Socio-artistic programme

With the support of local job centres and work-integration structures, the Opera Backstage Course organises meetings with the Festival's technical teams for young people and adults who are interested in discovering technical, back-stage know-how in the performing arts.

Since 2018, Open Day at the set-construction workshops in Venelles, reserved for individuals participating in on-the-job training programmes, has offered a half-day of meetings and conversation with roughly fifteen technicians in the fields of carpentry, decorating, audio-visual, wig-making and lighting.

Artistic practice projects for pure beginners are run as part of festive days, one-off meetings with associations and creative residencies are an opportunity for participants to approach opera and music sensitively and expressively. These include lyric voice and choral singing, visual and sound arts, intercultural creations focusing particularly on Mediterranean or Afro-American music, and musical and vocal improvisation in public spaces, accompanied by musicians and choreographers.

Awareness-raising programmes tailor-made to each opera at Festival d’Aix 2022, with:

• Presentations and creative workshops allowing a personal and sensitive approach of the works (choir singing, writing, plastic and visual arts, theatre, dance, etc.)
• Meetings with the technical teams with at the workshops of the Festival in Venelles and the open days to discover the set of the Archevêché, Grand Théâtre de Provence or Théâtre du Jeu de Paume.
• Musical events and meetings with the Festival artists in social housing districts in towns and villages in the area and thematic days to discover a lyric voice or staging developed with partner associations.
• Thematic days dedicated to opera singing and stage directing, created in partnership with non-profit organisations.

Two amateur artistic projects:

Nausicaa XXI — The Nausicaa XXI project, led by the Marseille association Sublimes Portes, examines notions of hospitality and the vestiges of exile in the Mediterranean area. From May to July 2022, Sylvie Paz and Maura Guerrera (vocalists, and members of the group Dames de la Joliette) will be hosting body-rhythm workshops for young people and adults who have recently arrived in France. These workshops aim to foster a “collective voice,” beyond individual languages and with no musical or instrumental prerequisites.
Public performance: 2 July 2022 at 6MIC, in Aix-en-Provence.

RITUELS — What do ceremonies look like? What use can they serve? What are their functions in society, and who are they aimed at? These are some of the underlying questions of the RITUELS project, coordinated by Passerelles’s socio-artistic service in partnership with the Rara Woulib company.

RITUELS -a choral project of African-Caribbean songs, ritual spaces and collective celebration- offers participants the opportunity to come together in a ceremony composed of songs from the Caribbean and from New Orleans, and of artistic proposals contributed by members of the group.

This group will be made up of young adults in the region who come from partner organizations of Passerelles’s socio-artistic service or from the African-Caribbean choir Afrimaye, based in Marseille.

Rehearsals will take place from February to July in Marseille and in Aix.

Public performances: 1 April in Parc Jourdan and 2 July at 6MIC, in Aix-en-Provence.