We play

…to defy the order of things, hand in hand, like children. In the streets, reinventing the rules of the game.
…to shake things up, and to let ourselves be shaken, at failing and falling, losing our balance.

We work against

Simplistic ideas, dystopias and gloom, everything that erases, everything that separates:
prejudice, norms, borders,
by transforming public spaces,
with perseverance and agility

We celebrate

…theater as a safe place, as a stage for togetherness.
…the human adventure, powerful, precious, vulnerable,
…hidden forces, that watch over, that care for, that deploy energy and bear witness.

In short

A Marseille-based company founded in 2010, Rara Woulib began as a series of clandestine invitations to theatrical free parties, before carving out a unique place for itself within the international professional theatre network with productions such as Deblozay, Bizangos and Moun Fou.
Whilst continuing to showcase its founding production, Deblozay, Rara Woulib is today creating new, distinctive works exploring rich and interconnected themes: stories and living memories of working-class neighbourhoods, adolescence, and the rituals of the Mediterranean region, whilst continuing to explore the links between ritual, celebration and collective transformation.

Our story

We appear in public spaces with a wide variety of formats: music, song theater, and art installation. We seek to purvey a certain resonance between the traditional ritual and today’s public spaces in which the sacred is often fading away, so our shows offer the audience a dreamlike immersion, moving between the sacred and the profane, between what is real and what is fictional.

Based in Marseille since 2010, our theatre company started by inviting the public to nighttime strolls through the city, theatrical “free parties,” where we closed roads to traffic and reopened parks. With the creation of our show Moun Fou, we have invented ways to circumvent regulations in a more subtle way, mainly to protect our more vulnerable artists from certain laws and legislation. Here we acquired new skills, learning to distort frameworks, seize existing situations and human infrastructures to exploit flaws as paths of passage, as gaps in which to plant the roots of new spaces for collective thought and action.

We see art as a pretext for meeting people and creating connections, rather than a means to an end. We create our shows and spaces as celebrations, where excess, pleasure, and collaboration intersect: creating places of care for the individual and the group. Our shows, just like our tailor-made projects, are always unique and strive to reflect what we already know and what there is to learn from each specific place and context.

Although our group now performs internationally, our roots remain in Marseille, the most diverse of cities where many cultures come and live together, a thousand-year-old metropolis, an urban theater of the best and the worst of humanity, an incredible tapestry of stories, trajectories, and destinies.

How we work

Our artistic team is made up of around thirty people from a variety of backgrounds (social workers, cooks, medical staff, musicians, engineers, artisans, visual artists, technicians, etc.) and combines a multitude of skills. Drawing on these unique qualities, the company has developed an original approach that welcomes and integrates citizens into the creative process and the dissemination of its works. As part of this approach, it welcomes “temporary collaborators” to each project, whether they are artists or not. Their presence maintains a permanent connection to the world.

Our team strives to work on our collaborative relationships seeking the most inclusive and horizontal human organization possible. Within the framework provided by our not for profit status, we are continuously designing a shared leadership. We have a committed board that facilitates cooperation and the wat we structure ourselves, an administrative team that handles day-to-day management and sets strategic goals, and a committed group of the company’s artists that guide and reflect.

The team

In addition to the people mentioned here in alphabetical order, there are others without whom the company would not have existed, people who have worked with us on an occasional basis, one-off collaborations, and the people we have met and who have inspired our work.

  • Céleste Ascar, patisserie chef
  • Fabienne Aulagnier, production team
  • Chloe Bernard, skater, actor
  • Frédéric Blancot, musician
  • Anne-Sophie Boivin, musician, actor
  • César Bouteau, musician
  • Olivier Boyer, musician
  • Jean-Christophe Brun, board member
  • Mireille Brun, musician, actor
  • Aziza Boussafeur, actor
  • Ilian Calaber, actor
  • Jérémie Charras, musician
  • Chloélie Cholot-Louis, lighting designer
  • France Davin, musician, actor, counsel member
  • Caroline Decque, chef
  • Mohamed Diop, actor
  • Mohamed Djellal, musician, actor
  • Camille Gasnier, chef
  • Cyril Fayard, musician, actor
  • Kate Fletcher, musician, actor, production team, counsel member
  • Charlotte Fuillet, actor, set designer
  • Cécile Gerbel, production team
  • Mathieu Gernez, technical coordinator
  • Adrien Guillot, ex-board member
  • Thomas Hua, technical team
  • Kevin Klein, actor, set designer
  • Melio Lannuzel, PHD Student in residency, visual artist, counsel member
  • Anne-Marie Launay, actor
  • Donata Lelleri, musician, actor, counsel member
  • Julien Marchaisseau, project designer, stage direction, counsel member
  • Léo Marandet, chef
  • Xavier Marguin, musician
  • Adrien Maufay, set designer
  • Pierre Mougne, musician, actor, counsel member
  • Joséphine Moulin, counsel member
  • Isabelle Perrouin, musician, actor
  • Jeremy Perrouin, sound artist
  • Wilda Philippe, actors direction, actor
  • Alexandra Le Pichouron, actor
  • Silvia Romanelli, costume designer
  • Vincent Salagnac, musician, actor
  • Pierrick De Salvert, chef, actor, counsel member
  • Alexandra Satger, choirmaster, musician, actor, counsel member
  • Matthieu Semman, sound designer
  • Florent Thiollier, musician, actor
  • Emmanuelle Taurines, board member
  • Julien Tribout, musician, actor
  • Sharon Tulloch, production team
  • Blandine Voineau, musician, actor, production team, counsel member

Our Ecosystem

For several years now, Rara Woulib has been working within a broad and rich ecosystem that serves as a source of inspiration and as a concrete resource. The first element of our ecosystem is the city of Marseille and its working-class neighborhoods in which we live and love. Marseille is a city overlooking the Mediterranean, full of contrast and diversity that influences our worldview. The city and its inhabitants are therefore an important piece of the puzzle.

We have a porous way of working, with many different structures and partners who enrich our practice, and each specific project develops its own unique collaborative infrastructure. These collaborators may come from the cultural and artistic world or from completely different backgrounds: activist organizations, popular education structures, amateur practice structures.
Our governance model is constantly evolving.

Other important elements in our ecosystem are our financial partners. Although the company started out as an informal group without funding, its current structure involves a series of partnerships and relationships with institutions and their representatives. We are committed to the idea of public service and work within the ethical framework of mutual communication and responsibility.

Rara Woulib has always crossed the borders of France and the French language. Today, we regularly collaborate with different countries and see international exchange as a source of hope.