Team

Charlie Windelschmidt

Director

Charlie Windelschmidt is the director of the Compagnie Dérézo, in Brest since May 2000. The company is subsidised by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, the region Bretagne, the council of Finistère and the city of Brest.
He is also at the head of the Chapelle Dérézo, at the heart of the mythical neighborhood of Recouvrance in Brest, welcoming the research and experimentations of artists from all horizons.

Flying from one genre to another, indoors or out in the open, his shape-shifting shows develop a strong plastic language that asks the sensitive questions of the « being together », of the artist as a citizen, of what implies being human in our connected age. They try to be a tender bridge between art and the inhabitants of the city, questionning what implies living in the public space. A theatre that sticks to to its civic responsability and its will to party.

Charlie is the author and/or the director of over forty shows, in France and worldwide. He offers theatrical creations that are both challenging and accessible – their forms adapting to theatres as well as the public space – but also urban performances, and even important foreign requests in situ (USA, Turquie, Tunisie, Colombie, Indonésie, Italie...).

Contemporary writing is the core of his work (texts by Stéphanie Tesson, Khalil Gibran, Paol Keineg, Jan Fabre, Edward Bond, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Alexandre Koutchewsky, Roland Fichet, Christian Prigent, Lisa Lacombe, Régis Jauffret, Charles Pennequin...), using it as a material or including the living author within the team and through the process of creation.

Back to his carrer history

As a teenager, he makes a striking passage in the circus milieu in the Midi-Pyrénées, during his scientific studies in Toulouse. He discovers his passion for the stage arts in 1991.
After joining the open course of the Cours Florent, he joins the ENSATT from 1993 to 1996, while carrying on theatre studies in Nanterre.

In 2006, he directs an exceptional theatrical adventure on the Nantes to Brest canal : the Kabarê Flottant.
From 2007 to 2011, as Valéry Warnotte’s accomplice, he stages Microfiction (Regis Jauffret), working with over 400 actors ; notably at the Théatre du Rond-Point and live on France Culture for La Nuit Blanche in Paris in 2008, for the 50th anniversary of the Culture Department at the Musée Malraux in Le Havre, and also in Atlanta and Washington DC. He will be invited to the Nuit Blanche a second time in 2010.

In 2013, he works with Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh (manager of the Phare, the National Choreographic Center in Le Havre) to create two soli (Histoires Exquises) for the Altlas Theatre in Washington DC.
At the same time, he’s associated with the Filature, National Stage of Mulhouse (2010-2012) and with the Volcan, National Stage of Le Havre (2011-2014).
In 2013, he creates the Kabarê Solex, with a hundred shows in France (Chalon dans la Rue, CNAREP Quelque p’Art, CNAREP Le Fourneau, Festival de Sion-Suisse, Les Rias...).

In 2015, he is the laureate of the French Institute’s Villa Médicis hors les murs program, for his research on the mask in Indonesia
(See : www.lamecaniquedumasque.com).

In 2016, he creates Le Petit Dejeuner, which made a very noteworthy passage in Avignon in 2018, with over 260 shows to this day.

In 2017, he answers a request from the French Institute and the TNB (National Theatre of Brittany), creating Un Hueco en la Ciudad - Bogota, Medellin, Barranquilla, Brest, Rennes and Bordeaux- for the International Arts Festival of Bordeaux (FAB).
Then, in Septembre 2018, Un Hueco en la Ciudad flies off to new adventures in Majorque, Bologna and Milan (Piccolo Téatro).

In 2019, he creates La Plus Petite Fête Foraine du Monde (The Smallest Fairground of the World), in the public space, at the CNAREP of La Rochelle. Laureate of the Prize Auteur d’Espaces.
He also creates Alice, de l’autre côté, based on Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, at the Volcan – National Stage of Le Havre.

Attached documents