Dominique Valentin, actress, director, writer and singer was born in Vichy, in the heart of France. She took her B.A. in Philosophy in Clermont-Ferrand in 1969. With her degree in hand, she went up to Paris to study theatre arts at the acting school Charles Dullin.
Dominique Valentin acquires her first stage experiences quite young in the roles of "Zerbinette" in Molières "Les Fourberies de Scapin" and the role of "The Student" in Ionescos "La Leçon" (The Lesson). In 1970 she joins the troupe of Ariane Mnouchkine as actress and for six years shares in the exciting life of the Théâtre du Soleil.
Her years at the Théâtre du Soleil culminate in the memorable tour of the play "L'Age d'Or", during which she performs, among other places, at the Piccolo Teatro of Milan, at the Biennale of Venice and, within the setting of the "Théâtre des Nations", in Warsaw in 1975. Her interpretation of the role of "Lou la Grosse", the monologue of an English teacher, remains an unforgettable theatrical moment.
In 1976 and 1977 she performs in the following motion pictures: "L'Affiche Rouge" (Jean Vigo Price), "La Chanson de Roland", directed by Frank Cassenti, and "La Barricade du Point du Jour", directed by René Richon.
She collaborated in the direction of "Pulchinella Capitano del Popolo", performed first in Rome and then in all the Italian provinces by the "Gruppo della Rocca»; and then again in the Wiesbaden Staatstheater production of "Les Fiancés de Loches" by George Feydeau.
Thereafter, Dominique Valentin adds directing and writing to her acting career.
1978 marks her directorial debut in Antwerp, Belgium, for "Wisselstuk" (Spare Part), a play about public health, which she co-authored with Marianne van Kerkhoven. This play, which toured all of Belgium and Holland, was enthusiastically acclaimed by the public and the critics. "A theatrical tour de force" Knack. "This play scales new heights. Each actor surpasses his/her performance achievements. Because the direction was impeccable" De Nieuwe. "A work worthy of the greatest literature. It would be a mistake to miss it" Rood.
Dominique Valentin collaborates once again with Marianne van Kerkhoven in writing a play about the life of an accordeon-player, "La Vie de Denise Letourneur", and subsequently directs it in Paris in 1979.
In 1981 Dominique Valentin flies to the American Wild West, looking for traces of Calamity Jane. She visits the ghost towns of Wyoming and Montana, the Yellowstone Valley and the Black Hills.
Back in Paris, she alternates between directing and writing:
"Miss Martha Jane Cannary in the melodramatic role of Calamity Jane", the last day of a female drunkard in the Deadwood Saloon of South Dakota, a work written in 1984.
"Le Dernier Voyage", written in 1984 and presented in 1985 at the Theatre A. Déjazet in Paris : "A beautiful lesson in theatre, strong, delicate, unusual, fresh, altogether new" Michel Cournot - Le Monde. "Dominique Valentins play is innovative in its premises and in its presentation.... Her intention was to defy our social taboos concerning love and sexual relations among the old.... She offers a positive vision of love, and this is so unusual and so unexpected as to constitute a real challenge to our taboos..." Celita Lamar in "Our Voices, Ourselves " Editions Peter Lang, New York 1991.
"Rapport à une Académie" by Franz Kafka, translated and produced in 1987 in the Richelieu Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne. In this play about human adaptation, Dominique Valentin has the talking monkey appear through the very entrance of the Amphitheatre used by the Sorbonne professors. "Impressive, almost unnerving in its intensity" Wolkenkratzer.
"Edouard VIII, Duc de Windsor", a work written in 1988 on the "love of the century" between the Prince of Wales and the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, with the Second World War as background.
In Paris Dominique Valentin meets the American composer and pianist Chris Biehl, who asks her to sing his compositions. He accompanies her on the piano in the recital "Burning Love". Invited at the Printemps de Bourges 87, Dominique appears for the first time on a stage as singer. She gives a repeat of this recital in 1989 at the Théâtre A. Dejazet in Paris.
In the same year she writes the script of a short film, "Lettre à ma Fille", inspired by the suicide of an old actress, and, in collaboration with Benjamin Korn, she translates Arthur Schnitzlers "Fräulein Else".
In 1990 she creates a documentary about the famous Rumanian poet Paul Celan: "Memories of Siegfried Trichter".
Dominique Valentin by no means abandons her profession of actress during these years. In 1979 she performs in the "Dreigroschen Oper" ("Threepenny Opera") by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill in the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, under the direction of Hans Peter Cloos. In 1983 and 1984 she is seen in "Der Streit" (The Dispute) by Marivaux at the Schauspielhaus of Cologne under the direction of Benjamin Korn. Her performance attracts the praise of German critics: "That is great theatre !" Peter von Becker-Theater Heute.
