On April 11, 2023, in Pernand-Vergelesses, Marie-Guite DUFAY, president of the regional council of Burgundy-Franche-Comté and Aymée ROGÉ, regional director of cultural affairs of Burgundy-Franche-Comté, sign a multi-year agreement of objectives with the Maison Jacques Copeau. This signature marks an important step in the development of the artistic and cultural project of this emblematic place.
A renewed and consolidated partnership
The Maison Jacques Copeau project combines living creation, transmission, heritage development and territorial development. Many professional artists and artists in training come each year in residence to the House, which also welcomes audiences for visits and meetings while developing educational projects and mediation actions in the territory. The association brings to life an artistic and cultural project closely linking heritage, creation, transmission and territory.
A strong partnership was thus established with the State, represented by the regional direction of cultural affairs, the regional council of Burgundy-Franche-Comté and the association. The signing of this convention is a concrete expression of this.
The main objectives of the 2022-2024 multi-year agreement are to:
- develop the House’s artistic and cultural project;
- implement the partnership with Cyril Teste and the MxM Collective, artist associated with the House;
- strengthen cooperation and partnerships with cultural and educational stakeholders;
- rehabilitate the site by combining preservation of the heritage, adaptation of the House to its current missions and ecological transition.
A partnership for a territorial artistic and cultural project
An interdisciplinary laboratory of creation, Maison Copeau welcomes many artists in residence. It pays particular attention to the emergence and professionalization of new talents, which makes it an indispensable actor of the artistic and cultural life of the territory, Burgundy-Franche-Comté and France. Committed to transmission in all its forms, the House welcomes students, students, persons with disabilities, trainers, professionals, amateurs. A custodian of heritage of national importance, it contributes to its knowledge and development. Anchored in its territory, it develops cooperation with cultural and educational structures, organizes the meeting between the artists it hosts, the public and the inhabitants. The regional management of cultural affairs and the regional council of Burgundy-Franche-Comté accompany the House in the development of its artistic and cultural project.
Accompanying a major project to rehabilitate the house
A family home steeped in history, the site has been home to new practices and ways of living and working for ten years. This experience has fed a rehabilitation program made essential to stop and repair degradation, to improve the reception and working conditions of artists and students, but also the sensitive experience of visitors who come to discover a cultural heritage labeled Maison des Illustres.
To fully implement its project, the association has four challenges:
- to preserve a place of heritage, inscribed in the inventory of Historical Monuments, and labeled House of Illustres: its general state is deteriorating and the House is not organized to highlight the history of which it is depository as to welcome the public;
- transform a place of residence and work: its communal facilities - inherited from the time when it was a family house maintained with modest means - are obsolete and inadequate;
- to develop a place of theatrical and transdisciplinary creation, research and transmission: the House does not have within it a working tool that meets the expectations of artists and trainers;
- build a sustainable place of life: the House wishes to take the opportunity of the rehabilitation to promote virtuous solutions in the ecological transition.
The State and Regional Council of Burgundy-Franche-Comté provide essential support to this rehabilitation program.
La Maison Copeau
Nestled between the three hills covered with vines of Pernand-Vergelesses, the house is unquestionably a place of memory, shelter of an artistic adventure that has long marked the world of live entertainment and continues to do so today. Its history is inseparable from the figure of Jacques Copeau, who lived there from 1925 and whose Albert Camus said, "In the history of French theatre, there are two periods: before Copeau and after Copeau."
La Maison was the birthplace of the Copiaus adventure, a company that pioneered decentralization; it is emblematic of the birth of a theatre pedagogy that still shines today in France and around the world. Numerous filiations are attached to it: Jean Bellorini, Jean Dasté, Charles Dullin, Louis Jouvet, Jacques Fornier, Ariane Mnouchkine, Robin Renucci, Christian Schiaretti, Giorgio Strehler, to name but a few, have claimed to be part of this school of life and theatre.
If the House is today a place of living creation and transmission, we owe it to Marie-Hélène and Catherine Dasté, daughter and granddaughter of Copeau, both theater women, then to Jean-Louis Hourdin, himself a troupe leader and great figure in the decentralization of theatre, trained at the school of the National Theatre of Strasbourg initiated by Copeau’s nephew, Michel Saint-Denis. In 2004, Jean-Louis Hourdin bought the Maison Jacques Copeau before transferring it in 2021 to the association that now owns it.
