Jeanne Mordoj starts training as a circus artist at age 13. Today, she “manipulates objects”. She has worked in partnership with Vincent Filliozat (founding member of the Cirque Plume) and Bertrand Boss for "Trio Maracassé”, Jérôme Thomas (“Le banquet”), and Cahin-Caha (“Grimm”). Her singular shows, “3 p’tits sous” and “Chez moi” (outdoor play for one woman and her caravan) have been performed both in France and abroad.
Pierre Meunier was born in Paris in 1957. He has trained with Pierre Etaix, Emilie Letendre, Clémence Massart, Philippe Caubère, and Amy Lavietes. He has worked with the Nouveau Cirque de Paris with Pierre Etaix and Annie Fratellini, acted as the Master of Ceremony for Zingaro, acted for the Théâtre de l'Unité, directed and sung for Amy Lavietes’s Voices workshop, invented Léopold von Fliegenstein at the Volière Dromesko, acted under Matthias Langhoff, written a libretto and performed for Philippe Nahon on a soundtrack by Giovanna Marini. He has also acted for François Tanguy, Isabelle Tanguy, Joël Pommerat, and Jean-Paul Wenzel. Finally, he has written “L'homme de plein vent” and “Le Chant du Ressort” (both of which he also plays, with Hervé Pierre and Isabelle Tanguy respectively), and directed two short films: “Hopla” in 1999, and “Hardi” in 2000.
Here, the bearded woman represents femininity at its most mysterious, repulsive and appealing at the same time, a form of independence that cannot be controlled or labelled.
She uses a masculine attribute, the beard, on her own female body. She can do and say anything she wants, because she is outside conventions, and brings back the past: madness or extreme lucidity? She praises the hair (see title), the uselessness, and the wild. She joyously resuscitates or gives life to dead things, animal skulls, empty shells, egg yolks, and discarded objects. It could be a vision of extremes, with on one side a ventriloquist discussion between a ram skull, a badger skull and a bearded woman’s head, all three of them placed on a table, without their bodies (...)” Jeanne Mordoj_
Artistic Director, First Production and Acting: Jeanne Mordoj
Directed by Pierre Meunier
Stage Design by Bernard Revel
Lighting by Bernard Revel
Soundtrack & Sound Environment:
Bertrand Boss
Props and Stage Design: Mathieu Delangle
Costumes by Stéphane Thomas
Distribution: Camille Mathieu
With the help of DMDTS, DRAC and Conseil Régional de Franche-Comté, and Conseil Général du Doubs.
Residence and co-production: Les Subsistances / Lyon / France, “Quelques p’Arts… le SOAR” – Scène Rhône-Alpes.
Coproduced by La Brèche, Centre des Arts du Cirque de Basse-Normandie à Cherbourg - Parc de La Villette à Paris -Théâtre de l'Espace, scène nationale de Besançon - Le Merlan, scène nationale à Marseille.
And the support of: Pronomade(s) en Haute-Garonne.
Help with the residence: Les Migrateurs - associates for Arts du Cirque / le-Maillon Théâtre de Strasbourg.
Residence provided by: La vache qui rue – Moirans en Montagne.
Jeanne Mordoj was awarded a grant for the programme “Villa Médicis Hors les Murs” - AFAA in 2006
Application pending
