Paris Syndrome is a dance theatre piece that draws from a Japanese phenomenon that occurs when tourists visit Paris and experience a psychological meltdown due to the realization that Paris, the "City of Love," does not match their idealized expectations of beauty. The only permanent cure is to go back to Japan – and never return to Paris. Through language games, spoken scenes, dance, and video interviews, Ex.Pgirl will explore the themes of madness, ideals, love, beauty, and cultural misunderstanding that Paris Syndrome seems to address, using the cultural backgrounds of the cast members (including Japanese, French, American, Argentinean, and Puerto Rican). Paris Syndrome is a humorous investigation of the parallels between culture shock, love, and disappointment.

Support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, NYSCA Commissioning Grant for development, as well as an LMCC Swing Space grant.

>>Watch the artist interview on HERE's youtube.com

Ex.Pgirl is dedicated to making new interdisciplinary movement theatre pieces that are created through a collaborative rehearsal process. All projects begin with a root idea and are developed as an ensemble through the imagination of the actors. 

Founded in 2002, Ex.Pgirl is led by artistic co-directors Bertie Ferdman and Suzi Takahashi, who first worked together in the physical theatre company mad dog (director Phil Soltanoff). They soon decided to create their own humorous original works exploring issues of multiculturalism, identity, and performance.  They seek to merge the banal with the spectacular, the common with the extraordinary. Currently, Ex.Pgirl works in close association with artists hailing from Japan, Argentina, France, Korea, and Puerto Rico, all of whom reside permanently in NYC.            

Ex.Pgirl is committed to cultural diversity and humor.  Combining each member's multicultural identity and diverse artistic disciplines such as dance, theater, acrobatics, music, and video, Ex.Pgirl collaboratively creates theatre that redefines and complicates the question of nationalism and cultural identity in today's globalized community.  Working as an ensemble in a development process of improvisation, performers examine the intersections of fear, love, humor, news, myth, and every day language, and how they are alike and dissimilar from culture to culture.  Ex.Pgirl develops each piece in a series of workshops where artists are encouraged to explore ideas from their own artistic and cultural perspective. All performances utilize a mix of English, French, Spanish, and Japanese. We also like wearing our name on our costume.

Ex.Pgirl uses satire and parody, as well as powerful visual imagery, to create a humorous and magical landscape of cross-cultural interactions, misunderstandings, and revelations that form an innovative form of non-linear, non-text based storytelling in which nothing is ever quite what it seems.  It might best be described as Pina Bausch meets The Monkees.  We are committed to offering our audience a more culturally expansive and entertaining view of our everyday reality.

photo: Julien Jourdes

Ex.Pgirl is a movement theatre company that creates original work for the stage.

In 2002 Ex.Pgirl premiered its first production, Ablution, created for the American Living Room Festival at HERE Arts Center.  Ablution was selected to participate in "The Best of" the American Living Room Festival 2002 as well as The Artists of Tomorrow Festival in 2003. Soon, Ex.Pgirl was invited to participate in HERE's Artist in Residency program (HARP), where they developed their second work Waving Hello, which premiered at HERE in November 2004 and was the recipient of the Franklin Furnace Grant for Performance Art as well as a commissioning grant from NYSCA. In March of 2005 Waving Hello was invited to perform at Brown University.  Ex.Pgirl will present their third work, 10 Plates, in NYC in October 2007. For 10 Plates, Ex.Pgirl was the recipient of a NYSCA grant, a Chashama  agrant, an Urban Artist Initiative Grant, as well as a Swing Space grant from LMCC.  Ex.Pgirl is currently in the initial stages of development for their newest piece, Paris Syndrome, a piece about culture shock, relationships, and sweet sweet love.

photo: Julien Jourdes