Michael Delaunoy

Michael Delaunoy was born in Liège on August 21st 1968.
From 1988 to 1992, he studied at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles in Pierre Laroche's dramatic art class and Charles Kleinberg's declamation class.
In 1991, he founded the Off Limits theatre company, which became l'Envers du Théâtre in 2000.
In 2005, his production of René Kalisky's "Aïda vaincue" won four awards at the Prix de la critique in Belgium, including the award for best show. Over the years he has also been nominated four times as best director.
In 2006, l'Envers du Théâtre was hosted as an artistic residency at Théâtre des Martyrs in Brussels.
In 2007, he became director of Rideau de Bruxelles, a stage dedicated to new writings, which he managed until 2020.
He works on most of the major stages in Brussels and in Wallonia, but also in France, Switzerland, Quebec and Italy.
As a director, he is concerned with placing words and bodies at the focus of the spectator's attention, but also with questioning the intimacy and its relationship to the world.
A lover of strong dramaturgies, he has worked on Büchner, Chekhov, Ibsen, Strindberg, von Horváth, Adamov, Crommelynck, Duras, Beckett, Levin, as well as many contemporary writers : Patrick McCabe, David Harrower, Ascanio Celestini, Luca De Bei, Enzo Cormann, Xavier de Guillebon, Christophe Pellet, Martin Crimp, Sébastien Harrisson, and the Belgians Paul Pourveur, Pietro Pizzuti, Laurence Vielle and Serge Demoulin, whose "Le carnaval des ombres" in his staging (nearly 170 performances to date) won the prize for best one-man show at the Prix de la critique in 2012.
He has always been interested in the relationship between theatre and music. In 2000, he has created "Maldoror" with the Liège-based composer Michel Fourgon, a musical show inspired by the poet Lautréamont. In March 2013, he directed the world premiere of "Lolo Ferrari" from Michel Fourgon at the Opéra from Rouen Haute-Normandie.
In parallel to his work as a director, he is developing an important teaching activity. Between 1994 and 2003 he was a lecturer in dramatic art at the Royal Conservatory of Liège and since 2003 he has been a professor of dramatic art at Arts² in Mons.
He is the author of two books that were published together in June 2021. The first, entitled "Le Rideau de Bruxelles - Itinéraires" (2007-2020)", is published by Alternatives Théâtrales. It is a collective publication that looks back on his years as director of Rideau de Bruxelles.
The second one, entitled "Le bruissement des corps et le silence des pierres - Sur le théâtre et autres futilités nécessaires" (1991-2021) is published by Lansman in the 'Regards singuliers' collection. It is a compilation of texts about his activity as a director, teacher and, more broadly, as a citizen.