Renaud Herbin

In this performance, I’d like to address the way our body is depicted. How does one see his/her own body, especially when it is undergoing changes? I’m interested in tackling the philosophical issue of metamorphosis identity. Metamorphosis has nothing to do with appearance and outside, but rather with a part of our unconscious being, the imaginary. Let us come up with an unfinished body and an intermediate language at the threshold of being human, plant, mineral or animal. — Renaud Herbin

Two young women dream of changing skin. They have a workbench, blocks of dirt and a few tools at their disposal, enabling them to start the experiment metamorphose themselves. Little by little we step into their phantasy an into the living paintings workshop, which is enriched by the universe of visual artist Gretel Weyer. Everything becomes tangible and an excuse to touch the longing for change, the fear of the unknown, the awe of what shows up, so many emotions and conditions to experience in this duo’s complicity. All the while making up a broken, imperfect and fragile language. In this game of depicting the modified bodies, the folds, the hidden or invisible places, every body cavity enables us to imagine imaginary, fragmented envelopes with unlikely contours. Does metamorphosis transform us into someone else or does it turn into what we ought to be?


RENAUD HERBIN is a puppeteer with a degree from the National School of Puppetry Arts Charleville-Mézières. He co-directed the company LàOù for a long time. He staged several plays with a strong visual and sound nature based on theatre and literary works, in some cases also featuring in them. He’s been the director of the Young Audience Theatre – National Drama Centre of Alsace-Strasbourg since 2012, where he carries out his work based on the relation between body, object and image, deconstructing material and puppet practices, and establishing a connection with choreography and visual arts. He collaborates with several artists, among which Aurélien Bory and Bérangère Vantusso.


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