"Surprise attack of an avalanche of Art" "Theatre, a Feast !" "Grandiose!" "A miracle !" "A French Edith Clever" "A revelation of the perfect art of theatre acting". Thus the torrent of reviews from Vienna, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Budapest and Berlin during Dominique Valentins tour of Arthur Schnitzlers "Mademoiselle Else", a monologue she had created for the Festival of French Theatre at Saarbrücken in 1991, and which, repeated at the Théâtre de l'Athénée-Louis Jouvet in Paris in 1992, had played to full houses there.
One of the spectators was M. Philippe-Gérard, composer for Edith Piaf, Yves Montand, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Marlene Dietrich and others. After witnessing Dominique Valentins performance, he asks her to sing his songs. "I was looking, he said, not only for a singer, but for a tragic actress and a voice." Result: A song recital, "Le Feu, le Noir" ("Fire, Black") compositions with texts by Jacques Prévert, Nazim Hikmet, Eugene Guillevic, Rainer-Maria Rilke, Jean Cocteau... After several meetings at the Closerie des Lilas, Etienne Roda-Gil writes "Chaque Matin" for her, and Michel Rivgauche, who had written the words for Edith Piafs "La Foule", entrusts Dominique with "La Chanson Inachevée". There follows a European tour in 1995 which takes her, among other places, to the Schauspielhaus of Düsseldorf, the Alte Oper of Frankfurt, the Opera of Heidelberg, the Ronacher Etablissement of Vienna, the 100th International Festival of Wiesbaden, and, in 1996, the Renaissance Theater of Berlin as guest of the prestigious Berlin Festival. "This extraordinary and seemingly limitless voice springs from the mouth of a young Frenchwoman, as divinely gifted as a chanteuse as an actress" Westdeutsche Allgemeine.
Within the same festival she reads, together with the actor Thomas Thieme, passages from her first novel "Die Schickse" at the House of Literature of Berlin. "A masterstroke ! Absorbing, sensual, never larmoyant and full of love" Berliner Morgenpost.
Next, Dominique Valentin is invited at the House of Literature of Hamburg, where she does a reading with the actor Michael Weber.
"The Schickse is a superb and absorbing novel, set against the German background and history and the Holocaust, concerning a non-jewish woman and a Jew whose family cannot accept the relationship" (Presentation by the publisher Schöffling).
Upon the publication of the novel, Titel Thesen Temperamente broadcasts an interview of Dominique Valentin. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung of Munich Barbara von Becker writes: "Between laughter horror and deep emotion, Dominique Valentin keeps the reader panting until the end. The composition, force and plasticity of the description and the narrative inventions of this text of two hundred pages, written in one mighty jet as if in a single exhalation, reveal very great literary qualities."
In 1996 the novel is published in Frankfurt by Schöffling and Co., and again in 1997 by the Büchergilde Gutenberg. In the Netherlands it is brought out by Van Gennep. In 1998 it appears in Munich in a Piper Verlag pocket book edition.
In 1995, between her activities of songstress and writer, Dominique Valentin directs, together with Benjamin Korn, Goethes "Torquato Tasso" at the Schauspielhaus Zürich. The production is invited in May 1997 at the International Festival of Wiesbaden (Maifestspiele). "Extraordinary! A summit of the International Festival ! A feast for the theatre such as has become a rarity in our days" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Dominique Valentin records a set of poems by Gottfried Benn for France Culture under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Para.
In 1996-1997 she writes her second novel, "Le Fax", the subject of which is the Paris of today. Hers is not the Paris of salons, fashion shows, luxury boulevards and the perfume industry, but the Paris of impoverished and dirty districts, the Paris of races and colors, the Paris of forgotten corners and smoke-filled bistrots, the Paris of hospitals and traffic jams, the Paris of strikes, end-of-century Paris, Paris : chaos.
Amidst these fireworks, Dominique Valentin directs : Schillers "Kabale und Liebe" at the Schauspielhaus of Zürich in 1998. "An entertaining three-and-a-half hours, and ever so modern!" Düsseldorfer Handelsblatt. "Full of wit and shivers, of form and fury" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
"Drei Mal Leben" ("Life x 3" in the American production) by Yasmina Reza at the Schauspielhaus of Düsseldorf in 2001. "A heavenly production" Bild. "A stroke of genius, precise" Rheinische Post.
In 2002, Dominique Valentin writes another play: « Allô, Céleste !» The main character is a diva who has been buried alive after an unsuccessful attempt to murder her. She tries to free herself from this nightmarish situation with the help of her mobile phone. This is a black comedy about the futility of life and loneliness in a world of hyper-communications.
