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Giada Melley

Graduates in 2024

Giada Melley began her training in Italy, working with renowned visual theatre and puppet companies such as Teatro Gioco Vita, Teatro delle Briciole, Teatro all’Improvviso and Cie Rodisioe. She has taken part in shows in Europe, Russia and Japan. In 2008 she moved to Paris and created her own company where she is director, puppeteer and singer.

In 2012, she joined the Collectif Projet Antigone to create Paroles et Cailloux: L’histoire d’Antigone pour les nouvelles générations, a reinterpretation of Antigone with pebbles, which won the Eolo Award in 2013 and is still touring. Trained as an opera singer (CEM, Conservatoire Charles Munch, Paris) and as a puppeteer (Théâtre aux Mains Nues, Paris), she directs Les petites Don Quichotte, a company that combines shadow puppetry, puppets, theatre and music.

Alexandre Abbas

Graduates in 2024

Alexandre Abbas discovered puppetry during his scientific studies, when he joined the Champ de Mars puppet theatre as an assistant puppeteer. After graduating in biomedical engineering, he began a career as a project manager before devoting himself entirely to puppetry. He then enrolled in the puppetry course at the Théâtre aux Mains Nues with Pierre Blaise and continued his training at the Académie Internationale des Arts du Spectacle with Carlo Boso and at the Conservatoire de Chant Lyrique with Evelyne Brun.

He regularly presents his creations for young audiences, first in Parisian castelets, then in Versailles and finally at the Guignol du Parc des Chanteraines in 2023. In 2021, he worked as a puppeteer with Mervyn Millar in the production of Verdi’s Aïda at the Opéra National de Paris.

Marjorie Currenti

Graduates in 2023

Marjorie Currenti is an actress, dancer, puppeteer and teacher. She trained at ERACM, then at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam, before joining Compagnie Philippe Genty from 2002 to 2014. She describes her work as transdisciplinary, affirming her desire to create bridges of communication between the different mediums of artistic expression without hierarchizing them, including puppet manipulation.

In 2022, as part of TAMTAM, Festival international de théâtre visuel et de marionnettes à la Réunion, she presented her first creative project, Le Cas Woyzeck, the first variation in a triptych about the mechanisms of violence, freely adapted from Georg Büchner’s unfinished work for a 7-man chorus and a human-sized female puppet.

Claire Latarget

Graduates in 2021

Claire Latarget graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette in 1999. This initial training and her experience then led her not to confine herself to a single type of puppet. She approaches puppetry and object theater not just as tools used on stage, but as tools for a special, privileged relationship with the audience.

From 2004 to 2020, she co-directed the company Anima Théâtre, creating shows as director, designer and performer. Now a freelance artist-author, she draws on her past and present collaborations, notably with Théâtre de Cuisine, Trash Tivi International, La Palpitante, Et Compagnie, the national stage La Garance and Théâtre Massalia, to rethink her place as a polymorphous, multitasking artist: visual artist, teacher, workshop designer and dramaturge within creations, training courses, mediation and the design-construction of scenic objects.

Cédric Laurier

Graduates in 2021

After a few years mixing theater, dance and university studies in Lettres Modernes, Cédric Laurier trained in puppetry at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mézières (1999-2002). At the end of this training, he decided to create the company Le Bruit du Frigo, whose aim is to create shows mixing animated forms and other arts, with a particular focus on the relationship between the body and its fictional avatars. Within the company, he has directed and performed in such shows as Juste un petit coup de main, Ici ou là, Peur and Lumen. Since 2009, he has also worked on stage with other companies (Le Théâtre Sans Toit, le Nouveau Théâtre-CDN de Montreuil, Cie Au Fil des Flots…).

In parallel with his creative work, he conducts artistic practice workshops for a variety of audiences (schools, adults, universities, art therapy and occupational therapy students, etc.) on manipulation, masks and the body/object relationship.

Pierrik Malebranche

Graduates in 2021

Trained at Annie Fratellini’s circus school, then at the Marcel Marceau Mime School, Pierrik Malebranche joined the latter’s company before crossing the path of contemporary dance (Cie l’Echappée – Frédéric Lescure, Philippe Chevalier). A performer with the Philippe Genty company between 2005 and 2015, he has turned his attention to puppet theater and object manipulation. Settled in Argentina, in Mar del Plata for several years, he pursues a career as a teacher and director, notably in partnership with the Compagnie Nationale de Danse Contemporaine, and in 2017 was awarded a grant from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes (Argentina) for an adaptation of Moby Dick combining video and origami figures. Constantly seeking to combine his work with training, he leads numerous workshops in France and abroad (Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Palestine, China…).

Since 2018, he has taken part in the development of the training project initiated by Eric de Sarria, which takes up the pedagogical elements developed by Philippe Genty and Mary Underwood, around a visual and choreographic approach to Theater. He also leads theatrical expression workshops in partnership with the Aurore association, as part of EDI (Espace Dynamique d’Insertion) for young people on the road to social and professional reintegration.