Gisèle Vienne

Gisèle Vienne is a Franco-Austrian artist, choreographer and director. After graduating in Philosophy, she studied at the puppeteering school Ecole Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette. She works regularly with the writer Dennis Cooper, among others. Over the past 20 years, her work has toured in Europe and has regularly been performed in Asia and in America. Touring shows include: I Apologize (2004); Kindertotenlieder (2007); Jerk (2008); This is how you will disappear (2010); LAST SPRING: A Prequel (2011); The Ventriloquists’ Convention (2015), in collaboration with Puppentheater Halle; and Crowd (2017). In 2020, she created a fourth version of Showroomdummies at the Rohm Theater Kyoto with Etienne Bideau-Rey, originally created in 2001. In 2021, she made the film Jerk and created L’Étang, a show based on Robert Walser’s short story Der Teich.

Her photography and installations have been exhibited at the New York Whitney Museum, the Centre Pompidou Paris, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires and Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. She has published two books: JERK / Through Their Tears with Dennis Cooper, Peter Rehberg and Jonathan Capdevielle in 2011; and 40 PORTRAITS 2003-2008, in collaboration with Dennis Cooper and Pierre Dourthe in 2012. Her work has led to various publications, and the original music of her shows to several albums.

In 2021, the Festival d’Automne à Paris dedicated a portrait to her, presenting two new creations, four pieces from the repertoire, a new exhibition and the film Jerk.

She is currently working on her next creation which will premiere in August 2023 at the Ruhrtriennale.