Translated into German, it is published in 2003 by Suhrkamp Theaterverlag under the title « Friedhof Montparnasse ».
The German Theatre Abroad is organising a reading of the play in Berlin.
In 2005, Dominique Valentin plays the role of the Actress in a production of « Allô, Céleste !» at the Petit Hébertot theatre in Paris. "The language of « Allô, Céleste !» is as beautiful as it is possible to be, laconic, funny, and virulent ; it sweeps like an avalanche" Paris First Class. "Very original and very, very modern, and Dominique Valentin is really a great, great actress !" Odette Cournot.
« Allô, Céleste !» is included, in 2006, in the Anthology of Modern Theatre, Spectaculum 76, published by Suhrkamp Verlag in Frankfurt, under the title « Friedhof Montparnasse ».
In 2007, Dominique Valentin creates her website, in collaboration with the graphic artist David Laranjeira and the website designer Raphaël Dunand : http://www.dominiquevalentin.com/
Dominique Valentin is a member of the jury of the International Festival NRW (Festival of the Rhineland-North Westphalia) in Bonn in 2008.
In 2009, the German premiere of « Allô, Céleste !» by Dominique Valentin takes place in the Theatre of Ulm under the title « Friedhof Montparnasse» , directed by Andreas von Studnitz, with Christel Mayr in the title role.
Dominique Valentin founds in 2010 her own company for theatre, film and music: VALENTIN PRODUCTIONS.
In 2014 Dominique Valentin wrote and directed her first short film entitled "Lettre à ma Fille" ("Letter to my Daughter") starring Judith Magre. (Production "House on Fire"-Fred Bellaïche)
On December 12th 2015, first preview of « Letter to my Daughter » shown at the cinema Les 3 Luxembourg in Paris, France.
In November 2016 « Letter to my Daughter » is invited into the competition of the International French Film Festival Tübingen/Stuttgart (Germany).
On April 12th 2017, first preview of « Letter to my Daughter » shown at the cinema Farnese in Rome, Italy, presented by Giuliano Montaldo.
In 2017, Dominique Valentin writes a satirical play about prejudices, « La Promenade ».
March 17, 2018 a new screening of Ms. Valentin's "Letter To My Daughter" in conjunction with the Rome-Paris event held at the Cinema Farnese Persol in Rome, Italy.
Dominique Valentin acquires her first stage experiences quite young in the roles of "Zerbinette" in Molières "Les Fourberies de Scapin" and the role of "The Student" in Ionescos "La Leçon" (The Lesson). In 1970 she joins the troupe of Ariane Mnouchkine as actress and for six years shares in the exciting life of the Théâtre du Soleil.
Her years at the Théâtre du Soleil culminate in the memorable tour of the play "L'Age d'Or", during which she performs, among other places, at the Piccolo Teatro of Milan, at the Biennale of Venice and, within the setting of the "Théâtre des Nations", in Warsaw in 1975. Her interpretation of the role of "Lou la Grosse", the monologue of an English teacher, remains an unforgettable theatrical moment.
In 1976 and 1977 she performs in the following motion pictures: "L'Affiche Rouge" (Jean Vigo Price), "La Chanson de Roland", directed by Frank Cassenti, and "La Barricade du Point du Jour", directed by René Richon.
She collaborated in the direction of "Pulchinella Capitano del Popolo", performed first in Rome and then in all the Italian provinces by the "Gruppo della Rocca»; and then again in the Wiesbaden Staatstheater production of "Les Fiancés de Loches" by George Feydeau.
Thereafter, Dominique Valentin adds directing and writing to her acting career.
1978 marks her directorial debut in Antwerp, Belgium, for "Wisselstuk" (Spare Part), a play about public health, which she co-authored with Marianne van Kerkhoven. This play, which toured all of Belgium and Holland, was enthusiastically acclaimed by the public and the critics. "A theatrical tour de force" Knack. "This play scales new heights. Each actor surpasses his/her performance achievements. Because the direction was impeccable" De Nieuwe. "A work worthy of the greatest literature. It would be a mistake to miss it" Rood.
Dominique Valentin collaborates once again with Marianne van Kerkhoven in writing a play about the life of an accordeon-player, "La Vie de Denise Letourneur", and subsequently directs it in Paris in 1979.
In 1981 Dominique Valentin flies to the American Wild West, looking for traces of Calamity Jane. She visits the ghost towns of Wyoming and Montana, the Yellowstone Valley and the Black Hills.
