Artistic residencies

For some years now, the City of Montpellier has been strongly supporting and encouraging artistic creation. It accompanies artists residing in the metropolitan area in their research and creation process and thus contributes to diversifying the local artistic offering.

Over the years, the City of Montpellier has established itself as a major cultural hub, deploying a comprehensive scheme of support and assistance for artists:

• Dedicated work spaces:the city provides residency and creation spaces for artistic teams, encouraging the emergence of new projects and the blossoming of talent.
• Financial support for research and creation lasting from 1 to 3 weeks
• A rich and dynamic professional network: the city organizes meetings between artists and programmers in the Occitanie region, facilitating the dissemination of works and their inclusion in the local cultural landscape.
• Fruitful collaborations: the City of Montpellier joins forces with renowned partners, such as the Théâtre Jean Vilar and the Théâtre de La Vista, to offer pathways to support creation.
• Open and diversified programming: the City also undertakes to program artistic projects itself in connection with its events, thus offering increased visibility to artists.

Each summer, the City of Montpellier thus launches a call for projects aimed at artists by making available artistic creation residencies. These venues are conducive to the emergence of live performance in all its forms: theater, dance, musical performances, circus, street arts...

The City of Montpellier invites you to submit your project in order to benefit from an artistic residency and support for the creation of live performances.

The call for projects is open to artistic teams from the metropolitan area (the 31 communes of Montpellier Métropole) working in all fields of live performance: theater, dance, circus, street arts...

No theme is imposed, the aim being to highlight high-quality, meaningful artistic proposals, representative of the diversity of creation in the area.

• Residency duration: 1 to 2 weeks or 10 sliding days
• Equipped stage available
• Technical support available
• Funding for these residencies: 3,000 € TTC maximum

Funding for these residencies is studied according to the type of project, the size of the artistic team, the coherence of the budget presented and other funding obtained or applied for from other structures (programming venues, festivals, residency venues...)

A residency agreement, drawn up following an appointment, specifies the terms and dates of hosting, technical requirements and proposed mediation actions.

No transportation, accommodation or catering costs are covered by this residency.

Projects will be selected according to the following criteria:

• Artists, companies or collectives domiciled in the Montpellier metropolitan area and working in the performing arts
• Relevance and maturity of the artistic project
• Support acquired or in progress (residencies, co-productions, subsidies, pre-purchases....) from metropolitan and/or extra-metropolitan structures
• Proposals for cultural actions aimed at local audiences, linked to the project
• Technical feasibility

The selection is made in 2 stages:

1. An initial selection based on a dossier
2. Oral presentation of shortlisted projects to an artistic advisory board

Teams who have already benefited from a residency may apply, but their dossier will be examined after those applying for the first time. Teams who submitted a project in a previous call for proposals may resubmit their project if it has since been further developed.

Cultural actions around the artistic residency site

While in artistic residency, artists are encouraged to forge links with local residents and users (schools, associations, other structures).

The application will therefore have to propose cultural actions aimed at this public in the form of workshops, public rehearsals, exchange times...

A mediator, with a fine knowledge of the neighborhood, will accompany the artists in the implementation of these actions according to a defined schedule and by targeting suitable interlocutors.

These mediation actions can take place during or outside residency times. They may be renewed according to demand and may be the subject of additional funding.

The projects hosted in artistic residency during the summer are presented for two days, at the end of September, at the Théâtre La Vista - La Chapelle, to professionals from the region (programmers, institutions...). This provides an opportunity to discover the creations of other companies in residence, and to discuss one's own show.