Les Subsistances, a creative research laboratory, experiments all forms of performing arts (dance, theatre, contemporary circus...). It offers many artists a residence and financial support allowing them to explore areas touching each and every one of us: memory and objects, representation of crime and cruelty, new representations of male/female dimensions, and poetry on stage.

As the artists reside on site, they can enjoy useful work tools and significant financial support helping them to optimise the creative process.
The artists and the team at Les Subsistances agree on the time spent, the space required and the form their work will take while in residence. The length of their residence is determined by their artistic approach. It can be a one-off stay (2 weeks to a month at the most) or it can be divided in several stages over several seasons. Each residence is anchored in the local approach and aims to have a public opening of some sort, whether it be a performance, a show, a creative social gathering, a rehearsal….

Artists in residence are invited to explore areas relative to issues touching all of us. Some of them concentrate on one issue in particular, others are choosing to stand at the crossroads and tackle several issues, and others choose to remain just outside of these topics, which are our focus for at least two seasons.

What are the artists trying to say when they highlight a certain ever-present materialistic aspect of our society? Why do they seem to want to renew a link with an original state through objects?

Whereas the media and news reports have made crime and cruelty seem commonplace for a few years now, performing arts on the contrary traditionally resist the temptation to show criminal acts directly on stage. Artists here will try to explore why this is so and to discover novel ways to convey threat and fear.

The relationship between males and females, the confusion of identities, the sexual identity crisis: these are all themes explored by performing arts as part of a transformation of the foundations of our society.

Poetry is first and foremost defined by its use of rhythm and images, which are also essential to performing arts. Nowadays, how can poetry find its place on the stage? How can it contribute to the reinvention of the most recent contemporary artistic languages on the stage?