Voloz Collective: Hartland Native Olivia Zerphy and Colleagues Bring Physical Theatre to the UV

Another Upper Valley artist on the world stage

Olivia Zerphy, a Hartland, Vermont native and graduate of Hanover High, is a cofounder of Voloz Collective, an international theatre company, feted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and other venues around the world. She and the company will land soon in the Upper Valley as part of their US tour.

It is no accident that Olivia is bringing Voloz Collective home. During a recent interview with her, she was visiting family and friends in Hartland, a world away from her Paris, France address, where she lives when not on the road. When I expressed my lifelong love for her current home city, she admitted to its energy, art, and all of the things that make Paris the special place it is. But, she opined, Vermont is “an ideal place to live.” She is not wrong.

Voloz Collective’s métier is “physical theatre.” Asked to define it, Olivia responded, “It’s a broad term . . . It tells stories through visual aspects that take precedence over the textual.” It features technical movement and mime; actors “communicate with their bodies.” There may be spoken dialogue but it is not the dominant mode of communication. Zerphy sees it in part as a response to more formal kinds of theater, “not intimidating, accessible, no prerequisites,” and above all, “it’s fun.”

Voloz (the name is rooted in the Latin velox, as in “velocity,” and was chosen quickly when the newly-formed group was up against a deadline) began in 2017 when Olivia met three colleagues at L’Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq, where she was enrolled in a two-year post-grad program. In 2019, she applied for an artistic residency at The Sable Project, an off-the-grid arts incubator located in Vermont. She and her colleagues accepted their invitation to come as a group. A handful of years later, they are returning to The Sable Project to perform on this US-based tour.

The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much.

Wes Anderson meets Hitchcock meets Spaghetti Western in this multi-award-winning, intercontinental, inter-genre, cinematic caper of accusations, accidents, and accents. Roger, a Frenchman in 1960's New York, has spent years following the same predictable routine, until a minor delay saves him from an explosion. Throwing his ordered world into chaos, Roger chases his would-be assassins around the globe. Raucously funny and endlessly inventive, this Lecoq-trained theatre company delights and stuns with live, original music and virtuosic acrobatics in this fast-paced, OFFIE-finalist whodunnit.-- Voloz Collective

'Physical Theatre at its most immaculate' ★★★★ Scotsman

The group’s non-hierarchical structure means all of them collaborate in writing, acting, and directing, which Olivia describes as “not an efficient way to work.” Efficiency has given way to more important things, like having all members of the group experiencing a sense of creative ownership. And if two heads are better, four is best, as each production benefits from multiple creative universes and areas of specialty. Should a creative impasse occur—and they do—often the resolution is a suggestion that the group launch into action to try out different possibilities to see what works.

These are the venues in the UV where you can catch Voloz in its highly artistic act:

August 3, 2024—Pentangle Arts Center, Woodstock VT (ticketed event)

August 9, 2024—The Sable Project, Stockbridge, VT (by donation)

August 11, 2024—Nexus Festival, Lebanon Green, Lebanon, NH (free outdoor performance)

For more information, performance times, artist bios and photos, check out Voloz’s website.

(Photo, top, Olivia Zerphy, Sam Rainer, Emily Wheatman. Permission of Olivia Zerphy. Photo credit: Jake Wadley)

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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.