French artiste Christian Rizzo has returned to Taipei and the National Theater for the third program in this year’s Taiwan International Festival of Arts line-up.
The festival got off to a rousing start with last weekend’s sublime Lover (愛人), U-Theatre’s (優人神鼓) collaboration with German composer Christian Jost and the Rundfunkchor Berlin, which set the bar high for the rest of the festival programs, with expectations high for tonight’s sold-out performance by the National Symphony Orchestra’s (國家交響樂團) of Mahler’s Sensational Sixth.
Rizzo has a strong track record in Taipei, with residencies at the Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村) in 2006 and 2007, and two shows in the Experimental Theatre: How to say “Here”? for Dance Forum Taipei (舞蹈空間) in 2008 and b.c, janvier 1545, Fontainebleau, which was part of the National Theater Concert Hall’s Dancing into Autumn series in October 2012.
Photos courtesy of Marc Domage
The 41-year-old is something of a Renaissance man, having studied visual art in Nice, before taking a turn as a rock musician in Toulouse and starting a clothing line and then moving into the world of dance and art installation. He established his dance company, l’association fragile, in 1996 with the aim of exploring dance, fashion and visual art — and pretty much everything in between.
This visit sees one of Rizzo’s creations on the main stage of the National Theater for the first time — d’apres une histoire vraie (“based on a true story”). There will be just two performances, on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
The 2013 work, which premiered at the Festival d’Avignon, was inspired by a visit to Istanbul in 2004, where at the end of a show he attended, a group of men suddenly jumped onto the stage, performed a folk dance and then left.
Performed by eight men, accompanied by percussionists Didier Ambact and King Q4, d’apres une histoire vraie weaves together elements of traditional male-only folk dances from Turkey, Greece and the Middle East even as it deconstructs them. The work features repetitive looping and swirling, the friendly comraderie of the dancers contrasting with the sometimes agressive drumming of the two musicians.
Like many of Rizzo’s creations, the show has drawn mixed reviews — with viewers divided by a willingness to let him develop his ideas at his own pace or frustrated and bored by his unwillingness to provide easy answers. However, having seen How to say “Here”? and b.c, janvier 1545, Fontainebleau, d’apres une histoire vraie is probably worth taking a chance on.
The show runs about 70 minutes. There will be a pre-show talk beginning 30 minutes before each show in the lobby of the National Theater and a post-show discussion on Sunday.
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