An original work of physical theatre, based upon the correspondence of Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin. Devised by Natasha Mikhaylova Mandelstam, Piotr Siwek, and Diana Zhdanova, under the direction of Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva.
Video from the actors' preliminary etudes, shot at the Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design. The eventual live performance will explore Claudel’s life and work as a canvas upon which we project ideas of femaleness, and interrogate our notions of artist and muse, of the gaze, of the gendering of desire in classical art. Phase 1 of our work is focused on dramaturgical research and on the creation of a vocabulary of physical action drawn from Claudel and Rodin’s creative partnership, from the physical, material nature of their work with bodies, clay, metal, stone, from the parallel expressivity of the body in physical theatre and sculpture.