Meticulously analytical movement posited as metaphysical questions is a hallmark of Pierre Rigal’s solos. When the dancer/choreographer made his local debut two years ago at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, he painstakingly charted the transition from horizontal to vertical movement. It was like a condensed history of evolution, with a coda that looked toward the future, as video effects turned his body into a living hologram.

Now he’s returning with Press, an hour-long solo that has him confined within a box-like space with a ceiling that gradually lowers. With a folding chair and a snaking, almost accusatory lamp as his only companions, Rigal seems to be trapped in the world’s most ominous office cubicle. Increasingly forced to limit his movement to sideways or contorted shapes, he is the ultimate creature at the mercy of his environment.

The tiny size of the stage at London’s Gate Theater, which commissioned Press last year, inspired Rigal to create his scenario. He chose his title because it is both a noun and a verb. He appears trapped within a press, but the hour-long solo also evokes the idea of pressure, compression and repression—and of a generally hostile, unforgiving environment. “Press is like a nightmare. It can be a little bit dark, and stressful,” Rigal recently said by phone from France. “The space getting smaller is a very physical problem, but it can also be a more mental, social or political problem. This character that I am portraying is trying to adapt himself to the new situation that the space is giving to him. Human beings can live in very small places, in some very extreme situations. The capacity of human beings is very big.”

For someone who once achieved considerable success as a competitive runner and hurdler, Rigal has certainly gone in the opposite direction; where he once strode freely through open space he now navigates confined areas with incremental precision. “When we run, we have the freedom of all the space. This is the opposite, there is no space. I had to work on a very precise thing, find ideas within these constraints. It’s strange to say, but it’s in the constraints that we can find a lot of freedom.”

Rigal worked in close collaboration with Nihil Bordures, who composed the subtly unnerving sound score, and Frédéric Stoll, who was responsible for set and lighting design. “There is a very close association between the movement and the lighting and the sound. All of these elements have to be very interactive. We had to work very closely together.”

Since its premiere on the tiny Gate stage, Rigal has been performing Press in theaters all over the world. He has taken it to Australia, Japan, Thailand, as well as France, Spain and Belgium, and it had a return London engagement in May of this year. He notes that the English and Australian audiences found more occasions for laughter within the solo’s rigorous intensity. “The first time I performed it in London, I was quite surprised by this reaction, but I loved it. I will curious to see if in the U.S. it will inspire the same reaction.”

Press

Sept. 10-12, Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 W. 37 St. (betw. 9th & 10th Aves.), 212-868-4444 or www.smarttix.com; Thurs. & Fri. 8, Sat. 2 & 8, $20.