After a four-year hiatus, RIOULT Dance NY is making a triumphant return to the stage with a weekend of performances at Queens Theatre in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park on March 8 and 9.
For renowned choreographer Pascal Rioult, the comeback is more than just a performance—it’s a full-circle moment. Queens Theatre was one of the first venues to showcase RIOULT Dance NY over two decades ago, and now, it serves as the setting for the company’s long-awaited revival. The performances also mark a poignant homecoming to Queens after Rioult’s Astoria studio closed and the company was forced to pause productions in May 2021 due to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a Phoenix kind of story, coming back from the ashes in Queens, which is interesting,” said Rioult. “We “burned down” there, and now we’re coming back. It’s exciting and terrifying at the same time, but that’s exactly what dance and art are about, a mix of excitement and fight-that’s how we live as artists.”
RIOULT Dance was founded in 1994 by Rioult, who was born in Normandy, France, and came to NYC in 1981 after earning a fellowship to study dance from the French Ministry of Culture. After making a name for himself as a performer, including working alongside the likes of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Joyce Herring, in 1989, he started choreographing his own pieces and produced concerts until he decided to start his own company with his own choreographic style. RIOULT Dance has performed throughout the United States and overseas in Europe for over two decades.
In 2018, Rioult opened the Rioult Dance Center in Astoria to give his company their own space to practice and offer dance classes of many different genres to people in the community. When it closed in 2021, the state of Rioult’s company and future was left hanging in the air. Some of the dancers in the company who had been working with Rioult for many years had to go elsewhere to find work, and pandemic-related restrictions and uncertainty lingered on, leaving many to wonder when life would finally resume back to normal. RIOULT Dance NY is comprised of 10 dancers, half of those who remained from the original company and some new dancers who joined the fray. The group had their first performance before the pandemic in France in March 2024, but their performance at Queens Theatre will not only be the first time they perform in Queens in four years but in the U.S. in general.
“This is going to be our first time in the U.S. and the first time certainly in New York, which is just great,” said Rioult. “And [Queens Theatre] has a special place in my heart. I have always loved being there, and we’re always very well treated.”
The production being performed at Queens Theatre in March will include three pieces, including “Views of the Fleeting World,” which was inspired by woodcut prints by Hiroshige, a highly regarded Japanese artist. This is followed by “Wien,” which means Vienna, portraying the darker parts of society inspired by WW2 and the effect of such atrocities on the world, before changing over to a lighter theme with “Fire in The Sky,” which is a new piece of work which is very different from the rest of Rioult’s pieces and simply expresses his love for dance going back to the days of dance clubs and disco.
“The first piece is basically a poetic journey,” said Rioult. “It’s very beautiful visually, and it’s subtle. The idea is, “What does one remember at the end of a life?” Probably just those fleeting moments, those little memories. The next piece, [Wien], is one of my most famous pieces; it’s very dark, very dramatic, and then to get rid of all of the bad, we’re closing with my first and only rock and roll piece, an homage to what we refer to as the disco days.”
The return performance has three show times available: starting on Saturday, March 8, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. (with audio description available) and a Sunday show on the 9th at 3 p.m. The production is bound to dazzle and make an impression on viewers even after they’ve left the theater, as Rioult adds layers of depth through music, movement, and mood for guests to make their own interpretation of his inspired work.
“To me, it’s very important to guide my audience in terms of composition so people can follow and kind of find their way, but not by telling them, “This is what this is about,” said Rioult. “So they have to bring their own emotion. We’d like them to be somehow transformed, even if it’s in a small way. When they leave, they have experienced something in them that’s changed.”
Tickets are now available for purchase online at QueensTheatre.org or by calling the Queens Theatre Box Office at (718) 760-0064. General admission tickets start at $32, while seniors and students can purchase discounted tickets starting at $29.
