I discovered “A Lover's Discourse: Fragments” in the late 1990s when I was a student at the Beaux-Arts in France. Reading it was a real shock. The book had something profoundly unique. It was the first time I read a text by a philosopher of such stature that combined brilliant reflections on love with a form that almost resembled a personal diary.

At the time, I was mainly focused on sculpture, and this reading resonated with me because it explored themes of surface, depth, and boundaries—topics already at the heart of my artistic practice. Barthes, through his writing, opened up a space where intellectual rigor met an almost tactile sensitivity. This combination left a lasting impression on me and became a foundation for all my subsequent artistic explorations. Barthes gave me the words to articulate concerns that I had been instinctively grappling with in my work, making this encounter foundational across sculpture, theater, and other mediums.

In fact, I fell deeply in love with this text. Over time, I realized that through the theme of love, Barthes was exploring the idea of the foreign body. The other—the alterity in love—is foreign to oneself. Love, like this foreign body, disrupts everything, turns everything upside down, even to the point of madness: we lose ourselves to rediscover ourselves, we no longer recognize who we are, and, in doing so, we become foreign to ourselves.

“A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments” offers an extraordinary foundation for the arts—an allegory of the foreign body as the ultimate unexpected event: something that arrives unannounced, knocking on the door like the mysterious Visitor in Pier Paolo Pasolini's “Teorema”, disrupting an established system.

In the pragmatism of a socially organized world where emotions have no place, anything that suggests radical change and movement incites fear. In a political climate increasingly haunted by the fear of the “other” and an obsessive need to control everything, we need authors like Roland Barthes.

Barthes invites us to observe a kind of dance: this delicate, almost choreographic movement where the self advances, wavers, and allows itself to be transformed—or not. This pas de deux, oscillating between harmony and tension, finds its rightful place and resonance on a theater stage, where the intimate and the collective intersect, and where love and danger are brought to life.

I only work with performers who genuinely captivate me. This choice isn’t guided by fixed criteria but rather by an almost instinctive connection I feel toward the person and their creative potential. These performers may be professional dancers, trained in classical or contemporary dance, seasoned actors, or even singers. But my search extends far beyond these fields: I also work with performers who don’t come from professional backgrounds—people whose life experiences, presence, or uniqueness deeply move me.

Some performers might be sex workers, as in “Beyond the Overflow”, or individuals with atypical paths, coming from fields far removed from the arts. What matters to me isn’t their resume but the truth they carry within themselves—their ability to convey raw emotion, inhabit a space, or embody an idea with an authenticity that transcends technique. I have no boundaries when it comes to choosing performers; I choose them because I know, from the first moment, that they are the ones with whom the project will take shape and come to life.

There’s no fixed or permanent team in my productions. Each project calls for different energies, unique stories, and singular sensitivities. This approach allows me to maintain a certain fluidity and to stay aligned with the themes I’m exploring. Assembling a team is like sculpting a living ensemble—a collective that, though temporary, functions like an organism in constant evolution. This process, though intuitive, is one of the most essential and enriching aspects of my work.

As I mentioned earlier, what I love about live performance is the danger. Unlike film or visual arts, where a work is fixed, calibrated, and reproducible, theater exists in the moment, in an ephemeral space and time. Nothing is ever fully under control. Every performance is a kind of gamble, a unique attempt where even the smallest detail can change everything.

There’s no filter, no editing, no second take. This direct confrontation between the performers and the audience creates a palpable tension—a dialogue where each spectator becomes complicit in what unfolds before their eyes. It’s a deeply intimate and immediate experience, impossible to reproduce in another medium. Each individual in the audience perceives the performance differently, shaped by their own experiences, mood, or even the collective dynamic of the moment. This subjectivity, amplified by theater’s fleeting nature, enhances the uniqueness of every performance.

In theater, everything is fragile—the performers, the lighting, the rhythm of a scene, even a simple chair placed at the center of the stage. Every element seems suspended in a precarious balance. I love this state of tension, this sensation that everything could shift at any moment. As a choreographer, I walk this fine line where, if I do nothing, everything collapses, but if I intervene too much, everything breaks. This latent disorder, always present beneath the surface, waits for its moment to emerge, to challenge what seems established. It’s this danger, this constant risk, that makes theater so vibrant and alive.

The challenge lies in maintaining this tension for an hour or an hour and a half, holding this fragile balance where every gesture, every word, every silence matters. Paradoxically, if everything holds perfectly, if everything goes exactly as planned, then something is lost. If everything is in place, as decided, then what? What comes after? This is the paradox: failure, for me, would be for everything to work impeccably—without texture, without accidents. Because what makes theater fascinating are precisely its flaws, its cracks, its unplanned moments.

By exploring these imperfections—not calculated failures but those moments when something spills over, when perfection cracks open to reveal an unexpected truth—I seek to delve into spaces where it’s possible to embrace what derails. These moments, where humanity manifests in all its complexity, transform theater from a controlled environment into a space of freedom, raw emotion, and transformation. This danger, this fragility, this potential for chaos is, for me, the very essence of live performance.