Back in Paris, she alternates between directing and writing:
"Miss Martha Jane Cannary in the melodramatic role of Calamity Jane", the last day of a female drunkard in the Deadwood Saloon of South Dakota, a work written in 1984.
"Le Dernier Voyage", written in 1984 and presented in 1985 at the Theatre A. Déjazet in Paris : "A beautiful lesson in theatre, strong, delicate, unusual, fresh, altogether new" Michel Cournot - Le Monde. "Dominique Valentins play is innovative in its premises and in its presentation.... Her intention was to defy our social taboos concerning love and sexual relations among the old.... She offers a positive vision of love, and this is so unusual and so unexpected as to constitute a real challenge to our taboos..." Celita Lamar in "Our Voices, Ourselves " Editions Peter Lang, New York 1991.
"Rapport à une Académie" by Franz Kafka, translated and produced in 1987 in the Richelieu Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne. In this play about human adaptation, Dominique Valentin has the talking monkey appear through the very entrance of the Amphitheatre used by the Sorbonne professors. "Impressive, almost unnerving in its intensity" Wolkenkratzer.
"Edouard VIII, Duc de Windsor", a work written in 1988 on the "love of the century" between the Prince of Wales and the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, with the Second World War as background.
In Paris Dominique Valentin meets the American composer and pianist Chris Biehl, who asks her to sing his compositions. He accompanies her on the piano in the recital "Burning Love". Invited at the Printemps de Bourges 87, Dominique appears for the first time on a stage as singer. She gives a repeat of this recital in 1989 at the Théâtre A. Dejazet in Paris.
In the same year she writes the script of a short film, "Lettre à ma Fille", inspired by the suicide of an old actress, and, in collaboration with Benjamin Korn, she translates Arthur Schnitzlers "Fräulein Else".
In 1990 she creates a documentary about the famous Rumanian poet Paul Celan: "Memories of Siegfried Trichter".
Dominique Valentin by no means abandons her profession of actress during these years. In 1979 she performs in the "Dreigroschen Oper" ("Threepenny Opera") by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill in the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, under the direction of Hans Peter Cloos. In 1983 and 1984 she is seen in "Der Streit" (The Dispute) by Marivaux at the Schauspielhaus of Cologne under the direction of Benjamin Korn. Her performance attracts the praise of German critics: "That is great theatre !" Peter von Becker-Theater Heute.
"Surprise attack of an avalanche of Art" "Theatre, a Feast !" "Grandiose!" "A miracle !" "A French Edith Clever" "A revelation of the perfect art of theatre acting". Thus the torrent of reviews from Vienna, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Budapest and Berlin during Dominique Valentins tour of Arthur Schnitzlers "Mademoiselle Else", a monologue she had created for the Festival of French Theatre at Saarbrücken in 1991, and which, repeated at the Théâtre de l'Athénée-Louis Jouvet in Paris in 1992, had played to full houses there.
One of the spectators was M. Philippe-Gérard, composer for Edith Piaf, Yves Montand, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Marlene Dietrich and others. After witnessing Dominique Valentins performance, he asks her to sing his songs. "I was looking, he said, not only for a singer, but for a tragic actress and a voice." Result: A song recital, "Le Feu, le Noir" ("Fire, Black") compositions with texts by Jacques Prévert, Nazim Hikmet, Eugene Guillevic, Rainer-Maria Rilke, Jean Cocteau... After several meetings at the Closerie des Lilas, Etienne Roda-Gil writes "Chaque Matin" for her, and Michel Rivgauche, who had written the words for Edith Piafs "La Foule", entrusts Dominique with "La Chanson Inachevée". There follows a European tour in 1995 which takes her, among other places, to the Schauspielhaus of Düsseldorf, the Alte Oper of Frankfurt, the Opera of Heidelberg, the Ronacher Etablissement of Vienna, the 100th International Festival of Wiesbaden, and, in 1996, the Renaissance Theater of Berlin as guest of the prestigious Berlin Festival. "This extraordinary and seemingly limitless voice springs from the mouth of a young Frenchwoman, as divinely gifted as a chanteuse as an actress" Westdeutsche Allgemeine.
Within the same festival she reads, together with the actor Thomas Thieme, passages from her first novel "Die Schickse" at the House of Literature of Berlin. "A masterstroke ! Absorbing, sensual, never larmoyant and full of love" Berliner Morgenpost.
Next, Dominique Valentin is invited at the House of Literature of Hamburg, where she does a reading with the actor Michael Weber.
"The Schickse is a superb and absorbing novel, set against the German background and history and the Holocaust, concerning a non-jewish woman and a Jew whose family cannot accept the relationship" (Presentation by the publisher Schöffling).
