Les Estates General of Artistic Itineraries highlight how these are now at the centre of a profound renewal of the dissemination of cultural offer, where they were not necessarily expected: urbanism, mobility, landscapes, ecological transition, as well as identity, the memory, the imaginary and the stories of the territories crossed.
Gone are the simple ideas of a roaming intended to accomplish, through a cultural offer designed elsewhere, «the last meters» that separate it from distant audiences! It is no longer just about that, far from it.
Review of the lighting given by Pépita Car, coordinator of the International Centre for Touring Theatres (ISIC) and these Estates General of artistic itineraries, at the time of launching the first day on January 18th.
Artistic roaming: much more than a tour
The question is obvious: basically, what is artistic roaming? Isn’t it simply a tour? Certainly not. Pépita Car clearly explained why: Roaming is an artistic proposition that goes to… to an audience, to a territory. To this end, it is the space of diffusion itself that moves, whether or not it is perched on a concrete or imaginary mobile structure. And this movement is accompanied, second characteristic, by an installation of the artists on a certain duration ”, with weapons and luggage.
The concrete influence of space and time on the imagination of artists and the public then produces something completely different: mutual encounter and hospitality.
«The itinerant artist settles at your place and invites you to his place»
An itinerant space occupies the place, over a given period, where it develops all the associated uses: the show (or the exhibition, or the projection of films, or…), but also its announcement, the convocation of the public, the editing, the transformation of this space, mediation meetings, workshops open to the public, schools, etc. It is here that it produces a powerful urban effect: “ it overcomes a lack of equipment, but it also opens possibilities in spaces that seemed locked. »
« The institutions are with us, intervenes Bruno Thircuir, director and artistic director of the Factory of small utopias I didn’t build a theatre truck and a tent without money.... Such a truck unfolds in a square, it attracts, it makes an event. Certainly, the fracture, in some territories, is there, terrible: but if we settle more than one evening, the kids push the door! That is why we must continue to explore this practice together. »
Fairground proposals that shape the identity of the territory
Installation of a very special space and duration, artistic roaming is not just a simple ephemeral occupation. It weaves ramifications with the territories it occupies, leaving its mark. She remained, indeed, long enough with the inhabitants to continue, once gone, to haunt the place until her return. She brought an event that energizes the common memory, she will come back and we will welcome her as we are. She gave her share and in return reveals a little more, around her, the identity of the territories.
The work of the team of Carole Albanese, director of Estive, a national scene located in Foix in the heart of a rural area, illustrates this dimension. « On our programming The Ford Stones, we work without a place. And we no longer start from our programming desires, but from the population pool where we will go. How can we bounce back on the interest expressed to us by an elected official? What could we do in a place where we have never been? For example in Puivert, a very small beautiful village, where we organized guided tours of the castle, sung ballads, a concert, a pyrotechnic installation, the inhabitants told us "we never saw our castle like that!" They have renewed their poetic relationship to their environment, but they have also valued their choice to stay in rural areas or to have come to settle there.”
An additional imaginary, specific to artistic roaming
So many traditional images for artistic roaming! Tent, barnum, caravan, yurt, trailer, ship, barge, kiosk, umbrella, suitcase… so many vignettes referring to nomads, travellers, sailors, travellers, the man-orchestra, the magician of passage… In this regard, the artistic itineraries are far from having said their last word. “ New contemporary forms summon new imaginations and stage new narratives! An aesthetic of roaming, in full renewal, and thus an additional imaginary, is added to the artistic proposal proper”, explains Pépita Car.
The full boom of «retro-innovation»
Olivier Letellier, the director of Les Tréteaux de France: I invented two devices. The 4x4 : place orders to authors for places. For example, a text and a staging that we will play in all the changing rooms of sports equipment in France. For the public it is the surprise of a place whose door is easily pushed and which is transformed and where it tells itself suddenly something else.
« The other invented form is the KILLT (“Ki to read text?”) : a reading journey shared by an actor and fifteen spectators. A small group where one looks into one another’s eyes and where the text comes out of the book, written on large sheets of paper hung or suspended. Each scene is a reading game in which the audience responds to the actor. The audience is an actor, an actor, a reader, a spectator. »
An artistic roaming is therefore a total artistic proposal, old as the world or almost, but in full revolution because of the contemporary context, completely new. Young artists, in particular, are revealed, after the experience of the health crisis, the confinement and the emergence of the famous «distanciel», particularly attracted by this completely renewed form of inclusion of the public in the artistic proposal. « These States General of artistic roaming, concludes Pépita Car, will allow us to re-examine the power of roaming, in terms of its history, its practices, but also and especially in response to the current challenges of our society. »
An initiative included in the “Better Produce, Better Disseminate” plan
This plan, led by the Délégation artistique à la création artistique (DGCA) aims in particular to better balance the offer of shows throughout the territory, ” said Culture Minister Rachida Dati on January 17, 2024, in its message to the Nantes International Biennales. “ This is an issue that I consider essential. Our common goal is to carry a live performance that is both demanding and popular, in order to reach all audiences, whoever they are and wherever they are. »
The States General of Artistic Itineraries, launched on 18 January 2024 during these Biennials, will meet several times in 2024 and 2025. Highlights of 2 to 3 consecutive days, supplemented by one day research time, the first of which will be held in May, in Rennes, at the festival of solidarity (Pop Mind), and will focus on artistic itineraries in rural areas.
The entire profession (specialized producers, artists, technicians, etc.), but also national cultural institutions (such as NDCs, National Stages, Circus Poles, etc.), will therefore focus on this totally renewed continent, to explore all its potential together.
Partager la page