Raphaëlle Boitel is a French circus performer, contortionist, acrobat, actress, theatre director, and choreographer. She started as a contortionist street performer as a child, then appeared in internationally touring works by James Thiérrée and others, including La Symphonie du Hanneton . She founded her own company, Cie L'Oublié(e), in 2012, and began to produce and direct as well as perform, creating the internationally touring productions L'Oublié(e) and La Chute des Anges among other works. Boitel has also worked as a television and film actress, and as a choreographer for opera, including at La Scala.
Boitel was born in 1984, the youngest of four children. Their father died in 1986, and from that time, Boitel's mother, Lilou, decided she would "follow her children and serve them". When the children wanted to study circus arts, their mother did not object, but could not afford the fees. The children took up street performance on the road between Collioure and Céret to earn the money: eight-year-old Boitel worked as a contortionist, while her brother Camille rode unicycle and juggled. They earned enough for a 1992 summer workshop of the École Nationale du Cirque led by Annie Fratellini in Nexon, Haute-Vienne, in central France. When Fratellini saw them paying with 5,000 francs in small change, and explaining that they earned it by their performances, she was so touched that she admitted the family to the main Paris school for free. The family left Montauban where they had been living, and stayed in Paris for five years.
At the circus school, they were noticed by film director Coline Serreau, who cast them in minor roles in La Belle Verte (1996). Another actor in the film was Swiss circus performer James Thiérrée, who became a family friend.
| Date of Birth | 1st January 1984 |
|---|---|
| Age | 40 Years |
| Zodiac Sign | Capricorn |
| Country | France |
| Reference | IMDB |
| Career Start | 1998 (26 years ago) |
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