A choreographer, an actor and a director walk into a room… Except the choreographer isn’t in the room. Because the room is in New York, and he does not live in New York. Also, he is ethically opposed to flying, so he’ll never be in New York. Oh–and he’s French. Make sense yet? This mind-bending series of constraints and considerations form the basis of a piece titled Jérôme Bel (2021). A combination of autobiography, dance restaging, and film, Jérôme Bel (2021) is directed by the Civilians’ own Steve Cosson and features friend of the Civilians, April Matthis, as the choreographer himself. You can catch Matthis’s performance this weekend at the Alliance Française.
Below is a short and sweet interview with Matthis (conducted via email) about her process and who would play her in a biographical piece.
What drew you to this project?
Violane Huisman approached me through Kate Whoriskey, a theater director I was working with on a new play earlier this year. Violane remembered me from a workshop on Rimbaud I did with The Civilians at BAM a few years ago and had followed my work in experimental theatre. When she described the project to me, the prospect of embodying this iconoclastic French choreographer in a lecture-presentation format with low tech and little artifice sounded elegantly transgressive and clear in a way I thought would be a fun challenge.
How would you describe Jérôme Bel (2021) to someone who knew nothing about Bel’s life and work?
I’ve been telling people that it’s like a retrospective PowerPoint presentation of this avant-garde French choreographer’s work, and that I play him.
Do you consider yourself a dancer? How do you see yourself in relation to dance?
I have described myself as a performer with some faculty for movement, or, a dancer when you don’t want to watch a dancer. I think I have an intuitive sense of what I do, and how I can map conceptual ideas onto this body.
How did you prepare for this “role”? Is playing someone living different from playing a character?
Working with Steve Cosson, we quickly agreed that this piece is not about imitation or an impression of Jérôme Bel, but rather an inhabiting of his ideas and his biography. It’s not only because he’s a real person, but because these are his words. This isn’t a play—it’s a presentation. I feel more like a representative or ambassador of sorts.
In what ways has this piece changed the way you think about acting and your own performance practice?
It’s a space I have inhabited before in the performance world outside of mainstream theater, so it’s returning to a modality of performance that’s familiar to me. But what’s always valuable even for more narrative or fictional storytelling is not judging or commenting on the character, but internalizing their thought processes and worldview.
If someone made April Matthis (2024), what would it be about?
It could be about a New York performer’s career trajectory from community theater to off off Broadway to Broadway, television and back again. Maybe ending with a reenactment of my very first monologue as “Bloodthirsty Man” in the 1999 regional stage adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities.
Extended Play is a project of The Civilians. To learn more about The Civilians and to access exclusive discounts to shows, visit us and join our email list at TheCivilians.org.
