Nathaly Leduc
Long story short, I am a character comedian and theatre maker with a background in anthropology. I was born in Brazil, but I grew up around the world. I take the most random ideas seriously and transform them into theatre pieces and comedy shows.
I studied theatre at École Philippe Gaulier, a school well known for comedy and clown. I have a BA in Social Communications, majoring in filmmaking, and a master's degree in Anthropology from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva. I wrote my dissertation on the limits and possibilities of theatre in post-conflict societies. My ethnographic fieldwork entailed traveling with a theatre troupe throughout Liberia. You can read it here.
During the last two years, I conceptualised, pitched, coordinated, and implemented multiple educational and cultural programs in schools, associations, and non-profit organizations (i.e., Centre de la Formation Préprofessionnelle (CFPP), École de Culture Générale Henry-Dunant (ECG), École de Commerce et de Culture Générale Aimée-Stitelmann, F-INFO, Camarada, U.P.A, etc.)
In 2018 I co-founded the association Les Amis Savoureux, a company dedicated to creating theater and comedy by bringing together artists from different disciplines. The company hosts monthly variety nights in various venues in Geneva, such as La Gravière, L'Almacèn, or La Parfumerie.
In 2022, I founded the cultural association Citron Rouge, with the objective of producing comedy that brings together pop-culture and social issues. My most recent production with Citron Rouge was with Foyer Arabelle, a shelter for victims of domestic violence in Geneva. The participatory theater project entailed workshops and the creation of a theatrical piece about stories of childhood that are a tribute to the power of resilience and transgression through play and storytelling.
Currently, I work as a theater teacher at Palco Scenico, where I am staging with a group of teenagers an adaption of Midsummer Night's Dream that brings to the stage their own reflections about the forest and environmental challenges. I also collaborate with Théâtre Spirale and other associations as an actress and as a mediator on various projects with a social dimension.
Most of the time, my work is comic and highly interactive. It's invented freely and finds its path each time. It moves between words, images, space, fiction, and reality. With theater, I open spaces for new realities, hold them, and hope that someone will join me and push them even further. It's for people to have a good time, it's to move people, it's for those who feel alienated from it, and for those who study it. I believe in creating spaces of dialogue and taking these dialogue to the stage. It's fragile and a collectively shared risk to be inside a theatre.
WHY THEATER? WHY COMEDY?
I have always felt an urgent need to create theater, most specifically comedy, and show it to people. On many occasions, this took place in my parent's garage, in the kitchen of my small apartment, or in the living room of my grandparent's house. In these places, I was more or less protected. But creating theater within a system constantly delimitating my body, to turn it docile and compliant, is very painful. So, why continue?
Because I know that if I lose power and if I lose privileges, I will still have some. So, I can, and I should continue. I choose to make theater, and to be able to choose is extremely political and, therefore, personal. Personally speaking, doing theater is about creating possibilities and spaces of dialogue. To be inside a theater is to be in a space where both audience and performers share a risk. Most of the time, my work is comic and highly interactive. It’s invented freely and finds its own path each time. It moves between words, images, space, fiction, and reality. With theater, I open spaces for new realities, hold them, and hope that someone will join me and push them even further. I make theater for people to have a good time, to move people. I make theater for those who feel alienated from it and those who study it.
This text answers the question posed by NTGent's collection of essays published in 2020, while most theaters closed for an unknown period of time due to the Covid-19 pandemics. Like many other theater makers, I deeply questioned why I continued this profession. I especially found resonance and dialogue with Cibele Forjay, Tania Bruguera, and Michaela Dragan. Their essays inspired me to write my own answer and to continue.