Émilie Rousset
Theatre director and film-maker Émilie Rousset explores concepts and forms of dramatic and performative writing. Her research centres on the specific vocabulary used by scientists and activists and its proximity to text and expression in the context of the theatre. Rousset employs documentary research and archive material to record the course of various real individuals’ trains of thought. She re-choreographs them and creates shows, installations and films in which performers recite individual words and text passages. This creates an overlapping of reality and fiction which is not a representation of the original but rather renders the original and its copy indistinguishable from each other.
After studying directing at the Théâtre National de Strasbourg, Rousset worked at the Comédie de Reims as an associated artist. In 2014, she developed the performative play “Les Spécialistes” together with Maya Boquet at Grand Palais, which is rewritten according to each respective performance context. She co-directed a series of short films with Louise Hémon: “Rituel 1: L’Anniversaire”, “Ritual 2: Le Vote”, “Rituel 3: Le Baptême de mer”, “Le dernier débat” as well as “Rituel 4: Le Grand Débat”, which is based on recordings of French presidential debates broadcast on television between 1974 and 2017. Her work “Rencontre avec Pierre Pica” was presented at the 2018 Festival d’Automne. It deals with research by linguist Pierre Pica on the linguistic characteristics of the Indigenous community of the Mundurukú in Brazil. Further collaborations with Louise Hémon and Maya Boquet followed.
She is currently the artistic director of the theatre company John Corporation.