News
2011
Dominique Caillat has written and produced a short version of her one-man-show Der ewige Soldat for the Bundesgartenschau Koblenz 2011. It will be performed everyday from April to October on the main stage of the Ehrenbreitstein fortress.
In the course of 2011, she will continue to develop various libretti ideas, including “The Children’s Crusade”, the staged oratorio project that won her a literary award from Pro Helvetia, but will mostly engage in comprehensive research for a planned novel about apes, humans, the Russian revolution, Abkhazia and biotechnology.
Dominique will also continue to give lectures about her favourite topics: the Middle-East conflict and (post-) Darwinism.
2010
December: État de piège and La Confession de Darwin were published in France by Christophe Chomant Éditeur (Rouen). This was accompanied by a series of lectures entitled “Middle-East: Historical Roots of an Ancestral Conflict” (Berlin, Français du Monde) and “After Darwin: Triumph, Scandals and Techno-science” (Geneva, Aix-en-Provence).
2009
November: Double world premiere, in French and in German, of Dominique Caillat’s new play, Darwin's Confession, commissioned by the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences on the occasion of Charles Darwin’s bicentennial. The French language play was directed by François Rochaix, the German adaptation by Martin Burr (Imprimerie Basel). The productions toured Switzerland throughout November and December 2009, with over 40 performances in 10 cities.
Dominique Caillat’s libretto concept for an oratorio, The Children’s Crusade, won a literary award from the Swiss Cultural Foundation Pro Helvetia. In the meantime, she has written a draft of the libretto in English and is working on French and German translations. The search for partners for the project is in full swing.
2008
January: Dominique Caillat is commissioned by the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences to write a play about Charles Darwin and evolution, to be performed all over Switzerland on the occasion of the scientist’s bicentennial anniversary. She spends over a year in intensively researching the world of Darwinian biology, and its interaction with philosophy, religion and modern techno-genetics: who are we, and who do we want to be?
In February, Dominique Caillat was the guest speaker at the annual assembly of the “Société Académique de Genève”, addressing a group of prominent academics and businesspeople at the University of Geneva. Her speech, entitled Proche-Orient: Rêve et réalité (Middle-East: Dream and Reality) summed up 11 years of recurrent research in Israel and Palestine that resulted in two plays and a book.
2007
Dominique Caillat’s play about the Middle-East conflict, État de Piège, opened to public and press acclaim on November 20, 2007 at the Théâtre de Carouge in Geneva, in a remarkable production by François Rochaix, with Elzbieta Jasinska, Pierre Dubey and Laurent Sandoz. The play ran for four weeks and had 25 performances, all of them sold out (103,4% seat occupancy).
The production was sponsored by the “Société Académique de Genève” within the framework of the 2005-2008 Forum on Democracy and Terrorism and was accompanied by public debates. Guest speakers included: prof. Alexis Keller (Harvard University, Université de Genève), Gabriel de Montmollin (Publisher, Labor & Fides), Adam Maor (Israeli pacifist) and prof. Albert de Pury (theologian).
LA PAIX OU LA MORT (DEATH OR PEACE)
Behind the Stage of the Israeli-Palestinian Drama
(in French)
was published in November by Labor & Fides, Geneva. In her book, Dominique Caillat tells about years of research in the Middle-East, looking at the origins and the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and describing the “making of” her recent play on the subject, État de piège.
Also in November, Geneva’s prestigious daily paper Le Temps, published an essay by Dominique Caillat about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on two full pages, entitled Proche-Orient : quel espoir ? >> (Middle-East: Any Hope Left?)