Petit Bulletin SAINT-ETIENNE - Info Saint-Etienne: Neighborhood - Villeurbanne, first French Capital of Culture - article published by Sébastien Broquet

It is in orbit, this special year of Villeurbanne, the one in which it became the very first French Capital of Culture - this new label initiated by the Ministry of Culture which chose the city of the solid emblem of decentralization, the National Theater Popular, to be its first incarnation. Roselyne Bachelot, the appointed minister, came in person to launch the festivities on Friday January 7, barely disturbed by angry intermittent workers. But past the party favors we were deprived of a week earlier, what do we have left to observe during this year? Mayor Cédric Van Styvendael and his teams had tried for this candidacy by integrating into their file several elements already conceptualized and imagined for their electoral campaign program, like a digital festival (now the IrRéels) and especially minimixes, veritable cultural embassies arranged within schools, which, from an idea to be developed over the course of the mandate, have become a key element of this cultural year (Anne Hidalgo, socialist candidate for the presidency of the country, visited one on Friday January 14). This labeling and the substantial funds that accompany it should allow Villeurbanne to become a cultural laboratory brewing ideas for the future, for the benefit of a sector neglected for too long by politicians (who said since Jack Lang and François Mitterrand? ) and which seems to be regaining some visibility following the health crisis, as much thanks to the need to occupy one's free time during confinement as by the repeated closures and bans knocking out this sector like no other in France.

Ministry and terminus

Who still talks about culture in France? Two mayors with opposing ideas have made it a subject, the right-wing rocker David Lisnard, Cannes city councilor, author of a recent and interesting Culture will save us, published by L'Observatoire, and Cédric Van Styvendael, the socialist: different paths , intersecting voices. In Villeurbanne, we should not expect too many "big events", which are not the center of attraction for this "capital" year - even if Royal de Luxe will attract thousands of people to the streets of the city from 23 to September 25, in a territory highly aware of street theater thanks to the tremendous groundwork of Patrice Papelard, his Ateliers Frappaz and his biannual festival Les Invites.

Everything is mini in our life

Let's focus instead on these minimixes, a new attempt to link culture and education, short-circuiting elitism by confronting the cultural world from an early age: in Villeurbanne, there are twenty-six schools. And each of them, from this year but also thereafter, since the system is permanent, has seen or will see a minimix set up within it. It remains to understand what this consists of: "a minimix is ​​similar to a cultural center within the school, articulated around a library-documentation center, led by a coordinator from the network of media libraries, who works in conjunction with teachers, extracurricular managers and facilitators, outside contributors, artists, but also parents of students and neighborhood stakeholders. In each minimix, one or more projects carried by the cultural actors of the territory are proposed to the pupils and the teachers in a logic of transmission. These minimixes will also welcome teachers from the National School of Music, student-researchers from universities, mediators from metropolitan museums (Musée des Confluences, Lugdunum) and equipment from neighboring towns (Opéra de Lyon, Maison de la Danse, etc.). .)” we are told via the presentation file.

Concretely, “the National School of Music will lead workshops with students from the Édouard-Herriot school to create an orchestra and instruments using recycled materials. In the Château-Gaillard, Jean-Zay and Léon-Jouhaux schools, the Zola cinema team will intervene on the technique and history of cinema and will animate artistic practices on strips of film. The idea being that all the major cultural structures in the city take up the concept.

Maxi, maxi, it breathes air

The Institute of Contemporary Art is involved: for a month, works will be lent to the Anatole-France school and a cultural mediator from the museum will "discover the world of contemporary art for the students". On the side of the Jules-Ferry school, it is the itinerant workshop designed and imagined by the director of the TNP Jean Bellorini and the company KompleX KapharnaüM which will work, with a residence of the Turak Théâtre. At the Louis-Armand school, a play will be created from an Inuit tale under the impetus of the Tonkin media library and the Tonkin space.

At the Anatole-France school, the structure dedicated to digital arts AADN will associate the children with the creation of the Lighthouse, “an interactive work for the public space which tells of a rising water. Around a participatory creation process, children aged 7 to 10 will work with AADN artists to create texts, models and sound recordings that will feed the Lighthouse. The work will be installed on Place Lazare-Goujon next July. Finally, two companies will intervene: on the theater side, Les Particules at the Château-Gaillard school and on the circus side, the Petit Travers company will be linked to the Albert-Camus and Jules-Guesde schools.

Eighteen minimixes will be created during this year, eight others will follow during the mandate, the budget devoted to this operation being 1.7 M€, including the creation of twenty jobs. Not so mini...