Claude Bardouil’s spectral labyrinth is inhabited by figures emblematic of French culture yet little known to Polish audiences. They include Marguerite Duras – the writer and screenwriter hailed as a monstre sacré, a revered cultural figure of almost mythical stature, and author of the autobiographical novel The Lover, which won the Prix Goncourt in 1984 – and Chantal Akerman, the Belgian director of Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which topped the prestigious 2022 Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films of all time, published by the British Film Institute (BFI). They are joined by actress Catherine Deneuve, American artist Mike Kelley, porn star Savannah, and iconic figures of the punk rock era: Iggy Pop, Cookie Mueller, Nancy Spungen, and Sid Vicious. It is a conjunction characteristic of Bardouil’s theater: intimacy intersects with the discourses of pop culture, glam, and obscenity, while private life collides with the constructed persona.

Claude Bardouil takes the audience on a personal guided tour through his private collection of ghosts and stage phantoms. In the artists’ biographies, he discovers parallels with his own experience, including his brother’s death by suicide, and searches for the origins of his obsessive fascination with representations of violence against women and incestuous love. It is a story of a boy who grew up in the glow of rock stars and cultural icons, and of death and trauma as reflected in art.

Private Collection brings together two dancers and choreographers from different generations – Bardouil and Grudziński – while also juxtaposing choreographic and dramatic performance practices in the work of Nowy Teatr ensemble members Małgorzata Hajewska-Krzysztofik, Ewelina Pankowska, and Magdalena Popławska.

Claude Bardouil began his career as a dancer before training as an actor at Théâtre Sorano in Toulouse and appearing in Jacques Rosner’s productions of Twelfth Night, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar. He co-founded the theater company Parlez-moi d’amour, where he worked as a director and performed in plays including Racine’s Andromache, Sophocles’ Electra, and numerous contemporary works. As a dancer, he appeared, among others, in Rita Cioffi’s productions Massacre du printemps, Shopping, and Pas de deux. As a member of the Cie Samuel Mathieu dance company, he performed in productions including Us-Band, Duo 1, and Duo 2.

Since 2010, Claude Bardouil has collaborated regularly with Krzysztof Warlikowski, serving as choreographer on all of his opera productions at the Paris Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, La Monnaie in Brussels, Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, Teatro Real in Madrid, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Ruhrtriennale, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and elsewhere.

Claude Bardouil has directed, choreographed, and performed in his own productions Nancy. Interview and Exhausted at Nowy Teatr in Warsaw. He has also created choreography for several of Warlikowski’s theater productions, including The End, The French (premiered at the 2015 Ruhrtriennale), Kabaret warszawski, The African Tales by Shakespeare, We Are Leaving, and Europa at Nowy Teatr, as well as Phaedra(s) and A Streetcar – based on Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire – starring Isabelle Huppert at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe in Paris.