Visu » – Dieppe – France
Espace des Arts – Chalon sur Saône – France
2002
november 19
november 13 – 16
november 9 & 10
october 2 – 4
le Manège, scène nationale – Maubeuge – France
la MAC, maison des arts et de la Culture de Créteil – France
Theatre Muffathalle / festival Dance 2002 – Munich – Germany
Le Quartz, scène nationale – Brest – France
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Contact
catherine meneret
l’association fragile / christian rizzo
9, rue de la pierre levée
75 011 Paris
tel : +33 (0)1 48 00 83 59
[email protected]
www.lassociationfragile.com
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