b.c, janvier 1545, fontainebleau

For “b.c, janvier 1545, fontainebleau.”, Christian Rizzo has reunited with his favorite cohorts, Caty Olive who creates the lighting environment of the piece, and Gerome Nox who creates its sound score – all focusing on a singular project. The choreographer also reprises his talent as a model maker, creating a specific universe, shaped, custom-fit to Julie Guibert, a classical dancer he met at the Lyon Opéra Ballet when he created ni fleurs, ni ford mustang there in 2004. Ms. Guibert has danced with many companies, ranging from the Ballet du Nord to the Ballet Cullberg, where she worked for several years, and more recently the companies of Russell Maliphant and Yves-Noël Genod. She has experienced the creative universes of many different choreographers, among them Maguy Marin, Trisha Brown, William Forsythe, Mats Ek and Philippe Decouflé. Rizzo is both fascinated by what he calls her “incredible intelligence onstage,” and inspired by her personality. He decided to continue working on the connection he felt to Ms. Guibert in creating this solo, in which he asks himself, “how do we look at a woman alone on stage, outside her own community?” He imagines a dance projected into space, nocturnal, carved by the lighting to “delve into the idea of slowness, shaping the calligraphic dimension of the movement.” In the background we intuit the questions revealed by these enigmatic images, of the links between memory and vision, of the ritual dimension of performance, and what it means to write, to create for another person.

Irène Filiberti