Upon the publication of the novel, Titel Thesen Temperamente broadcasts an interview of Dominique Valentin. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung of Munich Barbara von Becker writes: "Between laughter horror and deep emotion, Dominique Valentin keeps the reader panting until the end. The composition, force and plasticity of the description and the narrative inventions of this text of two hundred pages, written in one mighty jet as if in a single exhalation, reveal very great literary qualities."
In 1996 the novel is published in Frankfurt by Schöffling and Co., and again in 1997 by the Büchergilde Gutenberg. In the Netherlands it is brought out by Van Gennep. In 1998 it appears in Munich in a Piper Verlag pocket book edition.
In 1995, between her activities of songstress and writer, Dominique Valentin directs, together with Benjamin Korn, Goethes "Torquato Tasso" at the Schauspielhaus Zürich. The production is invited in May 1997 at the International Festival of Wiesbaden (Maifestspiele). "Extraordinary! A summit of the International Festival ! A feast for the theatre such as has become a rarity in our days" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Dominique Valentin records a set of poems by Gottfried Benn for France Culture under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Para.
In 1996-1997 she writes her second novel, "Le Fax", the subject of which is the Paris of today. Hers is not the Paris of salons, fashion shows, luxury boulevards and the perfume industry, but the Paris of impoverished and dirty districts, the Paris of races and colors, the Paris of forgotten corners and smoke-filled bistrots, the Paris of hospitals and traffic jams, the Paris of strikes, end-of-century Paris, Paris : chaos.
Amidst these fireworks, Dominique Valentin directs : Schillers "Kabale und Liebe" at the Schauspielhaus of Zürich in 1998. "An entertaining three-and-a-half hours, and ever so modern!" Düsseldorfer Handelsblatt. "Full of wit and shivers, of form and fury" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
"Drei Mal Leben" ("Life x 3" in the American production) by Yasmina Reza at the Schauspielhaus of Düsseldorf in 2001. "A heavenly production" Bild. "A stroke of genius, precise" Rheinische Post.
In 2002, Dominique Valentin writes another play: « Allô, Céleste !» The main character is a diva who has been buried alive after an unsuccessful attempt to murder her. She tries to free herself from this nightmarish situation with the help of her mobile phone. This is a black comedy about the futility of life and loneliness in a world of hyper-communications.
Translated into German, it is published in 2003 by Suhrkamp Theaterverlag under the title « Friedhof Montparnasse ».
The German Theatre Abroad is organising a reading of the play in Berlin.
In 2005, Dominique Valentin plays the role of the Actress in a production of « Allô, Céleste !» at the Petit Hébertot theatre in Paris. "The language of « Allô, Céleste !» is as beautiful as it is possible to be, laconic, funny, and virulent ; it sweeps like an avalanche" Paris First Class. "Very original and very, very modern, and Dominique Valentin is really a great, great actress !" Odette Cournot.
« Allô, Céleste !» is included, in 2006, in the Anthology of Modern Theatre, Spectaculum 76, published by Suhrkamp Verlag in Frankfurt, under the title « Friedhof Montparnasse ».
In 2007, Dominique Valentin creates her website, in collaboration with the graphic artist David Laranjeira and the website designer Raphaël Dunand : http://www.dominiquevalentin.com/
Dominique Valentin is a member of the jury of the International Festival NRW (Festival of the Rhineland-North Westphalia) in Bonn in 2008.
In 2009, the German premiere of « Allô, Céleste !» by Dominique Valentin takes place in the Theatre of Ulm under the title « Friedhof Montparnasse» , directed by Andreas von Studnitz, with Christel Mayr in the title role.
Dominique Valentin founds in 2010 her own company for theatre, film and music: VALENTIN PRODUCTIONS.
In 2014 Dominique Valentin wrote and directed her first short film entitled "Lettre à ma Fille" ("Letter to my Daughter") starring Judith Magre. (Production "House on Fire"-Fred Bellaïche)
On December 12th 2015, first preview of « Letter to my Daughter » shown at the cinema Les 3 Luxembourg in Paris, France.
In November 2016 « Letter to my Daughter » is invited into the competition of the International French Film Festival Tübingen/Stuttgart (Germany).
On April 12th 2017, first preview of « Letter to my Daughter » shown at the cinema Farnese in Rome, Italy, presented by Giuliano Montaldo.
In 2017, Dominique Valentin writes a satirical play about prejudices, « La Promenade ».
March 17, 2018 a new screening of Ms. Valentin's "Letter To My Daughter" in conjunction with the Rome-Paris event held at the Cinema Farnese Persol in Rome, Italy.