The Body at the Center

September 15th was the first of four nights of a ballet featuring eight male dancers accompanied solely by two drummers for a 70 minute performance.  Curiosity about how this melange of 16 bare feet and two piles of percussion instruments could entertain an audience for over an hour is what drew some of us to REDCAT. We were not disappointed after the house lights went down and were soon transfixed by what we saw and heard. When the lights came back up, the two-minute standing ovation for the performers was enthusiastic and well-deserved.

The choreographer, director and designer of the production is Christian Rizzo, a man with a truly eclectic background. Born in France fifty-one years ago, Rizzo formed a rock band in Toulouse as a teenager, switched to fashion, started his own line of clothing, studied fine arts in Nice, began to design theatre sets and only gradually segued into choreography. Today, although not well-known in the U.S., Rizzo is in demand all over Europe—staging opera and exhibitions, teaching at various institutions and running his own company of artists. Two years ago, in The New York Times, Rizzo explained his evolution from stage design, music, lighting and visual arts into the world of dance:  "Putting the body at the center of everything was my great revelation." [Read more]