After arousing curiosity for some time on its networks, the Jazz à Poitiers association has finally revealed its new identity: Freestyle swimming. A new name for a new life? The reason for being of the association has never changed.
Sweep away the references to a musical aesthetic or to a city! After a “suspended year” -due to financial turbulence- interspersed with four highlights called “Baïnes”, Jazz à Poitiers returns under a new name, Nage libre, and with a new season punctuated by seven meetings. The Poitevins of La Cavale will open the way on January 23. The trio Zimmermann-Corsano-Pitsiokos and L’Hiraeth will follow in February, then in March the duo Fred Frith and Susana Santos Silva, Nadoz and finally the Guitar Trio of Bill Orcutt. Aficionados will recognize, the others… It is partly for them that Jazz à Poitiers has exchanged its identity, precisely “so that people who could appreciate this music, and who were blocked by the name until now, push the door even though they don’t know the artists”explains Mathilde Coupeau.
Twenty-five years after its creation on the initiative of several cultural structures, the association, based at Confort moderne, has finally taken off its “jazz” label to better… “highlight jazz as it was created, that is to say as a very broad musical aesthetic”smiles the director. Because “the project has not changed, but the music has changed, it has been nourished by contemporary music, world music, hip-hop… More and more artists are inventing a new language. »
New space-times
Nage libre will therefore continue the mission begun in 1997: the diffusion of contemporary music including improvised music. “They wrongly convey an elitist image, even though they are extremely sensitive. You just have to accept being surprised, upset in your bearings”notes Mathilde Coupeau. “These are sound adventures, experiences at a given moment with varied aesthetics and practices”adds Alexia Toussaint, in charge of public relations. For the reception to be good, it is necessary to create a setting for them, a particular space-time likely to bring together the desires of the artists and those of the spectators. “In recent years, we have wanted to invent different times because the uses of spectators have changed, and the Covid period has accelerated the phenomenon. » From now on, Nage libre offers “family concert” slots on Sundays, “which are not shows for young audiences”explains Mathilde Coupeau, but also “Tapas Nocturne” sessions at 7 p.m. “to become more part of people’s routine”. The association also extends its partnerships, some historic, with its neighbors the Fanzinothèque and L’Oreille est hardie, the Théâtre-auditorium, the Lieu multiple… And it returns every year at the end of June with its Bruisme festival.
New name, new site: nage-libre.org.
