Director and Choreographer Raphaëlle Boitel began acting at the age of six. Spotted by Annie Fratellini, Raphaëlle joined the Ecole Nationale des Arts du Cirque Fratellini in 1992. From 1998 to 2010, she worked with James Thierrée and performed most notably in La Symphonie du Hanneton and La Veillée des Abysses. In addition to working with Thierrée, she performed in theatre plays, films, participated in events (Jean-François Zygel), appeared in music videos and performed in various cabarets in New York, Miami and London.
In 2012, Raphaëlle performed in Géométrie de Caoutchouc by Aurélien Bory and also founded her own company and started working on her first show. In 2013, she directed her first piece, Consolations, with three performers who graduated from the Fratellini Academy. She also choreographed the opera Macbeth directed by Gorgio Barberio Corsetti at La Scala in Milan. In 2014, she created L’Oublié(e) a large-scale piece of “circus theatre” and in 2015, Fierce 5, a tribute to the circus.
In 2017, Raphaëlle wrote and performed a short form solo La Bête Noire, a metaphor for her past as a contortionist. In 2018, she created When Angel Fall, a large-scale theatre piece. In 2019, Opera National de Bordeaux commissioned an outdoor piece, Horizon, to coincide with the cultural season Liberté! Bordeaux 2019. In 2020, she created Un Contre Un, a family show. In December 2020, Boitel directed Le Cycle de L’Absurde, the graduation piece of the 32nd CNAC (Centre National des Arts du Cirque) promotion.
