Film UbuWebLa Ribot (b. 1963)
Laughing Hole (2006) La Ribot DistinguidaLa Ribot, performer, dancer, choreographer and visual artist, develops her first choreographic Works in Madrid in the 80’s. Together with Blanca Calvo she founds in 1986 « Bocanada Danza », one of the first independent contemporary dance companies in Spain. Her work is internationally acclaimed since the early 90’s, when La Ribot starts to produce the Distinguished Pieces – short solos presented in series. Solitary and long, this project brings her since 1993 to work on several media and to question the place of dance and of the dancer in the cultural and economic context of the arts. Put on sale and purchased by art collectors, the Distinguished Pieces, ephemeral Works of art, will be presented in 2003 under the title of Panoramix – a meta-performance which combines the 34 solos produced until than – at the Tate Modern in London, at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid and at the Centre Pompidou in Paris among others.
Established in London between 1997 and 2004, La Ribot consolidates her relationship with the visual arts and becomes a figurehead of Live Art. From England she organizes in Madrid “Desviaciones” (1997-2001), a festival which brings together most of the personalities that will influence the contemporary dance over the following years. She creates her first video Works like pa amb tomaquet (2000), Travelling (2003) or Despliegue (2001) which today is part of public collections (ARTIUM – Vitoria, MUSAC – Léon, Spain and FRAC Lorraine – Metz, France).
In 2004 La Ribot settles in Switzerland where she is invited to teach at the HEAD – Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design in Geneva. In collaboration with her colleagues she founds a new Department for the live arts – Art/Action – to which she dedicates until 2008. In parallel La Ribot continues her choreographic work and multiplies the projects and collaborations within her company. Several productions emerge of which 40 espontaneos (2004) a piece for 40 extras, Laughing Hole (2006) a 6 hours performance for 3 performers and one musician, Gustavia (2008) a duet signed and performed with Mathilde Monnier or llamame mariachi (2009).
She makes a series of single sequence shot videos and develops the idea of the body as camera operator – corps opératuer. In these Works the choreographer develops a system of points of view and deconstructs the perception of space and time going beyond the documentary relationship that film usually maintains with dance. Treintaycuatropiècesdistinguées&onestriptease (2007) and Mariachi 17 (2009) are the most recent examples of these series started at the beginning of 2000.
In the recent years, La Ribot diversifies her Work and creates Walk the Chair (2010), installation of 50 pyrographed chairs presented at the “Move: Choreographing you. Art and Dance since 1960’s” exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London. In 2011 she makes a new series of distinguished pieces, PARAdistinguidas, and breaks the initial protocol by multiplying the solos in a choral piece for 5 performers and 20 extras. In 2012 she produces a piece for the Ballet de Lorraine in Nancy: EEEXEEECUUUUTIOOOOONS!!!
La Ribot presented her work in various theatres and numerous museums, passing from Théâtre de la Ville and Festival d’Automne in Paris, from Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and from Festival Montpellier Danse to Art Unlimited / Art Basel in Switzerland, Museo Serralves in Porto, S.M.A.K. in Gent, Nam Jun Paik Art Centre in Seoul, Aichi Triennale in Japan, Galeria Soledad Lorenzo in Madrid or to the Haus der Kunst in Munich. In 2012 MUAC – Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico inaugurated a new exhibition space dedicated to Live Art by presenting a significant exhibition on La Ribot.