Gisèle Vienne was born in 1976, and now lives and works in Grenoble and Paris. After graduating in philosophy, she studied at the puppeteering school Ecole Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette from 1996 to 1999. She’s a choreographer/director, performer and visual artist.
In 1999 Etienne Bideau-Rey and Gisèle Vienne founded the not-for-profit dance company De l’Autre Côté du Miroir (DACM), which has always aimed to contribute to the exchange between dance, puppeteering, theatre and other artistic media. They choreographed and staged “Splendid’s” by Jean Genet in 2000, “ShowRoomDummies” in 2001, “Stéréotypie” in 2003, and “Tranen Veinzen” in 2004. Together with Etienne Bideau-Rey, she has written two publications, “Corps/Objet – Sur le rapport du corps au corps artificial”, published by the Centre Chorégraphique National de Grenoble.
Since 2003, Gisèle Vienne has also developed her solo career as a director and a choreographer and she has staged “I Apologize” (2004) and “Une belle enfant blonde / A young, beautiful blond girl” (2005), “Kindertotenlieder” (2007) and “Jerk”, a radioplay in the framework of the atelier de création radiophonique of France Culture (June 2007) and the play “Jerk” (first production 2008). Gisèle Vienne has been awarded for the Villa Kujoyama grant for a 5 months residency in Kyoto during fall 2007. Currently, she’s preparing a new creation called “Eternelle Idole” (Prémiere 2009).
Dennis Cooper (USA)
Dennis Cooper was born in 1953 in the United States. He is an art critic, a poet, a writer and lives and works in Los Angeles and Paris. Cooper wrote stories and poems from early age but got serious about writing at 15 after reading Arthur Rimbaud and Marquis de Sade. He was expelled from the Flintridge Preparatory School for Boys in La Canada in the 11th grade, attended workshops by Ronald Koertge and Jerene Hewitt at Pasadena City College and studied with the poet Bert Meyers at Pitzer College in Claremont. While at Flintridge, he met his friend George Miles, who would become his muse and the subject of much of his future writing. In 1976, he founded Little Caesar Magazin, which he ran until 1982. In the Eighties, he lived in New York and Amsterdam, in 1990, he moved back to Los Angeles. He has published the following books: with P.O.L. publishing house “Closer” (1995), “Guide” (2000), “Try“ (2002), “Frisk” (2002), “Défait” (2003), “Period” (2004), “Dream Police” (2004), “Faits divers, violence et literature” (2004), “God Jr” (2006) and the last one “Sluts” (2007); with Serpent à plumes, “Wrong” (2002); and with Balland, “A l’écoute” (2001). Dennis Cooper's recent theatrical collaborations with Gisèle Vienne, beginning with the 2004 production, “I Apologize“ have been both wowing and dividing critics and audiences alike, all across Europe.
