Christian Lapointe (born 1978) is a Canadian theatre director from Quebec.
Biography
Born in Quebec, Christian Lapointe studied at the Conservatoire d'art dramatique de Québec. In the fall of 2001, he directed a triptych of short plays by William Butler Yeats. Following a co-production with a theatrical institution in Hanoi and the staging of a play by Yeats, in 2003, he trained in directing at the National Theater School of Canada, graduating in 2005.
He is the founder of the Péril theater and artistic director of Carte Blanche. At the Festival TransAmériques 2015, he gave a performance lasting almost three days and two nights around the work of Antonin Artaud.
He performed in the play Le 20 Novembre, conducted by Brigitte Haentjens. His performance earned him a nomination for the prize of the Association québécoise des critiques de théâtre. He also worked alongside Larry Tremblay for the play L'Enfant material for the staging.
Over time, he established himself as a moving figure in Quebec theater. In Sepsis, the last opus of the Cycle de la Disparition, six actors philosophize about their existence from a morgue. Moreover, death is a recurring theme in Lapointe's works; being in a body that has a limited lifespan is an idea that obsesses him.
Following the symbolist movement, the writing of his shows borrows from performance art, is conceived from and around scenic devices and sometimes uses video installations. He is the creator of a pedagogical methodology centered on the thickening of the presence on stage by the modulation of scenic positioning within the framework of actoral theatrical practice. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between stage and hall and reality and fiction. His Petit guide de l’apparition à l’usage de those qu’on se pas et Les Jours gris testify to this approach.
His works have been presented at the National Arts Center in Ottawa, at the Carrefour international de théâtre du Québec and at the Festival TransAmériques.
After having taught at the National Theater School for nearly eight years, in 2016, he began an artistic residency as an artist and teacher there. Then, he was professor of interpretation at the École Supérieure de Théâtre until 2021.
In 2019, he launched Constituons!, in partnership with the Institut du Nouveau Monde, a process that proposes to provide Quebec with a constitution entirely written by citizens selected by lot and representative of the demographics of Quebec, within the framework of the theater as a popular agora. It is supported in this process by more than a dozen theatrical and academic institutions throughout Quebec. The Citizens’ Constitution of Quebec that emerged from this process was officially tabled in the National Assembly of Quebec on May 29, 2019 by independent MNA Catherine Fournier.
In June 2022, he staged Not One of These People, by the British author Martin Crimp, who made his stage debut as an actor in the piece. For this performance, Lapointe imagines and designs a live deepfake device that animates, through facial recognition, avatars generated by Generative adversarial network.
Productions
- 2001 : Le chien de Culann (d'après - Au puits de l'épervier / L'unique rivale d'Emer / La mort de Cuchulainn) - by William Butler Yeats
- 2002 : Hoi Sinh / Dichotomie – création
- 2003 : Le seuil du palais du roi – by William Butler Yeats
- 2004 : Faisceau d'épingle de verre - by Claude Gauvreau
- 2006 : Axël – de Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
- 2006 : Shopping and F***ing – by Mark Ravenhill
- 2007 : C.H.S. – by Christian Lapointe
- 2007 : Le vol des anges – according to the text by Luis Thénon
- 2008 : Anky ou la fuite / Opéra du désordre – by Christian Lapointe
- 2008 : Vu d'ici - by Mathieu Arsenault
- 2009 : Nature morte dans un fossé - by Fausto Paravidino
- 2009 : Limbes (d'après - Calvaire / Résurrection / Purgatoire) - by William Butler Yeats
- 2010 : Trans(e) – by Christian Lapointe
- 2012 : Sepsis – by Christian Lapointe
- 2012 : L'Enfant matière – by Larry Tremblay
- 2013 : Outrage au public – by Peter Handke
- 2015 : Dans la République du bonheur - by Martin Crimp
- 2016 : Pelléas et Mélisande - by Maurice Maeterlinck
- 2017 : La vie littéraire – de Mathieu Arsenault
- 2018 : Portrait Of Restless Narcissism (PORN) – de Nadia Ross et Christian Lapointe
- 2018 : Les beaux dimanches – de Marcel Dubé
- 2018 : Le reste vous le connaissez par le cinéma – de Martin Crimp
- 2019 : Constituons! – de Christian Lapointe
- 2022 : Quand nous nous serons suffisamment torturés de Martin Crimp
- 2022 : Titre(s) de travail de Natalie Fontalvo, Lauren Hartley, Odile Gagné-Roy, Christian Lapointe et Marie-Ève Lussier
- 2022 : Not one of these people de Martin Crimp
- 2022 : We are shining forever à la recherche de l’entrée du royaume des morts d’après La morte de Mathieu Arsenault
References
External links
- Christian Lapointe - À voix haute (in French)
- Christian Lapointe's page at CEAD (in French)