Pierre Rigal
A former sportsman and music video director, this French choreographer is known for his unusual moves
Pierre Rigal took an unconventional path to the performing arts, studying mathematical economics at university before switching to cinematography, and then working as a director of documentaries and music videos. He was also a sprinter, specialising in the 400m and 400m steeplechase. Eventually he thought the sport was asking too much of him. ‘I used to anticipate pain at the starting blocks,’ he says. ‘For me, sports are to enjoy.’
The shift from track to stage began when he was 23, when he saw a contemporary dance performance by Felix Ruckert. ‘What a revelation! I didn’t even know of the existence of this form of art,’ says Rigal. It inspired him to start dance and theatre courses. ‘Though I secretly wanted to become a dancer, I didn’t dare to talk about my ambition. One should start dancing at a young age. I was too old,’ Rigal recalls.
And yet, a few years later, he was recruited for a production of a piece by Gilles Jobin. ‘It was supposed to be temporary, but I loved the experience too much to leave the stage.’ With his 30th birthday now drawing near, Rigal felt it was now or never, and created his own dance company, called Dernière Minute. His first piece, in 2003, was titled Érection, 2003. ‘It does not illustrate the word’s most famous meaning, although it shows a male struggling to stand upright,’ says Rigal.
Three years later, he created Arrêts de Jeu (game over), his first collective piece. Its staging involved multiple projections, hinting at his affinity for visual arts, while its slowmotion choreography reflected an acute knowledge of anatomy.
When Rigal puts several dancers together, individual bodies vanish into one single moving sculpture. ‘First I invent movement for individuals, then for several dancers. And it develops into different groups within a group to create a sequence. Group dance is like life itself. Each individual is autonomous, with their own personality and way of thinking. But they are immersed in a bigger group, which we call society. And so simple aspects take on more profound dimensions.’
Rigal draws inspiration from varied fields of study, including mathematics: ‘It is fairly abstract and poetic. An equation is an abstraction of phenomenon,’ he explains. He also has an interest in language, as reflected in the snappy titles of his pieces, such as Merveille (wonder), Scandale (scandal), Même (same) or Micro. Salut, one of his most conceptual pieces, presented at Paris’ Opéra Garnier in 2015, is named after the French word for both a casual greeting, and the act of taking a bow at the end of a show. Riffing on this association, the performance of Salut starts with bowing and recorded applause. ‘A title is almost a scenario, a dramaturgy, something which allows me to visualise a scene from emptiness,’ he explains.
Above left, a scene from Rigal’s Théâtre des Opérations, 2012
Above right, a portrait of the choreographer, by Hussein Chalayan Right now, Rigal is putting the finishing touches to a new piece called Public, which debuts in March 2020 in Bobigny, outside Paris. It’s a ‘participative’ piece, in which an audience member will be invited to play the lead role. Another forthcoming project for Mainz State Theatre in Germany, Welcome
Everybody, displays a similar wit; the idea is to introduce both cast and crew throughout the performance. Rigal is tight-lipped on the details of these two pieces, but alludes to a new chapter of ‘physical challenges’. All still in the name of leisure, of course. * pierrerigal.net
Hussein Chalayan: What was the nearest moment where urban space became a bodily place? Pierre Rigal: When I finally felt like a fish in water in the urban environment, and whenever I discover a culture through my body during performance in a city away from home.