This weekend, the fate of the House of the dance of Geneva is left with the vote. It cannot be of it differently because this equipment reserved for Association for the contemporary dance (ADC) formed integral part of the future sociocultural Center projected by the commune of Lancy.
During this time, in a city more important than Lancy, but less large than Geneva, in Aix-en-Provence, elected officials and public celebrated unit Thursday evening the inauguration of spectacular Maison of the dance. Nobody had to vote on top and the financing (the equivalent of almost 9.600.000 FR.) was jointly assured by the State, the City, the Area and the Department.
In Aix-en-Provence, this place took the name of “black House”. House because it occupies a surface from “only” 35 out of 18 meters, for a height of a little more than 25 meters. Aix has the practice of the houses. It has the prestigious one, like that of Vendôme and that of Lenfant, witnesses of the architecture of second half of the XVIIe century.
Black because the building is out of blackened concrete. “Black of Provence”, joke its originator, the architect Rudy Ricciotti, thus answering criticisms of the Inhabitants of Aix who would have preferred to see this new building basing itself in ochre ambient. Ricciotti adds some in the provocation by explaining “why there is a particular architectural sexuality here; a a little sadomasochistic-maso side, a little latex, a little leather, molded, very close to the body”.
One calms oneself. In an already composite environment, between an old factory of matches transformed into public library and the building site of the future Large Theatre of Provence (1500 places), the black House surprises without becoming ugly. This scaffolding with the pillars of guingois, this kind of giant lacing on frontages of glass is an at the same time architectural prowess and of civil engineering, which will attract the curious ones about contemporary architecture.
But it is not for them that it was conceived. Its principal recipient, the French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, took part in the development of the project. This artist installed in Aix with his company since 1996 has from now on a working tool unique in France. A place with a strong identity, but which will apparently not be monopolized by the man to which it must it.
Equipped with the statute of national choreographic Center, the black House was thought in a spirit of division. It contains a floor of offices, four studios of dance and a room of spectacle of 386 places. One waits there this season Jean-Claude Gallotta, Maguy Marin, Philippe Saire and others. The building will accommodate also companies in residence, thus making it possible artists of the area to work under good conditions and to present their work at the public.