internAL GAZETTE

OF l’avant courrier

#5

jUNE 2024

1# 4 teammates for L’Avant-Courrier!

Mid-April saw Nolwenn head off on sabbatical, and she took the opportunity of L’Avant Courrier’s 10th anniversary party to celebrate her last day at work (great timing!). So, it will be just the four of us until September.

At L’Avant-Courrier, we always support the wishes and needs of one another, whether it’s work related or connected to personal projects, if they have an impact on our organisation. Nothing is etched in stone, though it’s something we hold dear. Supporting each other in our respective projects is a beautiful thing, and it allows us to feel very secure in our relationship with work. The whole team stands together so that researching and exploring — both in and outside of work — is a real option.

When it comes to HR matters, the Collective wants to invest in workplace well-being — something that is becoming less and less common in our field.

When Nolwenn decided to take this six-month leave, we devoted some time to setting up the conditions that would make it possible. We finally decided not to hire anyone while she was gone. To do so, we put part of Nolwenn’s tasks on hold, mainly those involving relations with the various networks (SCC, PAN, Pôle Spectacle Vivant). As for her work on production and distribution, Les Avant Curieux festival and trainings, we’ve divided up the tasks amongst ourselves. We also asked Emilie (who, on top of being Lisa’s sister, is ALSO a distribution manager, how awesome is that?) to work on a short-term assignment regarding the invitations and professional follow-ups for Les Petits Bonnets series by Cirque du Docteur Paradi last May at the Gare aux Gorille festival.

Another piece of info: The Collective approved Nolwenn’s request to become a permanent employee when she returns in September. After being a contract worker for 10 years, this is well deserved. Yet another occasion to celebrate in September!

2# SGBV: The follow-up!

Here we go, since the last gazette, the whole Collective was trained in SGBV (sexual and gender-based violence and harassment) issues.

Since the start of the year, Lisa and Anne have been working on drafting the SGBV policy for L’Avant Courrier. It defines all of L’Avant Courrier’s choices and obligations in terms of protecting its employees, board members, and volunteers.

The key document of our policy is the SGBV protocol, which will be sent to you at the start of the academic year. It specifies the support provided by L’Avant Courrier’s SGBV point of contact crew in the event of a sexual and/or gender-based violence situation.

L’Avant Courrier point of contact crew will include three people:

a board member,
a member of the Collective,
and a member of the artistic teams of the delegated production.

Anyone employed by L’Avant Courrier in the artistic teams and who is interested in joining this crew can contact us here so that we can explain in detail what it entails. Every employee is welcome to apply, may they be regularly employed by our structure or not.

The protocol will be presented to the board members at the annual general meeting in June, and we would like to figure out who will be part of the point of contact crew in the autumn so that we can share the protocol with everyone by then.

L’Avant Courrier’s SGBV policy also includes :

our wish to organise a comun SGVB training for the teams that didn’t make it already
the drafting of a special SGBV clause in our contracts
We also wish that every companies we work with will eventually have an SGBV protocol themselves
Extend the protocol to include all forms of discriminations.

3# NEW PRODUCTIONS AT L’AVANT COURRIER !

Since last autumn, a number of production and distribution projects have been wrapping up. As a result, our minds are racing, job descriptions are being rewritten, and choices are being made. Because guess what: We’ve decided to welcome three new projects to L’Avant Courrier!

We have the great pleasure of keeping up the good work with our companions from La Volte, whom we are following to their next production with our eyes closed and our hearts wide open!

It’s with the same feeling of delight that we are also renewing our experience with Mathieu Despoisse. After working with this fierce, soft-spoken, and clever partner on the production editing of Pling Klang, we’re supporting him in his solo project Misteake.

And seeing Les Petits Bonnets tour so little has given us a lump in our throats. But Pascaline is back to writing, and we’re rollin’ our sleeves up. We love the Cirque du Docteur Paradi, and believe it matters, so we are pushing through! The new project called The Black House talk about female prisionier in Saint-Lazar’s jail beginning of the 20th century who had in comun to represente a danger for the moral society.

These 3 creations will Premiere in 2027 and their production start in autumn, so we’d better rest up this Summer and then keep our coffee addiction up!

4# Les avant curieux festival 4th ed.

Kaboom! This year marks the fourth edition of Les Avant Curieux festival! The industry day will take place on 10 October. Once again, it will be held at ONYX.

This is the first edition to take place under our new status as an “ONYX associated structure”. It’s only logical for us to continue this partnership, and it makes sense for ONYX to extend its support for our festival.

The concept will be the same as in 2022: There will be presentations of projects all day long and, in the evening, a performance of Viivi Roiha’s show, V.

The first plenary meetings with ONYX have already taken place, and invitations will be sent out shortly. We hope to welcome as many professionals as possible so the different projects can shoot for the moon! And we can’t wait to get together and celebrate Viivi’s French premiere en casa!

You can have a look on the pre-program here

5# October 2024 : everybody at circa!

No rest for the wicked after Les Avant Curieux festival! Along with all the new productions, we will head out to the CIRCA festival to attend a bunch of professional meetings. It will also be our chance to show off in the city of Auch — though there’s MORE to it!

This year, Viivi will present three performances of V during the festival, Pling Klang is scheduled for four performances, and Pauline Dau will be also part of the program with the Ex Ovo project!

Needless to say, for us it’s THE CIRCA! (program online 1st of July. Stay tuned!)

Speaking of which, we are looking for accommodation for the teams that are coming but aren’t performing. If you hear of anything through family and friends, we are all ears!

6# Louise-Michèle à l’internacccional

Let’s focus on the intergalactic Louise-Michèle, as many of you may not know the true extent of her work!

As she lives in Brittany, she has an even closer bond with her Galapiat colleagues. And she’s particularly fond of intercultural projects. Consequently, Louise-Michèle has been leading (undercover) Galapiat’s International Mission for the last two years.

In concrete terms, her role is to coordinate all the projects that Galapiat wants to run abroad and to help the teams put together budgets, write grant applications, and so on. This was the case for the Méga Mad anniversary tour in Finland in 2022 and the MOST project, which is scheduled to take place this summer and includes a bicycle tour in Poland that will bring together Galapiat and the Polish street performance company OTU.

This mission within Galapiat is a broad one, given the company’s history, which has its roots in several territories.

Future projects are part of a long-term, twin-territory approach, rather than a one-shot operation. Our hope now is to strengthen our ties with our Finnish and Polish partners! A cycling tour of Finland is on the horizon for 2025. That’s brilliant!

Meanwhile, Louise-Michèle keep training to this international topics. She participated this month to the Producer Academy in Bruxelles, seminar with producers from all around the world. In a word, she brights like a diamond!

La promo 2024 de la Producer Academy a Bruxelles

The producer academy promo in june in Bruxelles

7# Training/Action: Results and follow-up

The first session of the action training course is not yet over, as there are still a couple of sessions left in Le Mans during the Le Mans fait son Cirque festival at the end of June and then in October at Circolo festival in the Netherlands. However, our team has just come out of a meeting with all the partners involved in the programme … and the feedback is unanimous! This long-term training programme was a great success, and everyone agreed that a second round should be held next season with the same partners.

Lisa, Nolwenn, and Louise-Michèle have worked hard on it, so we’re quite proud! And we’ll be happy to be running it again, with a few improvements and a little less pressure. 😉