The actors of the sector intend to alert on their increasing difficulties encountered since the beginning of the pandemic. An open letter signed by political figures, mayors and deputies, was sent to Roselyne Bachelot.
by
The arts of the street are in the red. While the living show gradually resumes colors with a crowd of productions sometimes returned to the shoes in the theaters’ programming, this sector remains in harvest. On an initiative of Pierre Mathonier, Mayor (PS) of Aurillac, an iconic city for its international street theater festival created in 1986, canceled in August 2020, then in 2021, an open letter signed by about sixty political personalities, mayors And deputies, was sent on September 23 to the Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot. She intends to alert about the increasing difficulties faced by the artists, who, unlike the others, have not returned to work as they hoped this summer, the high season for them.
In connection with the thirteen national street and public arts centers (CNAREP), places of creation and diffusion appeared a dozen years ago throughout the territory, this letter declines the multiple Reasons that gradually put street arts troops, 1,000 before the pandemic, on the touch. Since March 2020, regulations in public space, already complex because of the vigipirate measures appeared after the 2015 attacks, has thus been tightened through the prohibitions and gauges places.
This has touched some formats like wandering and large productions bringing together a crowd of hundreds or even thousands of people. “It must be remembered that the question of the plateau is very different for street artists and that is what makes their singularity,” says Mathieu Maisonneuve, director of the factory, CNAREP in Toulouse. There is no question of asking A platform outside by reconfiguring an outdoor theater. This has been the case for six months with a majority of proposals locked up in the courses of buildings, car parks and parks. The strength of the streets of the street is to imagine New relations to people by appropriating otherwise and freely the streets and the public space. “
At the same time, the obligation of the sanitary pass, which “very strongly affects the profession and the dissemination of the shows”, also resulted in the cancellation of many appointments, of which this turntable is Aurillac. “It’s been thirty-five years since the city opens in August for artists, most often intermittent, welcoming some six hundred companies that meet their mailing notebooks, comments Pierre Mathonier. They do not have been able to do it for two years and are therefore very fragile. Some will not be able to present their creations before the summer of 2022 and many people will not take until then. ”
Diversity of regulations
It is also recalled the diversity of regulations and their applications by the prefectures. “The differentiated interpretation of the regulatory texts, which may also seem very disparate according to the departments, has created a great confusion and a real territorial inequity for those who work in the public space.” The actors of this sector therefore request the Creation “of a national body composed of representatives of the streets of the street and the ministries of culture and the interior, but also independent experts” to study in consultation the conditions for maintaining events. At the same time, new financial means to rethink the formats of the works have been requested.
Pierre Mathonier also emphasizes how much the precariousness of the sector upsets of fundamental issues, including that of art offered to the largest number and free of charge in public, peri-urban and rural areas. “The street arts are deeply involved in the cultural, economic and social life of the number of cities, he insists. It is essential that a political and emergency support from the state.” An appointment You with the Directorate General of Artistic Creation and the Office of the Minister is mentioned.