Abstract
This chapter addresses the work of Phia Ménard, the founder of the theatre company Compagnie Non Nova, whose oeuvre continually raises questions about the experience of queer embodiment and performance. Following Judith Butler’s notion of gender, Lodi Rizzini focuses on the urgency and importance of continuing to rethink materiality and experience as theoretical and performative tools in the performing arts in France. The work of artist Phia Ménard, founder of theater company Cie Non Nova, stands out in the context of French theater and performance, both for her artistic research as well as her critical point of view relating to the subjects she investigates, in particular the transgender body and individuality. Within the “complicated” reception of queer theory in France, it is clear that transgender subjects are assigned the position of liminal subject in both academic theory and in French civil society. Despite the increasing attention transgender subjects have drawn in recent years, specifically in relation to the representation of the transgender in the mass-media, the fields of television, theater and performance are relatively poorly theorized with respect to queer theory.
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Notes
- 1.
The first and most famous cabaret artist as well activist in France is considered Coccinelle, who worked in the renowned Parisian cabaret Le Carrousel de Paris since the 1950s and 1960s. Coccinelle was an artist and activist for transsexual rights. She was the first French public figure to undergo a sex change assignment operation, in Morocco, in 1958. Le Carrousel de Paris became a famous place where she performed with others transvestites and transsexuals.
- 2.
Sociologist, journalist Didier Eribon was the promoter and organizer in 1997 at the Centre Pompidou of one of the first conference devoted to queer studies, Les Etudes gay et lesbiennes. For many years Didier Eribon was journalist for Libération and then moved to University of California, Berkeley from 1994. He is one of the most active promoter of queer studies in France. His book Réflexions sur la question gay is an international reconnainse.
- 3.
Fassin reminds us that’s why the gay and lesbian studies are still very rarely translated in most of their significant writers in France such as George Chauncey, Leo Bersani, David M. Halperin, Esther Newton or Ellen Lewin.
- 4.
The wedding of Bègles is a notorious civil case dated back 5st June 2004, when the mayor of Bègles married a homosexual couple. The Supreme Court didn’t recognize it because based on the French constitution, the institution of marriage is exclusively between a woman and a man.
- 5.
The art of modern circus appears notably from military field during the decade of 1790, invented by a military horsemen, the English Philip Astley, who has transposed into a circular space the exercise of the equestrian art.
- 6.
I.C.E is an ongoing project related to material and creation which includes the performance of the ice: 2008 P.P.P, 2009 Ice Man, 2010 Black Monodie; the performances of the wind L'après-midi d'un foehn, version 1 (2008) Vortex (2011) et Les Os Noirs (2017); performance of the water: Belle d’Hier (2015), and new projects: Comptes immoraux, partie 1 Maison Mère (2017) and latest performance Saison Sèche (2018).
- 7.
Conference EASTAP: Decentring the vision(s) of Europe: the Emergence of New Forms, Paris 25–27 October 2018. Intervew by Stefania Lodi Rizzini: Title of the Masterclass Pour l'Indiscipline des Corps.
- 8.
“La filosofa Beatriz Preciado”, Pienso, luego, existo, TVE (Online).
- 9.
Vortex is also related to the Aprés-midi d’un Foehn, which uses the same kind of puppets.
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Lodi Rizzini, S. (2021). The Undisciplined Body: Phia Ménard and Her Experience of Organic Performance. In: Rosenberg, T., D'Urso, S., Winget, A.R. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Queer and Trans Feminisms in Contemporary Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69555-2_5
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