Dear Shaded Viewers,
This 23rd edition of Nuit Blanche will mirror this exceptional and historic year for Paris in 2024! As the flagship event of the beginning of the Parisian cultural summer, Nuit Blanche has been conceived around the Olympic and Paralympic values of friendship between peoples, respect for difference, and audacity. The longest Nuit Blanche in history, it will start this year where the sun rises earliest in France, in New Caledonia, and end where the sun sets latest in France, in French Polynesia. Throughout this exciting journey across time zones, we will navigate between Reunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Polynesia. Under the artistic direction of Claire Tancons, the Overseas Territories will be at the heart of a program that promises to be sublime and fascinating, for both young and old. Parisians will immerse themselves in the beauty and plurality of ultramarine cultures, histories, and sensibilities. Nuit Blanche will convey a strong message: what makes French culture so unique and admired on all five continents is its diversity, richness, traditions, colors, and intertwining landscapes. On June 1, 2024, Paris will celebrate the Games fully, alongside around thirty municipalities in the Metropolis of Greater Paris, as well as beyond the oceans. All night long, the streets will pulsate with music, dance, theater, and sports performances around Olympic disciplines such as breakdancing, skateboarding, and fencing. In total, over 200 artistic proposals will be presented throughout this unforgettable night.
An excerpt from Claire Tancons, Art Director of Nuit Blanche 2024
The participation of the so-called “overseas” lands and countries in Nuit Blanche, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, encapsulates the political, aesthetic, and societal issues between coloniality and globality, which Nuit Blanche 2024 seizes upon, at the dawn of a new Olympic and Paralympic era, a hundred years after the first presentation of the Games in Paris. Paris, the capital island city of a polygonal France with a variable geometry rather than strictly hexagonal, will be the site of the diffraction of oceanic waves propagated by the sensitivities of artists whose ultramarine cultures and histories are the guarantee of their French attachment as well as their international dimension because they are already anchored in the complexity of a creolized contemporary world where diversity prevails over universality and where desires for heteronomy and autonomy compete. Choral and operatic, Nuit Blanche 2024 will be, literally, with a presentation of choral singing from various New Caledonian traditions in Nouméa, but also conceptually, in the antiphonic staging of an immersive theatrical performance juxtaposing two recent texts by Patrick Chamoiseau (Lucioles by Astrid Bayiha with Délie Andjembe and Stéphanie Coudert or in the cosmic dimension of a carnival parade where the Moon responds to the Sun (Déboulé céleste by Raphaël Barontini) and, overall, in its interconnected organization realized by the broadcasts of the Overseas Nuit Blanches on different digital platforms. Providing contrasting insights into different aspects of the history of the French capital at the time—the 18th century—where descendants of emancipated slaves on French territory could experience a remarkable if not nevertheless tragic fate like Chevalier de Saint-George (Movements for Saint-George, Virtuoso Knight by Romuald Grimbert and Johana Malédon), or of that—the 19th century—where Communards, Kabyles, and Kanaks sharpened the weapons of resistance to French colonialism in the penitentiaries of New Caledonia (Kaldûn Requiem or the invincible country, by Abdelwaheb Sefsaf and the Théâtre de Sartrouville), the artists of Nuit Blanche 2024 are representative of the diversity of contemporary globalized artistic practices rather than representatives of a national affiliation. They still problematize the relationship between the contemporary moving body in art and sport in terms of race and gender with old—fencing—and new—skateboarding (WÉLÉLÉ !!! by Kenny Dunkan) and breakdancing (I CAN(‘t) BREATHE by Jean-François Boclé, Julien Boclé and Thierry Pécou)—Olympic disciplines and other athletic artistic practices such as contemporary dance or performance (Les Jupes by Soraya Thomas), these interdisciplinary artists defy the laws of all genres. They still share their inclusive visions of life (The Antre-deux by Ronald Cyrille) where ecology rhymes with the preservation of animal and plant species (Cycle of Rūmia, Act 3, Ōivi no Rūmia by Orama Nigou) as well as ancestral knowledge and contemporary practices of self-care and welcoming others (The art of birth by Tabita Rezaire), the works posed by the artists reflect a burning as well as urgent planetary ecological awareness. Finally, transmitting images from Mayotte (Koropa by Laura Henno), American genealogies (The Mirror Is You by Edgar Arceneaux), or sharing Japanese affinities (WE WILL NOT BOW by Marlon Griffith), these artists suggest that our singular French overseas issues, untranslatable in their languages, Shimaore, English, or Japanese, do little but perpetuate the increasingly damaging fact that overseas rhymes with chimera. With this enlightened deconstruction, Nuit Blanche 2024 is committed to proposing new images of France to the world—and to itself.
