In the frame of the Centriphery project, four European artists were hosted between April and July 2022 for a 3-steps residency in Avignon’s neighborhood of Saint-Chamand. The final purpose was to create a participative performance that would take place during the Festival d’Avignon, as part of La Manufacture’s program. The challenge was to propose something that – besides engaging an audience – could serve the inhabitants of this specific territory; that would take place there, outside, in a public space in between the concrete blocks of Saint-Chamand. This district is a priority neighborhood located at the periphery of the city. As in other similar places, the main population lives in quite precarious conditions… La Manufacture shares some offices there with other associations. Thus, the staff members are aware of these peculiarities and know many different local actors who are actively working on this territory – which was totally necessary for the project that you’ll be reading about right here right now.
April, the time of first meetings
This first residency week was about discovering the neighborhood of Saint-Chamand, brainstorming and inventing what will be the Centriphery project in this very specific territory that is, as we said, in periphery of the historical center – ‘’hors-les-murs’, as it’s said. Exploring this precise characteristic, how it will shape the project, how it will somehow conduct the artists… Each of them had to think individually but also collectively about the shape that their artistic proposition would take. It was really a time for thinking before action, which resulted in these conclusions for the second step of the residency, taking place in June:
- Balkis Moutashar – the choreographer, will conduct gesture workshops
- Rayna Teneva – the video artist and photographer, will film these shared gestural moments
- Giacomo Mezzadri – the architect from Mezzo Atelier, will construct elements of scenography
- Fred Nevché – the musician-composer, will propose writing workshops and will compose the music
The global proposition would take the form of a collective dancing procession around the small natural inversed agora, with kind of natural bleachers, that will be used as the space of the performance.
We had already met a few partners and local organisations who suggested participants that would maybe be motivated to take part in the project. But in between the two first steps of the residency, one month and a half would pass. In this bracket, it was really about reaching the people, be in touch with those who might be interested and keeping them up to date. It was also about facing many doubts and (already) realizing that you won’t be able to do exactly what you expect. That there won’t be as much participants as you thought. But that the workshops should take place anyway, anyhow.
Otherwise, what would?
Text & pictures by Céline Delatte
