JONATHAN CAPDEVIELLE

Jonathan Capdevielle was born in 1976 in Tarbes and lives in Paris.
Trained at the École supérieure Nationale des arts de la marionnette, Jonathan Capdevielle is a director, actor, puppeteer, ventriloquist, dancer and singer.

He has participated in several creations, including, among others: Personnage à réactiver, by Pierre Joseph (1994), Performance, with Claude Wampler (1999), Mickey la Torche, by Natacha de Pontcharra, translated by Taoufik Jebali, directed by Lotfi Achour, Tunis, (2000), Les Parieurs and Blonde Unfuckingbelievable Blond, directed by Marielle Pinsard (2002), Le Golem, directed by David Girondin Moab (2004), Le groupe St Augustin, Le Dispariteur, Monsieur Villovitch, Hamlet et Marseille Massacre (radio creation workshop – France Culture), directed by Yves-Noël Genod (2004-2010), Bodies in the cellar, directed by Vincent Thomasset (March 2013)
As f Gisèle Vienne’s collaborator since her first productions, he has performed in almost all her plays between 2000 and 2015; in those directed by Étienne Bideau Rey and Gisèle Vienne: Jean Genet’s Splendid’s, Showroomdummies and Stereotypy, and in those directed by Gisèle Vienne I Apologize, Une belle enfant blonde / A young, beautiful blonde girl, Kindertotenlieder, Jerk, radio play, Jerk, solo for a puppeteer, Éternelle idole, This is how you will disappear and The Ventriloquists Convention.

Jonathan Capdevielle also works as a performer in films, notably with Patric Chiha (Boys like us in 2014) and Safia Benahim (Le sang noir in 2018). In 2021, he acted in the film adaptation of Jerk by Gisèle Vienne, which was screened in numerous festivals. He regularly collaborates with director Sebastien Betbeder: in Ulysse et Mona in 2018, Jusqu’à l’os in 2019; and Tout fout le camp in 2022.

In 2007, he created the performance-singing tour Jonathan Covering at the Tanz im august Festival in Berlin, the starting point for his piece Adishatz/Adieu, created in January 2010 at the C’est de la Danse Contemporaine festival of the Centre de Développement Chorégraphique Toulouse / Midi Pyrénées. He then responded to two invitations. In November 2011, he presented Poppydog, created in collaboration with Marlène Saldana at the Centre National de la Danse – Pantin and in August 2012, on a proposal from the festival far° – festival des arts vivants de Nyon (Switzerland), he presented Spring Rolle, an in situ project with Jean-Luc Verna and Marlène Saldana.

With Saga (created in February 2015 at the Parvis Scène nationale de Tarbes), Jonathan Capdevielle opens a new chapter in autobiographical narrative by working on episodes of the family novel, with its emblematic characters and its twists and turns. An exploration of the boundaries between fiction and reality, between present and past. In November 2017, he signed À nous deux maintenant, an adaptation of the novel Un Crime by Georges Bernanos. In 2019, he proposes Rémi, a play for all audiences from 8 years old, adapted from the novel Sans famille by Hector Malot. These two projects were created at the Quai, CDN d’Angers and then presented at Nanterre Amandiers CDN as part of the Festival d’Automne à Paris. In September 2021 he created Music All, co-written with Marco Berrettini and Jérôme Marin, presented in Switzerland, notably at the Arsenic Lausanne, then on tour in France, starting with the T2G CDN in Gennevilliers as part of the Festival d’Automne in Paris. He is currently preparing his next creation, a staging of Albert Camus’ play Caligula, scheduled for September 2023 at the T2G CDN in Gennevilliers.

All of these projects have common themes that evolve over the course of the creations. In particular, the construction of identity, diaries and the family through traditional culture and popular song, imposture as a form of devastating power, the confusion of genres and the distortions of the established moral order. Moreover, as director and author of each of his creations (original work or adaptation), Jonathan Capdevielle attaches great importance to the diversity of narrative material, which is achieved through the adaptation of literary works as well as through stage writing and improvisation. Sound work also plays an important role in his work. This is reflected in the sound of the voices and the spatialized diffusion of sounds and music. Thus each project is part of a research and writing of sound: the sound thought as a creator of spaces, off-fields, climates.

Since 2021, Jonathan Capdevielle has been an associate artist at the T2G – Théâtre de Gennevilliers and a member of the Ensemble Associé at the Théâtre des 13 vents, centre dramatique national de Montpellier.

Poppydog association is supported by the Direction régionale des affaires culturelles d’Ile-de-France – ministère de la Culture.