Author, Director, Actress, Puppeteer within the Company La Boîte à sel
Trained in the first class of the Academy of the Theatre of L’union – CDN de Limoges, Céline Garnavault benefits from a multidisciplinary and international theatrical education: Silviu Purcarete, Mladen Materic, Carlotta Ikeda, Gao Xingjian, Émilie Valantin, Jean Sclavis, Jos Houben, Nikolaus Wolcz, Catherine Germain, Eugène Durif, Catherine Beau, Robert Cantarella, Christian Rist, Linda Wise, Gelu Colceag, Koffi Koko, which allows her to discover puppetry, of which she immediately falls in love.
It was in 2000, at the end of this training, that the company La Boîte à sel was founded to present the first creations of Céline combining theatre, puppetry arts, and visual arts, while she continues to refine her skills in puppetry and associated arts with Philippe Genty and Mary Underwood, in object theatre with Christian Carrignon and Katy Deville, and in contemporary shadow theatre with Fabrizio Montecchi and Nicoletta Garioni.
She also multiplies experiences as an actress, assistant director, author, or puppeteer-singer notably with the Nobel Prize in Literature Gao Xingjian, Silviu Purcarete, David Gauchard, Frédéric Maragnani, Hala Ghosn, Émilie Valantin, and Dinaïg Stall.
Her collaboration with Dinaïg Stall, puppeteer, teacher-researcher, and coordinator of the DESS in contemporary puppet theatre at UQAM in Montreal is significant in the career of Céline Garnavault who often starts her creations in Quebec with research laboratories with the latter.
Initially an author of texts for her company, Céline also writes songs that allow her to be selected in 2006 for "Rencontres d’Astaffort". In 2010 she is published by Sangam editions for "Les petites reines de Bordeaux", a book of short stories, illustrated by Yann Hamonic. From 2003 to 2014 she joins Hala Ghosn and the collective of author-interpreters of La Poursuite to co-write and perform "Beyrouth Adrénaline," "Apprivoiser La Panthère" and "Les Primitifs". Two of these plays are published by Hayes & Lansman.
It is by adapting for the stage two illustrated youth novels "l’Horizon Bleu" by Dorothée Piatek and Yann Hamonic and "Ita-Rose" by Rolande Causse and Gilles Rapaport, that Céline Garnavault asserts her passion for the plastic transposition of narratives.
In 2012, she places plastic and musical explorations at the center of her process by imagining "Play", a non-verbal performance in which the play of materials (tape and ribbons) and live music create a scenography close to installation.
She continues this research in 2015, with "Les fusées", an immersive form for which she combines material work and new magic in a 360° space. It is during this atypical project that she meets sound creator Thomas Sillard, who becomes her creative partner.
Together they place an interactive sound carpet at the center of the dramaturgy of "Revers", a pocket musical comedy created in 2016, then they imagine the show "Block" in 2018, an electronic fantasy in which Céline shares the stage with 60 intelligent speakers.
“Block” marks the beginning of a new scenic language: the theatre of connected sound objects, one of the major research lines of the company.
On the occasion of her partnership with the Théâtre Ducourneau d’Agen from 2015 to 2017, she turns to street art and contemporary art to imagine with plastic artist Rouge Hartley "Galerie" a project of territory around portrait and community.
On July 11, 2017, Céline takes on the challenge of directing a 45-minute performance in the Cour d’honneur of the Palais des Papes for "Avignon, enfants à l’honneur". She composes for the occasion "Dans la cour a playful and poetic theatrical form, mixing excerpts from "Lys Martagon" by Sylvain Levey and "Pays de rien" by Nathalie Papin, the human beatbox of L.O.S and the soundpainting interventions of the children’s audience.
In 2019, the sound and fantastic thriller "Le Grand Chut" is born, the culmination of two years of territorial project with Très Tôt Théâtre in Finistère, which joins the other shows of the company in distribution.
At the same time, a three-year research on the writing of sound in motion gives rise to "Track" in 2021: a connected and musical railway epic that has since met with resounding success.
Aware of the potential of the new scenic language explored in her projects, its uniqueness, and the fact that it is located at a place of expertise, innovation, and specialty in contemporary theatrical repertoire, Céline Garnavault decides to set up from 2020 free experimentation laboratories that give rise to the beginnings of future projects and the desire to launch fundamental research.
This materializes in 2023 with the launch of the research project : autonomous sound puppetry objects serving new relational imaginaries. This research conducted in collaboration with Quebec will notably rely on future shows: "Bad Block", "Anatomie", and OUAT (what watt).
Whether spectacular or installatory, all these projects engage scenography and living objects and seek to create renewed relationships with audiences: sensory, immersive, interactive, or extended by spaces for meeting and play, each of them offers a global, generous and striking experience
Céline Garnavault also works as a director and/or playwright for other artists in theatre, music, circus, and youth literature.
Since 2018, she teaches contemporary shadow theatre to students in the performing arts degree at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne.
Committed to the recognition and reflection for the arts for children and youth, Céline Garnavault has been involved since January 2017 in the Board of Directors of the association “Scène d’enfance - Assitej France” and more particularly within the “Research” group.
She also participates in two new groupings in Nouvelle Aquitaine: Zéphir - Regional Platform for Children and Youth and the MAANa collective that works for Puppetry and Associated Arts.
In the 2023/24 season, she begins a long-term artistic journey in her region, with the Espace Jéliote - National Center for Puppetry of Oloron Sainte-Marie.
She also loves to make absurd jokes... Like putting herself in a box... All alone...
