Pyrenart: a completed project and strengthened cooperation

After fifty or so meetings, an exchange of several hundred emails and numerous shared video conferences, the nine partner structures of the Pyrenart project met in Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France) on December 16 for a final meeting to assess this experience.

This provided an opportunity to discuss what motivated the various partners in this joint project and what has been implemented in these four years to make Pyrenart a real cooperation between the territories. Thirteen people made the trip to the Gironde and three more accompanied us remotely to attend this closing ceremony. Also noteworthy was the presence of our service provider, Claire Loucopoulos, from Profilculture, who presented us with an assessment of these four years spent together.

Pyrenart, closing ceremony @ Yvan Godard

Those present:
• Yvan Godard and Riad Boukari, Occitanie en scène (Montpellier – Toulouse)
• Sophie Puscian and Ingrid Marty, Parvis, Scène nationale de Tarbes
• Carole Albanese, L‘Estive, Scène nationale de Foix et de l’Ariège
• Aurélie Chauffier, Evelyne Gen and Doriane Foix, Oara (Bordeaux)
• Narcis Puig and Marta Montalban, Bitò Produccions (Gerona)
• Angel Beloc, PMAEI (Zaragoza)
• Alicia Otxandategi and Justo Ezenarro Mugaguren, City of Bilbao
• Javier Pérez Eguaras, Escuela Navarra de Teatro (Pamplona)
• Jemima Cano, Doos Collectivo (Bilbao).

During the three hours of the meeting, everyone had the opportunity to ask questions, share their experiences of the project in the field, qualify some of the observations made, present their role, and congratulate themselves on some of the results obtained.
Since Pyrenart was first and foremost a project with structuring aims for the performing arts sector, based on a range of different activities that contribute to the objective of internationalising Pyrenean performing arts companies, including:
• training and support for players in the sector in the production and dissemination of international projects through seminars, workshops and the setting up of a MOOC.
• networking for the development of international conditions through study trips to Canada and Chile, job shadowing, Pyrenean itineraries and workshops with international teams
• co-producing and programming of shows in the Pyrenees.

While this meeting marked the central moment of our meeting, it was also the opportunity to exchange notes in more informal moments – such as during the coffee reception in the morning or the lunch – during which the different partners once again expressed their desire to continue to work on this cross-border territory and on the problems that it may encounter. Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic prevented us from holding our public meeting and the professional aperitif, but we were still able to attend the end of residency of the Franco-Spanish Basque company Bilaka and its show, « Gernika », the subject matter of which placed this Pyrenean territory at the centre of the creation.

Occitanie en scène takes the opportunity of this article to renew its thanks to all the partners of Pyrenart who have brilliantly shown their attachment and enthusiasm for the realisation of this project. We would also like to take the opportunity of this article to express our desire to work in this territory and to go further in the structuring of the sector, for which we are organising two meetings in Tournefeuille and Bilbao on 17 and 22 March. Through these two meetings we want to work with the different participants in the sector to establish a diagnosis of their professional situations in relation to this rich but isolated territory. These two meetings will be an opportunity to reflect together on the challenges of structuring and improving the conditions of production, distribution and training at the Pyrenean level.

For more information
The page on the Occitanie en scène website:  Pyrenart

Occitanie en scène
Riad Boukari, project manager
+33 (0)7 69 98 62 90
r.boukari[@]occitanie-en-scene.fr

The Pyrenart project is co-funded by the European Union (ERDF) in the framework of POCTEFA 2014-2020, the prefecture of the Occitanie region, the Occitanie/ Pyrénées-Méditerranée regional council, the Pyrénées-Orientales departmental council, the Grand Auch Cœur de Gascogne greater district council, FNADT in the framework of the 2015-2020 Massif des Pyrénées cross-region convention and the government of Navarra.