Christian Rizzo - L'Association Fragile

Creating a strong performance from a state of vulnerability is the challenge that Christian Rizzo takes on in each new creation. In 'Le bénéfice du doute' he departs from the doubt that 'the promise of something new implies'. In this performance, this atypical choreographer and creator of dance pieces of high sculptural content makes subtle use of 'contact improvisation'. His choreography balances between tenderness and violence, between ritual killing and vitalism. Each of the seven dancers has a double in the form of a model of the same size. Dangling from a rope, they look like ghastly phantoms. The action (and fiction) starts while the house lights are still on and the buzz among the audience has not yet died down. The dancers lie down next to each other like anonymous, lifeless bodies in the morgue (an image reminiscent of the work of Maurizio Cattelan at the Palazzo Grassi in the 2011 Venice Biennale). Until the dance brings them to life... and reaches a climax in the final sequence when the show ends in a wild, mesmerizing circling dance. It is a moment of rare, raw beauty.