Phia Ménard

Phia Ménard is the artistic director and a performer of the Non Nova company, which she founded in 1998, out of a desire to offer a different perspective on juggling and how it is treated on stage and dramaturgically. “Non nova, sed nove” ("We don't invent anything, we just see it differently") is one of the company’s founding principles. In 2008, she initiated a research process entitled I.C.E., standing for “Complementary Injugglability of the Elements”, which consists of a creative, intellectual and imaginative approach to the idea of the transformation, erosion or sublimation of natural materials such as ice, water, wind and so on, and their interactions with human, physical or mental behaviour. Several cycles have been initiated since 2008: the “Ice” pieces: P.P.P., ICE MAN and Black Monodie; the “Wind” pieces: L'après-midi d'un foehn version 1, L'après-midi d'un foehn, VORTEX, Les Os Noirs; the “Water and Steam” pieces: Belle d'Hier, Saison Sèche; and the “Sublimation” pieces: No Way and La Trilogie des Contes Immoraux (pour Europe).

“Since the beginning of the globalised epidemic of Covid, new injunctions have upset the order of relations between individuals. Spaces have been relegated to the notion of distance between individuals, gestures have become barriers, fluid and secretion have become contaminating agents. A new grammar has been born and with it a different way of understanding oneself. Am I a danger to others? Am I in danger?... I invite you to question the rituals of these emerging grammars, to make them both necessary and performative, that is to say intimate.” Phia Ménard

Accessibility and additional information in the file to download.