The total circus of Raphaëlle Boitel

Dance, circus, but also theatre, the choreographer and circus artist Raphaëlle Boitel has crossed the arts since her beginnings with the creation of her company

The Forgotten at the age of 27. The identity of this company is defined by a work of six hands, between the staging of Raphaëlle Boitel, the music of Arthur Bison and the scenography of Tristan Baudouin: “I am a body musician. When we say circus, dance, theater and music, it is the same art.”

In his last show

The Fall of Angelscurrently at the Rond-Point theater in Paris until December 31, then on tour in France, she summons seven angels fallen from heaven, in a dark future ruled by machines, all deprived of speech, but where music composed by Arthur Bison guides their steps.

“I love music. In my show “La Chute des anges”, the work of composer Arthur Bison merges completely with the show. La Chute des anges comes from this worry I had about the state of the world, while this show was created before the health crisis, and I have the impression that I sensed something that was going to happen. I needed to talk about this world that is going too fast, of these human beings who are in perdition, who are dehumanized little by little and of this technology which allows us many things and also crushes us. You might think that it is dark, but it is very bright, because I am an optimist.” Raphaelle Boitel

Luminous dystopias to question human nature

This show is a poetic dystopia, scenographed by Tristan Baudouin, choreographed and directed by Raphaëlle Boitel, speaks of the future in the present, of the surveillance society, and of freedom of expression. There are references to the cinema of Wim Wenders, Stanley Kubrick, but also to German expressionism. Conscious references in the mind of Raphaëlle Boitel: “I like to speak from the body, the body gives a lot of emotions, but then there are a lot of inspirations: these great machines, these great demiurges who direct this micro-society, these machines are mechanical arms which illuminate the characters. They are part of the ballet. These machines are really a reference to 1984 by George Orwell, to Big Brothers and the GAFA, which represent this whole world of surveillance in which we are more and more and which worries me a little.“

Since her beginnings, Raphëlle Boitel has placed herself at the crossroads of the arts. Trained at the Académie Fratellini in Paris at the age of 8, she made a decisive encounter with the filmmaker Colline Serreau on the set of the film Beautiful green At the age of 12. She made another decisive encounter there, that of James Thiérée, with whom she would then play for years, before forming her own company. The Forgotten in 2012 : “I like virtuosity, but I never make a movement for a movement, this movement has to be full, either filled, or nourished with meaning. I always look for the meaning in all the shows, I need to say things, to evoke. It will never be a free movement.“

Raphaëlle Boitel navigates in the middle of the arts, even choreographing operas, such as Alcione, by Marin Marais at the Opéra Comique or Macbeth at La Scala in Milan, a register that she wishes to pursue within a creative project with the Philharmonie de Paris still kept secret for the year 2023. To be continued…

Shows by Raphaëlle Boitel on tour

Musical programming

• Max Richter, Vivaldi, Summer 3 – for violin and chamber orchestra, dir. by Gianna Fratta with Dino De Palma (Violin) and the Concerto Mediterraneo, album Sixteen seasons (2022)
• Arthur Bison, Crystal Lips, original composition for the show The Fall of Angelsby Raphaëlle Boitel
• Archive: Coline Serreau on the show Within reach of wordsby François Castang, September 12, 2005 on France Musique
• Excerpt from the opera Alcioneby Marin Marais, directed by Louise Moaty, and conducted by Jordi Savall in May 2017 at the Opéra Comique in Paris
• Song Daisy Bell (1896) sung by Gerald Adams