If you think you can guess what the ever-surprising
Lyon Opera Ballet has up its sleeve now, well…
It’s a vertical and horizontal trip through the air, a somersault
through space in which the future and past collide in a universe
populated by unnamable creatures. This is “Tricodex,”
a 90-minute passport through the magical, glittering forest of Philippe
Decouflé’s imagination that will be presented by Lyon
Opera Ballet during its 20th tour of North America, April 2–24.
Marking Decouflé’s first ballet for a company other
than his own, “Tricodex” is his third work inspired
by “Codex Serafinius: A Visual Encyclopedia of an Imaginary
Universe,” the fantastical compendium created in 1981 by Italian
artist and naturalist Luigi Serafini. In this 400-page scientific
treatise Serafini created huge “engravings in old-fashioned
colors of various types of microbes and crawling ferns.”
Decouflé’s own enchanted universe combines tableaux
of breathtaking beauty with witty aerial ballets. At one point,
a dancing bicyclist performs airborne feats eighteen feet above
the stage. Two ballerinas in bright blue tutus have a high time
defying gravity in a whimsical bungee-jumping duet. It is also a
world of animated sculpture in which trees hover in secret conversation
while a half-human male tree travels forward, magnetized by a red-headed
woman in an equally vibrant red costume. Watch for the hilarious
choreographic tableau that comments on the vanity of the male species
via cinematic, pictorial and sculptural references stretched to
their witty limits.
“Tricodex” features music by Sébastien Libolt
and Hugues de Courson. The extraordinary costumes are by Philippe
Guillotel, with lighting by Patrice Besombes. Jean Rabasse designed
the décor and Pierre-Jean Verbraeken is responsible for the
flying and object design. The films are by Dominique Willoughby.
Lyon Opera Ballet will begin its North American tour with performances
of “Tricodex” at the Power Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan
(April 2–3); the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater
in Washington, D.C. (April 8–10); the National Arts Centre
in Ottawa, Ontario (April 13); and the Performing Arts Center in
Purchase, NY (April 16–17; please see end of release for details).
The company concludes its tour of “Tricodex” at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, NY (April 20, 22–24).
Openly influenced by the circus, which he’s
loved since childhood, and the pioneering multi-media work of Alwin
Nikolais with whom he studied, Philippe Decouflé became internationally
renowned for his choreography for the opening and closing ceremonies
of the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France. Fifteen hundred performers
costumed as human snow-globes participated in a synchronized bungee-jumping
routine. Decouflé’s talent was recognized early on
when he received the prestigious Bagnolet prize for choreography
in 1983. Other choreographic awards quickly followed, as did numerous
prizes for his films.
Decouflé has created music videos
for groups such as New Order and Fine Young Cannibals as well as
television commercials for Dior and Polaroid, which received the
Lion d’Argent at Cannes in 1990. Decouflé’s “Shazam,”
performed by his own dance company, Compagnie DCA, was one of the
great hits of France Moves–the now legendary celebration of
French dance that took place in ten venues throughout New York City
in 2001. And this wizard, who wanted to be a clown as a child, recently
worked with 14 students in the Centre National des Arts du Cirque
to create “Cyrk 13,” which is currently touring Europe.
Given its commitment to imaginative and risk-taking repertoire,
it is fitting that the Lyon Opera Ballet, which has been directed
by Yorgos Loukos since 1990, would present a work by Decouflé.
The company first won the American heart in 1987 with its performances
of “Cendrillon,” Maguy Marin’s magical transformation
of the Cinderella story, and then again in 1996 when it opened the
Lincoln Center International Festival with its performance of Marin’s
equally imaginative reinvention of “Coppelia.” Creating
a blueprint for a contemporary ballet company, Lyon Opera Ballet
has acquired and commissioned works from some of the world’s
most innovative European choreographers including William Forsythe,
Jiri Kylian, Nacho Duato, Mathilde Monnier, Ohad Naharin and Angelin
Preljocaj, as well as some of America’s leading contemporary
artists such as Karole Armitage, Lucinda Childs, Stephen Petronio,
Trisha Brown, John Jasperse and Bill T. Jones, who served as the
company’s resident choreographer from 1994–1997.
As France’s most well traveled dance company, LOB’s
reputation is recognized worldwide. In 1995, it was named Opéra
National de Lyon, elevating it to the same level as the Opéra
National de Paris. That same year, the company performed as part
of the United Nations’ 50th Anniversary Celebration in San
Francisco. In 1999, it traveled to Moscow where it was the first
modern ballet troupe to perform at the historic Bolshoi Theater.
In addition to its April 16th performance of “Tricodex”
at the Performing Arts Center at SUNY Purchase in Purchase, NY,
the company will present a triple bill of contemporary classics
comprised of Russell Maliphant’s “Critical Mass,”
William Forsythe’s “Second Detail” and Jiri Kylian’s
“Symphony of Psalms” on April 17th.
###
The 2004 North American tour of Lyon Opera
Ballet is supported by A.F.A.A., Association Française d'Action
Artistique, Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the support of the
Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States.
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