Catherine Gil Alcala

Biography 

Catherine Gil Alcala’s work spans across several disciplines: poetry, theatre, performance, visual arts… Her goal is to experiment in all freedom and translate the language of the unconscious, dreams, madness… which are her obsessions, her favourite themes.
Several of her texts have been performed in theatres or have been the subject of musical-poetic performances. Maelström excrémentiel, her erotic surrealist poem, was performed at the Théâtre des Déchargeurs (Paris) and at the Avignon Festival.
Her play James Joyce fuit… Quand un homme sait tout à coup quelque chose was performed at 59 Rivoli as part of the Nuit Blanche 2012 celebrations in Paris.
She designed an exhibition-performance of her doll sculptures and her poems, Doll’art ou les Épopées de Pimpesouée, which she presented at the Festival Fou and the Festival Meuf’elle, at the Arte Rainbow gallery in Dax, and at 59 Rivoli in the context of Nuit Blanche 2013 in Paris.
Catherine has staged musical-poetic performances, notably at the Mana-Art gallery in Brussels, and at the Musée du Montparnasse, using her aphorisms Les Contes défaits en forme de liste de courses.
She took part, as an author, in the 35th edition of the “Bocal Agité” at Gare au Théâtre (Vitry-sur-Seine, 94) and she published Une Nouvelle ville, vie… (Éditions de la Gare) in the collective work Bocal urbain / Vivre la ville demain.
In 2015, Éditions La Maison brûlée published her James Joyce Fuit… Quand un homme sait tout à coup quelque chose, followed by Les Bavardages sur la Muraille de Chine; in January 2016 La Tragédie de l’Âne followed by Les Farces Philosophiques; in November Zoartoïste et autres textes; in June 2017 La Somnambule dans une Traînée de Soufre; in March 2018 La Foule Divinatoire des Rêves.
Meanwhile, Catherine also participated in literary meetings and public readings, and produced performance poems Miroir 1 and Miroir 10, excerpts from Zoartoïste, and La Foule Divinatoire des Rêves, at the Independent Publishers’ Salon l’Autre Livre, at the Librairie du 104, at the Théâtrothèque Gaston Baty ̶ Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3, at the Théâtre Les Déchargeurs, at the Librairie Théâtrale, at the “AHZ’ART” Day as part of the Printemps des poètes, at the Théâtre le Vent Se Lève, at the Festival Quartier du livre and at the Festival d’Aurillac, as well as at the Châlons-en-Champagne library.
In autumn 2018, she gave readings of her play La Tragédie de l’Âne, at 100ecs, at the Independent Publishers’ Salon l’Autre Livre, and at the Nuit Blanche celebrations in Paris.
In 2019, she presented sound poems and visual works at the Mémoire de l’Avenir gallery and at the bookstore-gallery Le Temps de lire.
In December 2019, the Mantsina sur scène festival in Brazzaville, Congo, hosted two performances of Zoartoïste by Catherine Gil Alcala and a reading of her play La Tragédie de l’Âne by the company N’sala.
In 2020, she performed Déreliction de l’Art at the 7th Biennale des Arts Singuliers et Innovants in Saint-Étienne and Zoartoïste and at the Maison de la Poésie in Avignon as well as at the festival Les Balladines de Penne. She exhibited at the 7th Bienniale of Singular and Innovative Arts in Saint-Etienne and at the Maison de la Poésie in Avignon.
In 2021, she participated in the International Festival of Writers and Artists of Val-David in Quebec and in the 10th edition of the Guadeloupe Poetry Festival. She exhibited at the 9th Biennale Hors Normes in Lyon and published drawings and poems in the magazine Le Pan Poétique des Muses.
In 2022, she exhibited at the 8th Bienniale of Singular and Innovative Arts in Saint-Etienne, she performed her poems at the Nuit de l’Europe of the Institute of Political Studies in Strasbourg, she published in Le Caveau Stéphanois and in the 23rd edition of the review l’intranquille.
In 2023, she published drawings and poems in French and Spanish as part of the Pan Poétique des Muses, International Megalesia 2023 Festival, and in the magazine Iris & Mêtis.
She also presented performances in French and English of her poems Les Oracles Poïétiques and The Divinatory Crowd of Dreams as part of the Printemps des Poètes festival in Paris and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2023.

The International Poetry Prize 2022 of the Claudine de Tencin Academy was awarded to her for La Foule Divinatoire des Rêves. Her play La Tragédie de l’Âne received an honourable mention from the Reading Committee of the Théâtre du Rond-Point in Paris.

Catherine Gil Alcala on theatre-contemporain.net