Carolyn Occelli welcomes us with a smile in the stands of the main hall of the Jean Vilar theater in Suresnes, which she has directed for more than two years. On stage, rehearsals for the show Tender anger are linked together. She chose this creation by brothers François and Christian Ben Aïm to open the 33rd edition of Suresnes Cités Danse. As every year, the festival will spread over a month, from January 10 to February 9, 2025. Before hitting the three shots, the director explains to us how she identifies new talents to establish her programming.
Franceinfo Culture: How long have you been in charge of the festival?
Carolyn Occelli : I took over as director of the theater on July 1, 2022. It was Olivier Meyer, the creator of the Suresnes Cités Danse festival, who passed the torch to me. He scheduled the first 30 editions and I started from the 31st, that of January 2023.
How did you experience this handover?
I arrived at this theater in April 2019 as general secretary. Olivier Meyer trusted me and learned a lot. It is a theater which belongs to the town of Suresnes. Its management is entrusted within the framework of a public service delegation. When the call for tenders came out in the fall of 2022 for the period 2021-2026, Olivier Meyer told me: “I want to go to the 30th edition of the festival that I created but I no longer want to do it for five years.” Il suggested that we imagine a five-year project together. It was fantastic to be in continuity, I followed in his footsteps while knowing that I also had the freedom to bring my perspective. I did not want to betray the festival as he had imagined it and brought it to life for thirty years and at the same time, I had to ask myself how to revive and extend this story. I wanted to continue my friendships with certain artists while looking for other things.
What have you changed already and where do you want to go?
When Olivier Meyer created the festival, hip-hop had no place in institutions. He discovered street dancing, hip-hop, breaking, popping. He believes that there is a choreographic language there and that it is legitimate to give him access to the institution without betraying him. This is what he did and succeeded wonderfully. Very quickly, he noticed a writing defect. The hip-hop dances were very performative but writing a longer piece was complicated. He therefore called on contemporary choreographers to create with hip-hop dancers. This helped bring out people like Kader Attou and Mourad Merzouki. They came to Suresnes as dancers then became choreographers then directors of national choreographic centers. Today, hip-hop is in the choreographic landscape in multiple ways. He has public support. It is also widely used by brands because hip-hop culture has commercial power. I said to myself : if hip-hop no longer needs Suresnes Cités Danse, then what is this festival ? It is a festival of hybridization, a festival which invites dances which are not necessarily catalogued, hierarchical and clearly defined. I will continue this movement by seeking out frontier zones within dance and other disciplines. This year, for example, we will have The Fabulous Story of Basarkus by Sylvère Lamotte, a show which brings together two acrobats, former students of the Fratellini academy, one of whom breaker because dance can be very close to the circus. I also program My little stupid heart, a show by Olivier Letellier and Valentine Nagata-Ramos combining theater and hip-hop dance. My ambition is to seek out disciplinary and even multidisciplinary boundaries and to support dancers and choreographers.
Does this mean that hip-hop no longer has its place at Suresnes Cités Danse today because it was recognized elsewhere thanks to you?
Urban dances, which are broader than hip-hop, have their place when they move into new areas. What interests me less is a form of dogmatism and, in hip-hop, there can be that side. Me, a 100% break show with only breakers and performance, that’s not what speaks to me. I prefer it when choreographers allow themselves a form of freedom and are not locked into overly defined codes and styles.
Has contemporary dance not cannibalized hip-hop?
I believe more in the virtue of crossbreeding than in crushing. If I take profiles like Jann Gallois or Leïla Ka, they are dancers who come from hip-hop and who have greatly broadened their spectrum, their research, their gestures, their grammar of movement. They are no longer in the pure hip-hop tradition, nevertheless they come from it and I think that is important. There is something about them, a form of energy and efficiency which are specific to their hip-pop origins but which they have been able to overcome. I was recently talking with Mehdi Kerkouche who doesn’t consider himself a hip-hop choreographer at all. Some might give him that label. I find it important to remove the labels. In addition, there is something very universal about dance. It’s body. We don’t even lock ourselves into language. There is an address to the sensory, to feeling, outside of words which can reach the widest audience and “publics” in the plural. These choreographers interest me. Hip-hop culture nevertheless remains very important and it is not a question of making it invisible or sacrificing it. There is a battle as part of Suresnes Cités Danse because what interests me is that talents and audiences circulate from one world to another, from one form to another. It means respecting certain codes and knowing how to free yourself from them and accompany your postage.
To find these new forms, how do you actually proceed? ?
