A man, in a black suit, in a room, a kind of box, with a chair. The space becomes, imperceptibly at first, gradually smaller and smaller. The man can still stand and counteract the pressure from outside. The box shrinks more and more, the man tries to adapt, squatting, later lying down. Like one of Kafka’s characters, he searches in vain for the way out.

Pierre Rigal’s solo “Press” premiered in 2008 and has enjoyed cult status ever since. It was shown all over France and at all the major festivals in Europe. The play is melancholic, highly suspenseful, funny and dramatic at the same time. Many signs of the times can be associated: Performance pressure, artificial intelligence, interaction between man and machine, surveillance. As a metaphor, the solo stands for life struggle, loneliness, but also for adaptability in society up to the expected-unexpected end …

Pierre Rigal was born in Moissac in the south of France in 1973. He studied mathematical economics in Toulouse and practiced athletics in parallel. He found dance at the age of 23 and worked with numerous choreographers, including Gilles Jobin. In 2003, he founded the Compagnie dernière minute in Toulouse, for which he created numerous pieces, including “Asphalte” (2009) and “Standards” (2012). For the Paris Opera, he created the children’s piece “Merveille” (“Miracle”, 2018). Pierre Rigal made his first guest appearance at euro-scene Leipzig in 2018 with “Scandale” (“Stumbling Traps,” 2017).