Cyril Teste trained at the École Régionale d’Acteurs in Cannes, then at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique in Paris. In 2000, he joined forces with lighting designer Julien Boizard and composer Nihil Bordures to form Collectif MxM, a extensive creative nucleus of artists and technicians, of which he became artistic director. As a director, he collaborates with noteworthy authors of today, whose writing defies dramatic conventions and allows for visual interpretation. He has premiered three works by Patrick Bouvet, including Direct/Shot at the 2004 Avignon Festival, and he has collaborated with Falk Richter, whose Electronic City he directed, followed in 2013 by Nobody, a score for film performance. He wrote and directed five works, including the diptych Reset and Sun at the Festival d’Avignon in 2011.

In 2013, he directed Tête Haute, the Collectif’s first show for young audiences, commissioned from author Joël Jouanneau. Simultaneously, he has worked on side projects, readings, short plays and concert performances with authors such as Sylvain Levey, Frédéric Vossier, Jérôme Game, Olivia Rosenthal and Pauline Peyrade.

Since 2011, he has been working with the Collectif MxM on the concept of “filmic” performance (filming, editing, calibration and mixing done in real time under the public gaze), inventing a style of theatrical writing based on cinematography and subject to a specific agenda.

Cyril Teste directed Patio (2011), based on Olivia Rosenthal’s On n’est pas là pour disparaître, Park (2012) and Nobody, in performance bot on site (2013) and on set (2015), which was officially selected to be presented as a feature film at the 2014 Cinemed Festival and at Festen 2017. In 2019, he adapted Opening Night from a screenplay by John Cassavetes, starring Isabelle Adjani. As a teacher, since 2009 he has been working with the Collectif MxM to develop the laboratoire nomade d’arts scéniques (nomadic performing arts laboratory), a transdisciplinary transmission network between presentation structure and the region’s higher education courses in drama, image, technology and science. From 2014 to 2016, he taught at Le Fresnoy—Studio national des arts contemporains.