Raphaëlle Boitel is a well-known circus artist with an impressive CV.

She started her career at the age of 13 and has toured with international artists like James Thierrée on his productions The Junebug Symphony (La Symphonie du Hanneton) and in La Veillée des Abysses. She has also presented her work at David Lynch’s club, The Silencio, Paris. Most recently, she worked with Company 111 for Aurélien Bory’s new piece Géométrie de Caoutchouc, and choreographed Macbeth for La Scala Milan alongside Gorgio Barberio Corsetti.

The Forgotten/L’Oublié(e) was her first large scale show as a director, followed by Uproar 5 / 5èmes Hurlants. In her work as a director, the tragic and the comic are summoned in a metaphorical way. And the creation of new apparatus, particularly in the field of aerials, renews the traditional disciplines.

Crying Out Loud and Raphaëlle Boitel

Crying Out Loud first worked with Raphaëlle when aged 14, she performed with James Thierrée as a contortionist, dancer and aerialist touring in the UK, USA and Mexico.  As a performer we’ve always been drawn to her compelling stage presence and extraordinary fluid body movement. Raphaëlle has a beautiful wild animal quality that flies far beyond the conventional genre of aerial dance and has matured into a burgeoning director with a distinctive visual style and a dramatic spatial sense. Her storytelling and ability to transform space in the air to the ground with large scale illusions and bodies streaming across the stage is magical.

We programmed Raphaëlle in an evening of contemporary contortion as part of Circus Front, the forerunner of CircusFest at London’s Roundhouse. In 2012 Raphaëlle was the choreographer for Macbeth at La Scala in Milan and Rachel introduced her to Daniel Gonçalves and Ana Perez graduates from Circus Space and Eric Mitchell, a contemporary dancer and acrobat all of whom performed in the chorus. Since then Raphaëlle has been working across Europe putting together her own company and creating her first show as a director, The Forgotten/L’Oublié(e). We presented The Forgotten/L’Oublié(e) at the Brighton Dome as part of Brighton Festival and at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 2015.