After the year we've just experienced, what is there to say? Despite all the pain, sadness and loneliness, we are looking forward to the 2021 edition of the Festival de Marseille with confidence and optimism.
More than ever before, we feel the need to gather together and share moments of beauty, joy and emotion with local and international artists. In spite of the ecological and social crisis, there are plenty of reasons to believe in Marseille: there's no lack of motivation, projects abound, and there’s a genuine sense of urgency. And there’s also a strong political will: an eagerness to work together to create the city of tomorrow. Culture, artists and the Festival de Marseille have a decisive part to play in this.
Unlike previous editions, the 2021 Festival de Marseille will take place in June, July…and August! This is our way of enthusiastically engaging with the festive community spirit of "Summer in Marseille".
In June and July, we'll present new shows and premieres by artists based in Marseille including Éric Minh Cuong Castaing, Andrew Graham, (LA)HORDE, Nach, Ahamada Smis and Nolwenn Peterschmitt. We're also proud to be hosting artists from further afield such as Olivier Dubois with Itmahrag and his dancers and musicians from Cairo, Alain Platel who will at last be sharing with Marseille his classic piece Out of Context – for Pina, and the great Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara at the Théâtre Silvain. Last but not least, the Festival de Marseille is strengthening its ties with the Mediterranean and the global South : a major partner of the Africa2020 Season, we are inviting artists from Cairo and Maputo such as Mozambique's leading choreographer Panaibra Gabriel Canda, the filmmaker Tamer El Said and the Egyptian choreographers Nasa4Nasa.
Our dialogue with Tunis is as lively as ever: we will be welcoming the musician Azu Tiwaline and choreographers Selma & Sofiane Ouissi and Malek Sebaï.
At the end of August, the Festival de Marseille will be exploring new temporalities. The Rara Woulib company will return with Moun Fou,
a show that moved us so deeply last October; Belgian choreographer Seppe Baeyens will be presenting his piece Birds in public space,
and an exceptional event will bring together hip-hop performers from Marseille at the Théâtre Silvain.
How can we create a festival, a city and a world together? How can we make this city our own by channeling its diversity, richness, personality, fragility and incredible strength? How can we bounce back together, and how can we make the crises we are going through into opportunities for reinvention and rebirth ? All these questions will be at the heart of this year's festival. We hope that you'll be with
us and that this summer will help us to rebuild and bring us as close as possible to what we've been missing: in a word, Life!
Jan Goossens
Director, Festival de Marseille