Marielle Pinsard
An individualist storyteller of multidisciplinary talents
Swiss Theatre Award 2017
Born in Nanterre, France, in 1968 and with Creole roots, Marielle Pinsard came to Switzerland at the age of 12. She studied modern languages in Neuchâtel before attending sitcom writing lessons in New York thanks to a grant from the Canton of Vaud. Back in Switzerland, she studied drama at the Ecole d’art dramatique (now La Manufacture) in Lausanne from 1989 to 1992. She continued her studies in Berlin and Dessau before performing under the auspices of various Swiss directors. After a few years with the group Cabaret Voyage, she set up her own Cie Marielle Pinsard in 2000. She writes and stages performances, with titles such as “Comme des couteaux” (2001), “Les Parieurs” (2002) and “Pyrrhus Hilton” (2006). In 2004 she created “Genève, je me souviens”, in which migrants tell of their first experiences in their new homeland. That same year she received the Prix jeunes créateurs from the culture foundation of the Canton of Vaud.
In a career spanning more than 20 years, Marielle Pinsard has created a multifaceted and idiosyncratic reading of social roles and stereotypes. She employs a variety of genres, weaving music, dance and drama together on stage, often spicing things up with humour that is not always quite politically correct. In 2008 she worked for the Avignon Festival alongside performer Massimo Furlan. Her event partners in French-speaking Switzerland include the Théâtre de Saint-Gervais in Geneva, Arsenic and Théâtre Vidy in Lausanne. A selection of her texts was published in 2009 by Bernard Campiche. Since 2009 Pinsard has been travelling through southern, western and central Africa, putting on workshops for theatre and dance practitioners and taking advantage of writing residencies. Her latest production, “On va tout dallasser Pamela!” (2016), tackles “drague à l’africaine”. Through the medium of Franco-African chat-up techniques, Pinsard presents a sociological yet entertaining study of our society.
“Everything seems colourful, lilting, familiar, almost commonplace. And yet, on stage as in the street, her discoveries have the surprising vigour of encounters with the complexity and fragility of being. We cannot conceal our anguishes, cynicism, cruelty or thoughtlessness. She takes everything from the guilty conscience of the parvenu and the absurdity of advertising speak to African chat-up lines, and uses them to dissect the conventions that govern our existence. With unwavering ambition, she deploys a language that denounces the absurdities of our society. For that society can come at her out of the blue, and she meets it with the same finesse she uses to describe it.”
Anne Fournier, jury member
