“It is always difficult, even a little bit illusory, to claim that we can determine how it began, to ascertain the founding event of an artist’s life, the first emotional shock. Why did I become an artist, and this artist?

To invent a shape of live performance like ours, an equestrian theatre, first involves that we accept a nomadic life, its freedoms and its constraints, that same freedom which is its essence but also the discomfort. So, as soon as we say that we are “choosing” this life, we have to ask ourselves: is it such a deliberate choice?

Indeed, one chooses to live an artist’s life before they start being an artist. 

I shall be born as an artist a little later, as I begin to work with the material that I chose. Because it is the relationship that the artist maintains with his material which creates him; it is his way to know just how to play with the constraints that the material dictates to him that will make him an artist.

The context of the 1970s incited us to throw ourselves into life without the slightest insurance. The street arts that we used to perform back then with the Théâtre Emporté (provocative interventions using commedia dell’arte characters) was definitely marginal, there even was in us a kind of anger towards society, we saw ourselves as savages and rebels, and I think we were. We lived like stateless people, citizens of the world who fed on the countries they travelled through. The artistic discipline that we later created, the equestrian theatre, did not exist. We came from nowhere, we opened a new way, without knowing it.

We were living in the present, and back then we never mentioned any project nor future.”

Bartabas – in Manifeste pour la vie d’artiste, Editions Autrement, 2012

In 1984, Bartabas founded his company, the equestrian theater Zingaro, and settled at the Fort d’Aubervilliers in 1989. His productions Cabaret Équestre, Opéra Équestre, Chimère, Éclipse, Triptyk, Loungta, Battuta, Darshan, Calacas, On Achève Bien les Anges (Élégies) and Ex Anima, are events which invariably left their mark and prevail everywhere, from New York to Tokyo, from Istanbul to Hong-Kong, from Moscow to Mexico.

In a constant state of exploration, Bartabas regularly presents more intimate works in which he is at once creator and performer, such as Entr’aperçu (2004), Le Centaure et l’Animal (2010), created with Butoh dancer Ko Murobushi, or Golgota (2013), with flamenco dancer Andrés Marin.

Bartabas’ creations for the equestrian theater Zingaro

2025 Les cantiques du corbeau
2023 Cabaret de l’Exil – Femmes persanes
2022 Cabaret de l’Exil – Irish Travellers
2021 Cabaret de l’Exil – Yiddishland
2021 Entretiens silencieux
2017 Ex Anima
2015 On achève bien les anges (Élégies)
2013 Golgota
2011 Calacas
2010 Le Centaure et l’animal
2009 Darshan
2006 Lever de soleil
2006 Battuta
2004 Entr’aperçu
2003 Loungta
2000 Triptyk
1997 Eclipse
1994 Chimère
1991 Opéra Équestre
1989 Cabaret Équestre III
1987 Cabaret équestre II
1984 Cabaret équestre I

Attentive to artistic transmission, in 2003 he founded the equestrian Academy of Versailles. An unprecedented corps de ballet, installed in the riding arena of the Royal Great Stable, and for which he has created numerous choreographies. Since its opening, this gestural laboratory has sought the enrichment of equestrian art through choreographic reflection.

Bartabas’creations for the equestrian Academy of Versailles

2025 Trait de soie (Grand Palais -Saut Hermès)
2024 Noces de crins avec Le Cadre Noir de Saumur, Olympiade culturelle à la Grande Halle de La Villette
2018 Le Sacre de Stravinsky avec l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France dirigé par Mikko Franck
2018 Récréation (Grand Palais -Saut Hermès)
2017 Requiem avec Marc Minkowski (Salzbourg)
2016 La nature au galop (Grand Palais – Saut Hermès)
2015 Davide penitente avec Marc Minkowski (Salzbourg)
2014 Nuit de Chine (Grand Palais)
          Métamorphosis (Grand Palais -Saut Hermès)
2012 Le temps devant soi (Grand Palais -Saut Hermès)
2011 We were horses avec Carolyn Carlson
2010 Charivari équestre (Grand Palais – Saut Hermès)
2009 Liturgie équestre avec Benat Achiary et Vincent Dubois à l’abbatiale Saint-Ouen
2008 Les Juments de la nuit (bassin de Neptune, Château de Versailles)
2008 Partitions équestres, musique de Philip Glass (Nuits de Fourvière)
2006 Récital équestre avec Alexandre Tharaud (Nuits de Fourvière)
2005 Voyage aux Indes galantes (bassin de Neptune, Château de Versailles)
2004 Le Chevalier de Saint-George (bassin de Neptune, Château de Versailles)

Distinctions
2017 : Prix Plaisir du Théâtre-Marcel Nahmias
2012 : SACD Grand Prize.
2006 : “Créateur sans Frontière” (Creator Without Borders) Passport for Loungta in Tokyo by AFAA – Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
2006 : Crystal Globe of the Best Show for Battuta: Press Award for Arts and Culture,
2004: Knight of the Legion of Honour, by decree issued by the French President,
2004: Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, issued by Mr. Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres,
2002: Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit, issued by Mr. Jean Glavany,
1999: Knight of the National Order of Merit, issued by Ms. Catherine Trautmann
1996 : Molière of the best musical show for Chimère