“Giants in my city”: when the Royal de Luxe company puts itself at the height of children

When a neighborhood is devastated by poverty and social difficulties, what is the point of culture? The Royal de Luxe street theater company remained in residence in the Bellevue district of Nantes from 2019 to 2023.

She established relationships with the population there. Even more so, with children. Director Daniele de Michele followed the company throughout this period. And shows how openness to the imagination opens everyone’s horizons.

A class followed over several years

The class the director is taking was in prep school when Royal de Luxe appeared in a gutted and abandoned building in the neighborhood.

The children are now in CM2 and have grown up with Monsieur Bourgogne, the whimsical man who sleeps in a tent placed on the facade of a building, whose car runs on sandwiches, and who speaks to the children in a poetic language that touches them: when (I) think of them, writes the character, “I see apricots coming out of my ears and poppy petals flying away when I sneeze”.

The touching words, the personality and the strangeness of these shows are taken up by the teachers, who work with the children. Children excited, at the end of their residency, by the meeting with the company’s two giant dogs, Xolo and Bull Machin. “He made us smile! » enthuses a little girl.

“If there are no dreams, it would be to extinguish them”

And yet, nothing is less simple than installing this kind of device in this type of place, recalls Walter Henry, in charge of the district since 2010. Which in no way frightens the members of Royal de Luxe, who are used to it, around the world, to this kind of challenge.

Bouchra Akdim, ex-president of the local football club, explains the total usefulness of this type of initiative: “The artists in the neighborhood, some will tell you: “Is there a need for it?” » She, very invested in children, thinks on the contrary that it is ” fundamental “ : « If there are no dreams, this would extinguish them. »

Walter Henry continues: “It is the strength of the Republic to provide access to what affects them or could affect them, that they do not know, (artists) for which they discover a passion. »

At a time when regional president LR Christelle Morançais is removing a large part of the funding for culture, this experience shows on the contrary the extent to which culture is a vector of emancipation. Even and especially on a child’s scale.

Like this kid who, when talking about the company’s giant dogs, imagines that they will be “bigger than (s)our future”. The phrase tears at the heart and soul, at the same time as it shows the importance of broadening horizons, rather than narrowing them.

Giants in my city, Royal de Luxe in Bellevue, France 3, Monday December 16 at 10:50 p.m.