Jeanne Mordoj

• France

• Interpreter
• Stage director

As both writer and performer, she exists somewhere on the fringes of theatre, cabaret and circus arts, trampling gleefully over ideas of decency and reasonable behaviour, always following her instinct. On stage she exploits the expressive potential of every part of her body, from her toes to the tips of her fingers – drawing on her past experience as a contortionist to manipulate objects and raw materials, using her juggling expertise to breathe new life into archaic forms.
This carnal presence is troubling, unsettling. In her work, astonishment feeds the imagination and the bizarre paves the way for a poetic vision of her most intimate identity: deep down, are there more than one of her?
In her most recent solo shows, Jeanne Mordoj has developed a thoroughly contemporary take on the circus tradition, constantly seeking to unlock the fundamental strangeness at the heart of the human condition.
In Éloge du Poil (2007), La Poème (2012), La Fresque (2015) and L'Errance est humaine (2018), a female character abandons the patina of appearances and gives unashamed, unbridled expression to her exuberant, untamed vitality. The protagonists of these creations – a bearded woman, a hen-woman and a super-clairvoyant artist – are phenomenal portraits of liberty, generosity, wild energy and unselfconscious profundity.
Strange yet familiar, enigmatic yet oh so close.