Christian Rizzo

Christian Rizzo took his first steps as an artist in Toulouse, where he started a rock band and created a line of clothing before studying visual arts at the Villa Arson in Nice. Serendipitous encounters led him to the stage. In the 1990s, he performed in Europe with numerous contemporary choreographers, sometimes responsible for their soundtracks or costume creation. In 1996, he created the “l’association fragile” and presented performances, installations, dance pieces, alternating with other commissions for opera, fashion, and visual arts. Since then, over forty productions have come to fruition. Christian Rizzo regularly teaches in art schools in France and abroad, as well as in institutions dedicated to contemporary dance. On January 1st, 2015 Christian Rizzo took over as the Director of the Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier – Occitanie, which has been renamed ICI (International Choreographic Institute). He supports a crosscutting vision of creation, training, artistic education and openness to the public. Based on various practices and territories, this project is primarily a forward-looking space dealing effectively with inviting artists, creating the choreographic gesture and studying the forms that it can take when shared. As a choreographer, visual artist or curator, Christian Rizzo relentlessly pursues the elasticity and tension between bodies and space in narratives where fiction emerges from abstraction.