Marijs Boulogne (Hasselt, 1978), artist, theater maker, playwright. She graduated as theatre director in 2002 at Rits (Brussels). Her works have been translated in more than seven languages and have been performed in ten countries under her own direction. Playwright and director of Voulez-vous poeper avec moi , Resist Herzschmerz, Picknick!, Love Zero Control, Endless Medication, Good Habits, Excavations, The Anatomy Lesson and Marzipan or Plexi.
Recurring themes in her work are female sexuality, and different kinds of ecstasy, lust for friendship and betrayal, and female strategies of liberation throughout the ages.
Extensive CV:
Marijs Boulogne wrote her first plays at the age of ten, mainly about cleaning ladies with green snots. At the age of eleven-twelve, she performed in a musical “Het Nijlpaard” (Jan Coeck). Then she took four years of theatre classes with Jo Huylebroeck at the youth theatre Jonna/Fabuleus in Leuven. Here she performed ao. in “Schemer en Kopzorg” and “'t Barre Land”. She finished secondary school starring as Electra in Sartre’s “De Vliegen”.
At seventeen, she moved to Brussels. Over the next six years, she studied as a theatre director at the Rits theatre school (Brussels). She did her apprenticeship as the personal assistant of Sam Bogaerts. Thanks to this practical experience, she wrote and directed “Voulez-vous poeper avec moa” (1999) and “Herzschmerz” (2001), the first part of a trilogy about resistance during war. With her company Buelens Paulina, she created the Belgian theatre show “Endless Medication” in 2002 (Theater aan Zee award for young theatre work, SACD award for Dutch-language creations, selected for Theaterfestival 2003, KunstenFESTIVALdesarts).
As an amateur radio producer, she hosted ‘Aangezicht tot Aangezicht’ on FM Brussel (2000-2003), a Sunday afternoon radio play, accompanied live by Australian composer Jim Denley on wind instruments. The same kind of storytelling was also performed for KLARA/Mixtuur, Radio 1 and kc nOna’s “Porn ar(t)ound the world” festival (2002). Then the girls of Buelens Paulina and Jim Denley inhabited the living hotel and theatre play “Love zero control”, and the fairy-like burlesque “Good Habits”.
Her life project “Excavations” is mainly focused on female ecstasy (embroidery, performance, video). During the years 2000-2007, Marijs continues to elaborate this work, which has thus far been performed for over seventy times. The English version “The Anatomy Lesson” premiered in Oslo’s Black Box Theatre (2007) and the French version in the theatre Arsenic in Lausanne (2006).
“Picknick!” (2004) was written as a radical philosophical-cannibalistic variation and continuation of F. Arrabals war fable from 1952. It is a show for adults, performed by very young actors. They are still regularly meeting up as a theatre troupe and are dreaming cheerfully of the sequel “Lunch” and the “Instant Flip en Tommie show.”
At present, Marijs is preparing a new music theatre show about girlpower, “Marzipan or Plexi”.
PERFORMANCES: (embroidery/theatre/video/songs)
We Are Not Whores (Factor 44, 2002)
Fuck Me Dead (Rits, Nieuwpoorttheater, 2002)
Excavations (2002-2007)
Orgasmic Faces (2002)
Endless Medication (French, Dutch, Italian, English, Slovene) (2002-2008)
Love Zero Control (2003)
That Dog is A God! (Theater Gasthuis, 2003)
Marzipan or Plexi (2008/2009)
Bibliography (theatre plays of more than 30 minutes, for a cast of 2 to 9 actresses):
Voulez-vous poeper avec moa? (variation) 1998
Herzschmerz 1999
Endless medication (Dutch version) 2002,
French version 2003,
Italian version 2004,
English version 2005,
Slovenian version 2006 (Vecna Medikacija),
Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian language version 2007 (V(i)jecna Medikacija)
Picknick! (variation) 2004
Love zero control 2003
Good Habits 2004
Pas 2006
The Anatomy Lesson 2007
Marzipan or Plexi 2008
Adaptation/translation and direction:
Groot en klein (Botho Strauss)
Anticlimax (Werner Schwab)
Lo stupro / Una Donna Sola (Dario Fo and Franca Rame)
Hooglied van de liefde (variation)
As a creator/collaborator of several accordion concerts, small video installations, embroidery works:
Copulating snails (Splitrec), audio cd in collaboration with Jim Denley (2004)
Approximations/contradictions (with Ana Torfs) (2004)
Songbook of Inspired clouds (2007), with les Reines Prochaines (in Swissgerman)
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