DOMINER
This “Poésie plate-forme” session presents a meeting and dialogue between Catherine Robbe-Grillet, Beverly Charpentier and Thibaud Croisy, as a way of establishing parallels between their singular adventures as well as their strong esthetic (and ethical) engagements, which combine transgression with the principle of delicacy.
The starting point is the recent show by writer and stage director Thibaud Croisy, entitled Témoignage d’un homme qui n’avait pas envie d’en castrer un autre (Testimony of a Man Who Had No Desire to Castrate Another), exploring the practices of sadomasochism, a world in which Catherine Robbe-Grillet and Beverly Charpentier—both masters of ceremony—are authors, stage directors and muses.
Those exchanges, practices and sensual or amorous pacts, in which words very often prove to be vital, can provide access to meaningful, imaginary spaces, and offer the possibility of an ever-mobile reflection on the circulation of desire and the artistic or non-artistic forms it can assume.
Catherine Robbe-Grillet
Catherine Robbe-Grillet is the most renowned S&M master in France. Initiated by novelist and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet, whom she married in 1957, she pursues an approach that is both public and private, in which erotic games are part of a world view and practice.
She has written books and stories, initially under the name Jean, then Jeanne de Berg, including: L’image, Minuit, 1956; Cérémonies de femmes, Grasset, 1985; Le petit carnet perdu, Fayard, 2007. Under her own name she wrote Entretien avec Jeanne de Berg, Les Impressions Nouvelles, 2002; Jeune mariée : journal, 1957-1962, Fayard, 2004; Alain, Fayard, 2012. As an actress and film-set photographer, she took part in many of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s film shoots, from L’Immortelle to Successive Slidings of Pleasure. More recently, she was the focus of two films by Lina Mannheimer, The Contract and The Ceremony.
Her activities in recent years—often involving collaboration (for example, with writer Dennis Cooper, which whom she wrote and performed the play A Young, Beautiful Blonde Girl)—have assumed the form of organized moments, but she also stages more impromptu situations. After La Chasse, in Istanbul she staged Dîner Noir, which subsequently became a short film. She went on tour with Beverly Charpentier in China, South Africa and France performing Savannah Bay by Marguerite Duras. Her most recent collective performance is called Les Impénitentes.
Beverly Charpentier
Beverly Charpentier started working on stage as a professional actress at the age of 5. She wrote her first radio play at the age of 19. For the Acte de Metz festival, she wrote Le Quart d’Heure de Rabelais, her first play in French. But it is primarily as an actress that she has worked around the world, in England, France, Mexico, South Africa, Romania and China. With Catherine Robbe-Grillet, she appeared in Le Dîner Noir in Istanbul, as well as in Lina Mannheimer’s films The Contract and The Ceremony. She directed and performed in the play Savannah Bay by Marguerite Duras, and recently contributed to staging Les Impénitentes in the context of the Centre Pompidou’s Extra! festival.
Thibaud Croisy
Thibaud Croisy is an author and stage director. In recent years, he has created various incisive and masterly performances and theatrical objects: Je pensais vierge mais en fait non, 2010; Soustraction du monde, 2012; Gymnase nihiliste, 2013; Rencontre avec le public, 2013; 4 rêves non-censurés enprésence de Fleur Pellerin, 2015; Pierre Bellemare, une histoire extraordinaire, 2016; Témoignage d’un homme qui n’avait pas envie d’en castrer un autre, 2016; La prophétie des Lilas, 2017. His work has been presented at the Ménagerie de Verre, the Théâtre Paris-Villette, the Théâtre de Vanves, the Studio-Théâtre de Vitry, the Théâtre de Gennevilliers, the Centre d’art contemporain de Brétigny, as well as in numerous festivals. He also works as a playwright and actor, and regularly publishes texts in magazines and collective books. He is particularly interested in the Argentinian cartoonist Copi (see, for example, the catalogue Contre-cultures 1969-1989 : l’esprit français, La Maison Rouge/La Découverte). In the press he also publishes analysis and commentary on cultural policy.
