Today, more than ever, I think we need to find meaning and continue to promote access for as many people as possible to artistic and cultural works and practices. All programming at the CCN¹, from workshops to shows, is designed with inclusion and artistic diversity in the service of social diversity. It is from this perspective that we have been committed, from the beginning, to representing and supporting dance in its plurality and in all its identities. The diversity of styles and the richness of the choreographic cultures represented at the CCN¹, ranging from contemporary dance to urban dances or from ballet to so-called “conceptual” dance, has allowed us to welcome and program artists from very broad horizons. Our contribution to the programming of the dance season at the Scène Nationale d’Orléans is as much based on this very unique approach as on our great expertise in dance. This openness has the real consequence of a widening of the public which is good at a time when we all need to come together. Every day we see that art is a powerful vector of construction and social cohesion. Creation, when combined with social and solidarity concerns, can restore strength, joy, determination and meaning to our lives.

For the next few years, I have imagined a “MANIFESTO FOR AN END OF MANDATE”. “Creation as a freedom of artistic expression”, “the societal and environmental transition”, “Women first or the fight against inequalities between men and women in matters of culture”, but also “youth as a priority” are the issues around which the programming and my creations will be woven in the coming seasons.

When we talk about youth, we cannot help but think of succession, future and perpetuity. But youth is a social reality: youth is both age and passage, the passage from adolescence to adulthood but also, the age of possibilities, experiments, commitments and choices. This is why the CCN¹ wishes to be strongly involved in equal opportunities of access to culture for all. Twenty-seven mobile perspectives is one of the major projects of 2024 which will bring together all these values, by mobilizing young and old people from Orléans, athletes, dance enthusiasts, osteopaths… in a project to create scale that we will present at the Théâtre d’Orléans. We will also continue to have a strong ambition for artistic education from an early age. Hundreds of children, ranging from kindergarten to university and art schools, regularly come to the CCN¹. The diversity of the proposals made to them, allowing them to move from the studio to the performance hall, from school to theater, from the practice of the dancer to the practice of the spectator… These artistic and cultural education courses, improved and diversified from year to year, by partnering with as many schools, middle schools, high schools and higher education institutions as possible, but also by offering co-supported systems with major institutions in terms of transmission, such as regional and national conservatories or the CND (see the Constellation project in 2023 and which we will continue in 2024).

To finish on a high note !
I imagine these last three years as a succession of artistic celebrations. I arrived with this crazy desire to make dance the city of Orléans. This energy has not left me, on the contrary it only has increased! In recent years, significant events will mark and “embark” the entire CCN¹ team but also all the residents of Orléans and its region. In 2024 the CCN¹ will be at the pace of the Olympic Games. A popular and multicultural festival aimed at the whole world, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games are a unique experience that will mobilize the entire France! Paris will organize exceptional opening and closing ceremonies under the artistic direction of Thomas Jolly. The Centre-Val de Loire region is involved: Châteauroux hosts the shooting events, and will be the Olympic Torch Relay just like Orléans, Blois and Chartres! At the CCN¹, 2024 will be in tune with the Olympic values that are familiar to us: hospitality, kindness, equality and above all sport, the body as a vector of cultural emancipation and living together. Dance marathons with the Astrolabe, sports and dancing seasons with portraits of women artists and dance and sports portraits at the Scène Nationale, will punctuate this colorful artistic and sporting season!

To do this, it is important to continue to offer ways to make dance accessible in the rooms, but also in homes, to continue to develop public presentations, visits, exhibitions, itinerant devices, public warm-ups or any of sharing arrangements outside and within the walls of the CCN¹. Sharing, raising awareness, meeting, that’s what the entire CCN¹ team wants and what people want deep down. I strongly believe in the necessity of art and dance in its capacity to unite and amaze. Dance in its diversity and openness represents our time, our modernity.

— Maud Le Pladec
Director of Centre chorégraphique national ¾
July 2023