An excerpt from Claire Tancons, Art Director of Nuit Blanche 2024
126 Projects:
13 iconic artistic projects as part of the carte blanche to Claire Tancons, including 10 creations for Nuit Blanche 2024.
32 Associated artists will be present in venues across the City of Paris, including the Courtyard of the Hôtel d’Albret, Halle des Blancs Manteaux, Académie du Climat, Françoise Sagan Media Library, Marie Paradis Gymnasium, Charles Munch Conservatory in the 11th arrondissement, churches (Saint-Gervais, Saint-Séverin, Sainte-Ambroise, Saint-Denys du Saint-Sacrement…), and district town halls. Some will be hosted in other cultural establishments in the Parisian territory, such as Maison des Métallos, the Barracks, Europa Experience, Chapelle Expiatoire, National Archives, and Ground Control.
113 Artistic projects relevant to the associated programming will complement Claire Tancons’s artistic programming in all the districts of Paris.
81 Institutions, cultural centers, district town halls, and third places will present projects for Nuit Blanche and/or open their collections for free on that night, including: Gaîté Lyrique, Pavillon de l’Arsenal, le BAL, Pavillon Carré de Baudouin, Cité Internationale des Arts, Hôtel de la Marine, Centre Pompidou, Musée des Arts et Métiers, Cinémathèque française, Musée Guimet, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Point Ephémère, Césure – Plateau Urbain, Centre culturel Irlandais, Centre Wallonie Bruxelles, Centre culturel Coréen, Galerie du Crous…
143 artistic projects in the Greater Paris Metropolitan Area.
46 Project leaders
16 Cultural venues members of TRAM
30 Participating municipalities
12 Cultural venues members of ACTES-IF
1 Artistic project presented in Rouen, on the Seine Axis, an engine for economic development and cultural influence.
Several projects, for the first time, in the overseas territories: Guadeloupe, Reunion, New Caledonia…
Around thirty cities worldwide will also host Nuit Blanche in 2024, including Kyoto, Singapore, Taipei, Winnipeg, and Riga…
Nuit Blanche Paris for all audiences To enable everyone to explore and experience Nuit Blanche, actions are put in place for all audiences.
Mediation. A mediation system is set up along the event route to help everyone navigate, discover, and understand the artworks. 36 mediators are deployed near the artworks under the artistic direction. Recruited and trained by the Nuit Blanche team, they are students or graduates in art history and provide information and insights on the edition, the route, the artists, and the artworks.
10 Nuit Blanche ambassadors will complement the system to guide the public, provide practical information, and manage queues. Signage providing information about the artworks via a QR code (in French and English) and information points are scattered along the route. Audiences with disabilities. Accessibility for people with reduced mobility, visual, and hearing impairments is provided in the Nuit Blanche guide and on nuitblanche.paris. Several guided tours are organized by professionals:
- 1 tour for the visually impaired public and 2 tours for the hearing impaired public (French Sign Language), with the association Accès Culture (registration required)
- 3 tours for the mentally disabled public, with the association Ce Que Mes Yeux Ont Vu (registration required). Additionally, the Nuit Blanche team provides advice to all associations wishing to organize self-guided tours for people with disabilities.
Young audience.
- Artistic projects are particularly suitable for young audiences and are highlighted in the Nuit Blanche guide and on nuitblanche.paris.
- Two tours (registration required) are organized by the association L’Âge d’or de France. These are storytelling tours aimed at families (from 12 years old).
- Nuit Blanche collaborates with the Pass Culture, a government program aimed at intensifying and diversifying the cultural and artistic practices of young people aged 15 to 18. Nuit Blanche for all Audiences. Nuit Blanche collaborates with structures and associations to promote access to culture for all audiences. Indeed, the 2024 edition of Nuit Blanche aims to be even more inclusive, particularly by communicating with partner associations of the Directorate of Solidarity (DSOL) through the Territorial Mission, providing elements to generate interest among association members and enable them to participate in the event.
Later,
Diane
