French May 2022 – Christian Rizzo’s Carte Blanche at Freespace

French choreographer, visual artist and curator Christian Rizzo is back to West Kowloon’s Freespace this May, at the invitation of the French May Arts Festival, for a Carte Blanche creation, encompassing films, dance and installation. If, in 2019, Rizzo did the opening of the Freespace with one of his most famous pieces, From a True Story, this year’s programme will present an adaptation of some of his iconic collaborations, as well as an unprecedented “pop-up dance performance” by five Hong Kong talents.

In the special context of the Covid-19 pandemic, Rizzo decided to present three different works that talk about “space”, “absence” (since all the work was only done through online communications), and the richness of collaborations. The three programmes will take over different areas of the Freespace and invite the spectators to move to discover the pieces at their own rhythm.

en son lieu ©Marc Domage

The first are a series of two films. TTT : tourcoing-taipei-tokyo (2009 – 2011), co-produced with visual artist Iuan-Hau Chiang, is a minimalist triptych that explores the relationships between body, motion and space through the use of motion-capture and hybrid reality technologies. Bouquet final (2020) is based on a solo piece he choreographed for dancer Nicolas Fayol during lockdown: as the show could not be presented, Rizzo decided to ask cineast Sophie Laly to create a piece of film to materialise the choreography, and add another layer of perspectives. 

©Caty Olive

The second is Rizzo’s iconic installation 100% polyester, objet dansant n°57 . Created twenty three years ago in collaboration with Caty Olive, the piece is made of two floating dresses dancing together. “Dancing ghosts”, they materialise the artist’s absence, traveling where he cannot, in his place.

Last but not least, Rizzo collaborated with five home-grown artists to develop a series of pop-up dance performances across the different areas of Freespace. “I wanted to give back my carte blanche to Hong Kong dancers, creating a platform for another collaboration and a unique piece, instead of bringing an existing work” shared Christian Rizzo. “I wanted it to be open onto the community, not closed on myself”.

Selected by Rizzo, the five artists – Chan Wai-lok, Joseph Lee, Carman Li Ka-man, Wong Pik-kei and Yang Hao – have been tasked to develop a singular solo piece from the same protocol and the theme of “space and absence”. The five ten-minute performances will then take over Freespace, dialoguing with each other. “Each of the dancers is engaged in a specific personal journey. I want the work to embody this aspect, to be spontaneous, not a linear piece. It will be developed over a series of online workshop and exchanges.”

Sharing about this specific experience, Rizzo touched on the question of “remote working” which has been dominant during the pandemic: “All the idea of dance is a body-contact. You need to feel the partner, to interact physically. Dancing, it’s slowing down the flux of images, not accelerating it. So it’s extremely difficult and frustrating not to be able to work physically with the dancers. If the technology brings more creative tools and innovation, it would be a format to explore. But as of now, we need to keep it contextual and rare.”

@French May

Fortunately, Hong Kong audience will be able to physically experience the performances, together with the films and the installation, from 31 May to 5 June at WKCD’s Freespace, as part of French May Art Festival!

The Programme is co-presented with Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.

All details and reservation link can be found here: Carte Blanche to Christian Rizzo