They took up their position in December 2022, but the 2024 edition of Nuits de Fourvière is the first that they have signed as co-directors. Emmanuelle Durand (former general secretary of the Lyon Auditorium) and Vincent Anglade (ex-rresponsible for current music and multidisciplinary projects at the Philharmonie de Paris) first worked for several months alongside Dominique Delorme, who directed the essential Lyon festival for twenty years. The day after the opening, the duo received Franceinfo Culture in its office, a few steps from the ancient theater of Fourvière. Between the desire to preserve the legacy of its predecessor and the desire to make its mark, the tandem is charting its own path with the ambition of welcoming new audiences.
Franceinfo Culture: “The pulse”, the opening show of the Nuits de Fourvière, seems to have won over the Lyon public. The day after this premiere, how do you feel?
Vincent Anglade: It was a moment that we had both been waiting for so much. We dream, we work, we have been making progress on this first edition for a long time. We were impatient. It was time to get started and get to the heart of the matter. We have this feeling of having almost completed the mission last night [jeudi 30 mai] because the artists were delighted with the welcome they received at Fourvière. The show was magical, he received a standing ovation at the end.
Emmanuelle Durand: The machine has finally started and when it opens like this, it provides energy to last two months. Les Nuits de Fourvière is the equivalent of a theater season concentrated in two months with 60 shows and 130 performances. And, every day, alternations between dance, theater, music, circus or opera formats.
Your predecessor Dominique Delorme directed the Nuits de Fourvière for twenty years before passing the torch to you. What did you do with this inheritance?
Vincent Anglade: The word heritage is a nice word. We like it because we were really keen, with Emmanuelle, to preserve this DNA of Nuits de Fourvière: multidisciplinarity, the great celebration of creation in a place classified as a UNESCO world heritage site and, at the same time, in places that radiate across the metropolis. Beyond the great ancient theater and the Odéon theater, Les Nuits also has 11 performance venues across the city.
Emmanuelle Durand : We sought out other audiences who do not come to Fourvière today in this dynamic of openness and anchoring in the territory. This year we pre-opened the festival in Vaulx-en-Velin. Eighteen acrobats from the XY company set up in the public space for a week and, at the end of this week, there was a large gathering with a very beautiful show in front of the inhabitants of the town and our spectators who made the trip. This clearly illustrates this idea of reaching out to other audiences. We will then invite the inhabitants of Vaulx-en-Velin to come and see the dress rehearsal of the project Möbius Morphosis, a monumental creation planned for early July. You have to create new habits in both directions. It is a long process.
We also try to reach families and children with targeted offers at times different from those usual in Fourvière. The shows take place late in the evening. Two performances will take place during the day on the main stage. Likewise, two shows at 7 p.m. at the Odéon and two others at the Vaulx-en-Velin planetarium are planned under the starry sky.
How did you add your touch to this first season?
Vincent Anglade: We thought a lot with Emmanuelle about how to open up, move towards a little more diversity on stage, towards other artistic styles without breaking the thread of this story. We wanted to work on very large forms which really take over the entire stage of the large theater. Like The Pulse which brings together more than 50 performers on set. We will also find, at the beginning of July, Möbius Morphosis imagined by Rachid Ouramdane, the XY company, the Lyon opera ballet and the management of Radio France. And then the third major meeting is the closing with Mourad Merzouki, who returns with a major creation around the station wagon.
What makes this 2024 edition stand out?
Vincent Anglade: We added a lot of salt (laughs) with, for example, this new meeting that we give on Saturdays called Saturday Nights. We wanted to set up this time in a slightly different way, to create a festival within the festival which allows us to work on slightly longer evenings with different sets and groups as diverse as l’Impératrice, Lala &ce or Dabeull .
Emmanuelle Durand: We worked a lot on these Saturdays around hospitality for the public. On these Saturdays, we will install a terrace at the Odéon theater and, on certain evenings, the Lyon street food Festival will invite renowned chefs thanks to a partnership that we have concluded.
In this 2024 edition, there is a lot of talk about the body…
Vincent Anglade: Yes, the theme of “being one” is the common thread that guided us in writing this program. There is this question of the body as a means of fighting against inequalities and discrimination with many very committed projects. I’m thinking of the show scheduled for this Sunday, a project by JoeyStarr and David Bobée on anti-racist texts. I also think of the version of Carmen by Jeanne Desoubeaux where she really puts the myth of Carmen back where it belongs, that is to say the story of femicide. I finally think about Hamlet by Christiane Jatahy where she reverses the roles by having Hamlet played by a woman, Clotilde Hesme. Which gives us another reading of this text. We have many shows that draw this path around this “being one”. We wanted to give ourselves a constraint that would allow us to bring together different proposals while giving cohesion to the whole.
We have worked a lot on this notion of the body. What does the group mean today, teaming up, living together?
Vincent Angladeat franceinfo Culture
After and during Covid, artists focused a lot on these questions. The Franco-Catalan company Baro d’evel, which we love, will come to the Odéon theater to present its new creation just after its visit to Avignon. The creation is called Who Som? Who are we ? At the end of this health crisis, did they really question what it means to be a society today? How do we live as a group? How do we interact as an individual with the group? What role do we have to play for the group to function? This is the whole subject of this creation, a fascinating theme today when we see the difficulties of the world.
You wanted to make the festival more inclusive. How does this translate?
Emmanuelle Durand: We turned to young people, seeking to involve them in the festival. We worked with an association called La Zone d’expression priority. Its aim is to make people who do not feel legitimate write. Several colleges participated, an association of people with disabilities, a social center… Around 80 people wrote on this theme of “being one”. We have published a small collection of their work carried out since January. Around forty texts have been published. These texts are very beautiful, very hard for some, which also illustrates the state of youth and what can happen when we are in college today. Some were read in the Odéon theater.
We also welcome people with psychological and mental disabilities. Two shows are labeled “Relax”. All our reception agents have been trained to welcome this atypical audience who, sometimes, may be led to shout, applaud at unpredictable moments or leave in the middle of a performance because it is too emotional.
Emmanuelle Durandat franceinfo Culture
You both come from the world of music while the Nuits de Fourvière is a multidisciplinary festival. Was this a difficulty that had to be overcome?
Vincent Anglade: I was at the Philharmonie de Paris and I always had this interest in projects that mix music with other artistic forms. We talked a lot with Les Nuits about these projects and the creations that passed from one house to another. We had this sensitivity before coming here. Les Nuits de Fourvière is still 70% music and 30% projects that explore other artistic fields. It is the porosity between theater, dance, circus, music that interests us. It also interests artists. There are more and more shapes that we no longer know how to define.
Emmanuelle Durand: There are quite a few projects which illustrate this transversal dynamic: JoeyStarr and Bobée, Phia Menard, who will stage the Protests Songs with Jeanne Added, Camélia Jordana, L – Raphaële Lannadère and Sandra Nkaké. There is also Until we die by Brigitte Poupart, an immersive experience that combines circus, dance, theater and electro music at Studio 24. To bring all these disciplines into dialogue, we are in the right place with the Nuits de Fourvière.