There are certain artists that I will follow like Jann Gallois, Mickaël Le Mer, Abou Lagraa… Some have a long history with the Suresnes theater. With others, I am starting to write the story as for Leïla Ka. Then, I participate in choreographic competitions to identify talents who do not necessarily fall within the institutional spectrum. I am thinking in particular of the Sobanonova competition for young choreographers. Sophie Amri Baubet and Barbara Leibig van Huffel, who created this competition, are lovers of dance but are not fans. They have an open look and I really like this competition for that reason. I am also participating in Brussels at Work in Progress of the Detours Festival. Milan Emmanuelle, who directs it, organizes two evenings where he presents eight current projects by emerging choreographers twice. He pays attention to urban dances because he comes from there but for these Work in Progressit opens a very broad call for applications. Allison Faye, who is creating her first choreographic piece for us, a duet called Bernard and which I program at the opening in our small room, it is my winner of the Work in Progress of the Detours Festival in September 2023. These are scouting locations. I also got in touch with the Art Track company and Romuald Brizolier who is based in Lille. He organizes Hip-Hop Games. What interests him are precisely urban dances in the broad sense. It’s a choreographic competition on stage, so I think I’m also going to join the Hip-Hop Games jury. I am constantly scouting.
How many months do you need to develop a program? ?
I have already almost finished the one for 2026. Even if there is not necessarily an urgency to “book” the artists, I do it to build my program, to give a horizon line to certain artists and to organize the support for their creation. The Suresnes theater is a theater that welcomes but also supports artists. We have two performance halls and three rehearsal studios. Depending on the artists and their needs, we can provide residency support, with or without technique, co-production and even advice. There are certain artists that we will help to create their company, to structure themselves. You have to do it well and therefore anticipate to have time for large pieces. I think for example of Tender anger, the show by the Ben Aïm brothers which opens this year.
It’s 100% their ideas or you direct them sometimes ?
Tender angerit’s 100% their project. But it is different for example for RevueSarah Adjou’s solo. I discovered it thanks to Mourad Merzouki during a professional day that he organized as part of the Kalypso festival. She’s a dancer that interests me, so I follow her work. She told me about her journey as a dancer and what I find interesting is that she is both a contemporary dancer, that she sometimes went towards urban dances and that she also did a lot of cabaret and tango. She has a very wide palette. In talking with her, I put her on this path: to create a solo that reconciles several palettes that she had never united. I wanted to support him in the creation of Revue.
What is the profile of festival spectators, if there is one?
For my greatest happiness, Suresnes Cités Danse brings together very different audiences. It is important to me that the festival is an integral part of the theater season and that our regular spectators, mainly from Suresnes and Hauts-de-Seine, participate. But the strength of a festival is also to reach out to more diverse and broader audiences. We are draining the whole of Ile-de-France. Lots of dancers obviously, quite a few young people. We know that many young people watch dancing on Tik Tok. What Thomas Jolly did with the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games was to show the beauty, the universalism of dance in France. The support generated by this ceremony shows how much dance can bring people together. We also attract a lot of professionals since the festival is a location for other programmers. This makes us very proud since the idea is to give visibility to these pieces, to give them a diverse audience but also a future, as much as possible.
How many viewers did you have last year? ?
About 10,000. The festival lasts a full month. In 2025, we will have 34 representations. We program in the big room, the small one. We are also investing in other places : the college gymnasium, the village hall. We have participatory formats, I care about them. It’s a festival where we see movement and where we can get moving. This year, we are organizing a swing ball. Swing dances, which preceded hip-hop, are widely practiced but rarely seen on stage. So Diego “Odd Sweet” Dolciami created a show _Ground [prononcer Underground] and an extension with a swing ball where we will all dance. Especially since these dances can be practiced in couples and alone. It’s important that the public can say to themselves: “I can come alone and dance with the others.” We also have a parent-child ball because the theater is also a place to be together as a family outside of the screens. There will also be a battle, then the ball Track lap [Tour de piste] two formats where we are all involved.
What is your vision for the future of theater ?
I often say that theaters are among the last places for a peaceful collective. In the theater, we all sit next to each other, whether we know each other or not, we look in the same direction and at the same time, we have the total freedom to love, not to love, to be moved or not. It’s a collective adventure. I think I wanted to say that.
Suresnes Cities Dance
Jean Vilar Theater, 16 place Stalingrad, 92150 Suresnes
Reservations on site or by telephone at 01 46 97 98 10
Prices from 10 to 40 euros
suresnes-cites-danse.com
