Biography
Born in 1971, Phia Ménard trained in contemporary dance, mime and acting, and in particular studied juggling with Jérôme Thomas. In parallel, in 1997, she attended a course on dance practice. She founded Compagnie Non Nova with Claire Massonnet in 1998, its founding precept being: ”we invent nothing, we see it differently: Non nova, sed nove”. She came to attention as a choreographer with the solo Ascenseur (2001). She spent three seasons as an associate artist at the scène nationale Le Carré in Château-Gontier; with her own team and that of the host theatre, she developed stage work where juggling’s spectacular image was challenged in favour of a new relationship with the audience. This period gave rise to several new pieces and events such as Zapptime, rêve éveillé d'un zappeur; the performance lecture Jongleur pas confondre with sociologist Jean-Michel Guy; and the “Hors-Pistes” series including Est-il vraiment sérieux de jongler ? In 2005 and 2007, she developed work around the idea of “unjuggleability” and created two pieces (Zapptime#Remix and Doggy Bag) and two cabaret shows, Jules for ever and Touch It with the Frasques music sextet. In 2008, her artistic pathway took a fresh direction with the I.C.E. project (standing for “complementary unjuggleability of the elements”), which aimed to study imaginaries of transformation and erosion through natural materials. That same year, at Les Nouvelles Subsistances in Lyon, she created P.P.P., the first part of the Pièces de Glace cycle; and created the performance L’après-midi d’un foehn Version 1, the first in the Pièces du Vent series, at the Natural History Museum in Nantes. In 2009, she collaborated on Coyote Pizza, a project by the La Valise collective, staging the performance Iceman. In 2010, the 64th Avignon Festival and the SACD invited her to the Sujets à Vif sidebar: with sound poet Anne-James Chaton she created the performance Black Monodie, the second opus in the Pièces de Glace series. In October 2011, two further Pièces du Vent works were premiered: L’après-midi d’un foehn and VORTEX. Menard initiated In the Mood, a project on questions of gender and humour in Brussels at CIFAS (international centre for performing arts training) with philosopher Paul B. Preciado. In June 2015 she premiered Belle d’Hier at the Montpellier Danse festival. In 2017, she premiered Contes Immoraux - Partie 1: Maison Mère and Les Os Noirs. In 2018, she devised and staged Et in Arcadia Ego, an opera based on the music of Jean-Philippe Rameau, for the Opéra-Comique in Paris. She premiered Saison Sèche, a piece about violence against women co-written with Jean-Luc Beaujault, at the 2018 Avignon Festival. That year, she also devised No Way, a performance piece to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She also gave a talk at Unesco’s Art Lab for Human Rights and Dialog on 11 December. In 2019, she received the Prix Topor/SACD award for “the unexpected” for La vie dans tous les sens, and the Grand Prix du Jury at the 2019 Belgrade International Theater Festival. In 2020, she created the piece Fiction/Friction with drama students from the Théâtre National de Bretagne; and the final-year show by the 79th intake of drama students at ENSATT in Lyon, with the title “Democracy: how amusing”. In 2020, the French arts critics body awarded Phia Ménard the Prix de la Critique (dance/performance category). In 2021, she performed in Régine Chopinot’s A D-N and, in parallel, created La Trilogie des Contes Immoraux (pour Europe), which was staged at the Avignon Festival. The following year, she directed Les enfants terribles, adapted from Jean Cocteau’s play, at the Opéra de Rennes.