Crash Test Guimauve (creation 28/29) - Gaël Santisteva

Crash Test Guimauve is a hybrid show blending theatre, circus, performance art, singing and polyphonic vocal work. It draws on a reimagined fairground imagination, transposed into a contemporary, unstable aesthetic. It takes its inspiration from puppets and manipulated bodies.

At the centre of the stage stands a strange, ageless puppet, a sort of failed Pierrot, available. A supple, malleable, disjointed body. A body traversed by different voices. In this mental cave, he is visited by three figures: paternal, maternal and mirror, establishing connections between the body, the voices, visual transformation and physical labour, questioning fusion, complementarity and the extension of the self.

The performance draws on the conventions of the horror film, with humour and self-mockery. Underlying it all, it questions our relationship with control: what does it mean to give in, to let oneself be used, or to accept being traversed? The body then becomes a space of tension between constraint and availability, between submission and imaginative power. In this fabricated space, something real emerges: who is manipulating whom?

The premiere of Crash Test Guimauve is scheduled for autumn 2028 at the Théâtre national Wallonie-Bruxelles (Brussels, BE). We are seeking support for co-production and residency.

After TALK SHOW (2017), Garcimore est mort (2021), Voie, Voix, Vois (with Saaber Bachir and Antoine Leroy, 2023) and Piñata Cake (2025), Crash Test Guimauve is Gaël Santisteva’s fifth project.

In 2025, Gaël also co-created the performance Dites-moi (with Ondine Cloez). In 2026, he will develop the research project Smoothie Songs (and Teen Screams).

Crash Test Guimauve - a project by Gaël Santisteva (creation 28/29)

Concept and performance: Gaël Santisteva
Creation and performance (in progress): Dominique Gilliot, Adri De Biasi / Drag Couenne
Outside eye: Sophia Rodriguez
Artistic advice: Lara Barsacq
Original music: Maya Dhondt
Costumes : Sofie Durnez
Light design: in progress
Production: Gilbert & Stock
Coproduction (in progress): Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles
Residencies (in progress): Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles
With the support of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles

Inspirational photos: Gaël Santisteva

UPCOMING DATES

24.06.2026 | MAJOR TOM Hybride (pitching), Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris, FR

Premiere: automne 2028, Théâtre national Wallonie-Bruxelles, Bruxelles (BE)