Christian Rizzo’s Une Maison reviewed by Christopher Walker

When I sat on the board of a London theatre, I was once told what to say after a disastrous first night. “The lighting was marvellous,” writes Christopher Walker.

This aptly came to mind at the UK premiere of Christian Rizzo’s Une Maison (a house) at Sadler’s Wells.

Billed as “a hybrid theatre piece in which performers enter into a dialogue with a suspended, mobile lighting structure.” I can indeed report that at least the lighting did not disappoint.

Christian Rizzo is no ordinary choreographer. He began his artistic career in a rock band in Toulouse, and went on to launch his own fashion brand.

This no doubt came in useful when he turned his hand to choreography, designing his own soundtracks and costumes.

He apparently maintains good contacts with the fashion and luxury brands worlds, and is much loved by the artistic elite of France.

In 1996, Rizzo founded The Fragile Association, and French opera, fashion and fine arts institutions have flocked to commission works. He has created over forty productions including Une Maison in 2019.

Rizzo says his work shows a particular fascination for living space and the “compelling exploration of the inscription of bodies in space.” I’m not sure that last phrase means anything. In English or French.

Explaining Une Maison Rizzo says, “There are houses that we happen upon, houses that we build, houses in which we host guests, and houses that we leave behind.” That’s as close as we get to a narrative in this piece.

The performance begins in silence, with a single figure in a white mask moving slowly round the stage. There’s very little actual dancing in Une Maison, but rather a lot of slow walking instead.

When the music does start. It’s a series of bangs and squeaks which are as disconcerting as possible. At one point it suggests industrial machinery, and I’m guessing the underlying theme in this work is the industrial world’s destruction of our planet. How our obsession with material goods has ended up ruining the Maison in which we all live. Get it?

Most notably, the performers interact with a wonderful, monumental, mobile structure of fluorescent lights. A modernist chandelier which hangs over the stage, and is the undoubted star of the show. Bravo to designer Yragaël Gervais.

As the music suggests industry, the modernist chandelier throbs and pulsates in response. At other moments it blares like the sun.

It is even capable of some movement, unfurling branches of light. Indeed one rather wishes it would itself dance.

On the negative side, the chandelier is the only source of light, and perhaps desiring not to be upstaged it frequently leaves the performers in virtual darkness.

Those pesky little dancers forgotten by choreographer and audience alike.

At least they are given some fun by a large pile of earth the chandelier introduces us to halfway through the show. Rizzo himself appears with a shovel and throws the earth across the stage, caught in the light as a colourful, ruddy, cascade. This would be a wonderful moment, if it wasn’t repeated ad nauseum by each of the dozen or so performers. It’s less amusing than watching children playing in a sandpit.

Van Cleef and Arpels have generously supported the Dance Reflections festival at Sadlers Wells, and a determination to showcase French choreography to a London audience.

Sadly, I have to say on this viewing, France seems way behind the UK. Contrast the complex and intelligent work of Matthew Bourne with this.

But at least “the lighting was marvellous.”

 

W https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/christian-rizzo-une-maison/