Ness El Fen is launching the starting up of the “Mediterranean Centre for Contemporary Dance” (CMDC) by inaugurating it on January 8 2007. The idea is simple: to create in the south of the Mediterranean a centre for professional training in contemporary dance that would concern young dancers coming from the African continent and the Middle East, and whose objective is to perfect themselves and to become professionals in the art and practise of contemporary dance.

However, those young people’s wish which would seem simple to come true, becomes complex in that part of the world for sociocultural, economic, geopolitical, religious and ethnic reasons.

The proposal of the CMDC appears then like a bridge which favours the move from dream to reality to necessity. The Centre is created , not as a commonplace project, but as an urgency so as to allow those young people to make their dreams come true in the future and build up with adequate materials and instruments the necessary structure allowing them to practise and live on their  profession at home, and not to give up out of despair , or attempt, with more or less success, to go to the West. 

Indeed, on observing the flow of students from the south of the Mediterranean (Africa, the Maghreb and the Middle East) to the Northern countries, one often notices that most of them give in and  remain in their hosting countries once their studies ended.

If we take into consideration  the grant-holders from the artistic sector, and more particularly the young North-African and African dancers who had been offered student  grants in France during those late years, we have to admit that the return home is hardly contemplated. To mention only Tunisia, we notice that over the last ten years, more than 2/3 of the grant-holders have not come back home and keep on living, and , when possible, working in France. However, even though it is  sorry to see those talents settle down on the other side of the Mediterranean, they remain our cultural ambassadors while being  lucky to present  their work in Europe and elsewhere.

Most of those young artists often express, after enjoying comfortable working conditions in Europe, their confusion and helplessness when they face the logistic, financial, administrative difficulties and those relating to infrastructure in their home countries, the latter being often overburdened with social, religious, ethnic, economic and political problems and for which culture, and mainly dance, are far from being priorities , especially at the level of governmental authorities.

And yet, generations of young talents that are often spontaneous keep on emerging and we may consider that this potential deserves our support and  very special care.

As a result of these remarks and taking into consideration more and more complex difficulties relating to the free movement of the inhabitants from the South to the North ( visas are hardly granted, the cost of living is high in Europe, etc), the CMDC presents  itself as a positive, concrete answer by offering a high-quality professional training so as to face those  problems and overcome them.

In order to do so, the CMDC relies, on the one hand, on a top-quality pedagogical strategy , strongly influenced by Western experience such as the CNDC in Angier directed by Emmanuelle Huynh, P.A.R.T.S created by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, D.A.N.C.E created by Ballet Preljocaj and directed by  William Forsythe and Frédéric Flamand as well as the School-Workshop Rudra, created and directed by Maurice Béjart.

 

The pedagogical strategy of the CMDC is founded  on the combination of the best local creators and pedagogues on a regular basis and on the contribution  of top-quality foreign professionals during limited but regular periods. However, the special feature of teaching in the CMDC is to favour at the same time the organic, emotional, intellectual, aesthetic and cultural specificities of those dancers so as not to take them hostage in a formatting that may change their nature.

On the other side, the CMDC relies on the experiences known and lived by the early generations of Tunisian choreographers who, after being all trained abroad, came back home with the wish and the will to set up the foundations of their profession. Those choreographers had known  , in an unequal and different manner,  determined though , how to face the difficulties evoked earlier by inventing and experimenting with new parallel systems of survival. And that generation had succeeded, in spite of the passive hostility of  authorities, in imposing itself as a true trade association.

And even though they remain imperfect, those results are today more than tangible. The evidence is the originality and the regularity of the production, the affluence and the attraction of the general public to the different events  such as les Rencontres Chorégraphiques de Carthage, the summer festivals, les Journées Théâtrales de Carthage (JCC) or simply the punctual representations. Let us not forget the take-over by  the young talents trained by their elders, the evidence that the relief has worked. Unfortunately today ,those young people are the ones who hesitate and often give up the idea of returning home. 

The starting up of the CMDC in Tunisia- a country favoured by an economic and political stability as well as by a privileged geographical location- fits into the dynamic current, by means of  a pedagogical and “militant” approach, so as to provide those young people with the necessary tools allowing them in the future to face concretely the administrative difficulties, the lack of financial and structural means and the indifference, even the hostility, of their different partners.

Its strong points and its originality are its top-quality training of an international level and  its being rooted  in the Arab-African culture and reality, the immediate environment of les Rencontres Chorégraphiques de Carthage in 2007 (RCC) and les Rencontres Chorégraphiques de l’Afrique et de l’Océan Indien that will take place in 2008 in Tunis, under the patronage of CulturesFrance and in coordination with the RCCs and during which the students will have the opportunity of presenting, outside the competition, their first productions.