To whom does the theatre place belong?
Making the theatre a place for young creative talent: case study of the university theatre TU Nantes

Keywords: Artist, Theatre as a place, Placeness, Throwntogetherness, Management, Project

Issue and argument
With the renewal of its national SCIN (scène conventionnée d’intérêt national) label approaching, the university theatre TU-Nantes is carrying out a timely project that focuses on the emergence and issues of regional relationalities. Located in the heart of a university campus and a priority neighbourhood in north Nantes, the issues of region, democratization, participation and governance lie at the heart of the questions raised by the management of this venue, both in the design and implementation of this project. In this article, the TU is understood as a relational theatre focusing on the emergence of artists, with a strong emphasis on its geographic locality: open to flows of artists, users and passers-by, in a regional setting with several overlapping dynamics at the heart of a university campus and a “sensitive” city neighbourhood. We point to the generic question of who the theatre belongs to, and how to grasp the theatre’s capacity to “placemake” for everybody, especially young creatives (emerging artists and young graduates).

Theoretical framework
Placeness refers to the quality of being/making a place, that embodies localized throwntogetherness which is meaningful (i.e. a source of attachment) for all parties inhabiting (experiencing) the place (Relph, 1976).
This definition draws heavily on Doreen Massey (2005, also see Sergot and Saives, 2016a), the British geographer who passed away in 2016. Massey’s vision of placeness is particularly relevant because it is profoundly relational and open. For Massey, place is neither fixed nor indefinitely subject to a hegemonic vision. On the contrary, it is the result of the continuous negotiations taking place between the different actors inhabiting the place and the irreducible heterogeneity of their place-based understandings and practices. Place thus confronts us with the Other and this place-based confrontation is by definition a meaningful, constituent, and individualizing experience. This conception of place and placeness presupposes a human capacity for the irreplaceability of each individual (Fleury, 2015) so as to avoid the world “drying up”. The latter is based on an individuation process made up of engagement from everybody throughout the world, of experimentation by everyone with their generative capacity “in the world” and “for the world”, and of the conversion of individual and collective experience into a lived experience of the world, which in the present case is place-based.
Placemaking therefore requires constant, collective work that is not only construction, but also co-construction: it constructs place while still keeping open the possibility of alternative understandings and ways of inhabiting it, and at the same time also constructing the actors involved and their vision of the world (Gieryn, 2000; Cresswell, 2015). In “Massian” logic, this is the condition that makes place-based throwntogetherness possible.

Methodology
During three years, our group of researchers has experienced immersion situations in this theatre and its different spaces (stage, scène, hall and bar, etc.). Invited to join the artists’ collective formed during the spring 2020 lockdown, they have attended online and in-person meetings over a four-month period. During two years, this collaboration has been part of a multidisciplinary “PACE” research project, which revolved around observation of and participation in different working practices: creative residencies, on-stage activities with students and artists, taking part in the Creation Research Laboratory alongside artists, group workshops (with schoolchildren), participation in the CA, artist meetings, and regular (more informal) visits to the venue itself.
These two years of conducting regular participant observation and interviews with the different stakeholders (Theatre Director, Manager of the Centre for Audiences and Development [Pôle Publics et Développement]), and Public Relations Officer for audiences, artists, students enrolled in support or practical schemes) have enabled us to highlight the issues raised by the theatre as a place. The aim of this proposal is to use empirical investigations (drawing on Dewey) and a highly pragmatic approach towards cultural rights to contextualise the project, enhance understanding of processes and interactions, and identify the challenges and difficulties faced by the TU. It will be based on the following research topics:
- The place’s physical openness to the region with a dual purpose in mind: “coming to the theatre” (policies implemented and offers proposed) and in situ proposals through long-term collaborations with artists and partnerships with public stakeholders such as the city council, regional directorates for cultural affairs, and centres for student services.
As a consequence, policy-related appeals to the public/inhabitants tend to reframe the theatrical tool as a local place, which therefore now struggles to assert its identity in its regional context, and whose facilities are not commensurate with its ambitions.
- A place to support the emergence and training of artists that is made up of porosities and interactions, a context in which artists can highlight the difficulties of placeless working. The creation of the Lab and the setting up of an “artists’ bureau” (modelled on the multidisciplinary Grütli cultural centre in Geneva) which will become mobile and extend beyond the physical boundaries of the theatre, offer some new perspectives on TU working practices and activities.

Take-away and results
Analysis of the empirical data revealed two place-based rationales. Our discussion will be based on the co-existence of what we consider to be two distinct place-based paradigms, each with its own specific issues :
- a classic “performance place” (or artistic event place) paradigm in which the theatre (an “inside”, an institutional container) is usually geographically located within an established institutional place; a place in which well-defined roles configure the creative teams hired “by this place” to work on an artistic response to specific commissions.
- a “performance-place” (or event-as-place), or performance-artist place in the locality where the artist performs (in an “outside” made up of an array of links in the place with local actors and non-actors), on a mobile stage, in liminal or institutional places outside the usual categories, in a dynamic creation process that is inextricably associated with the irreplaceability of the artist temporarily hired at the place.
This communication interrogates the place as a working and meeting space, and also place governance, its role as a driving force for togetherness – both artistic and cultural – in terms of the multiplicity of relationships at work with and between artists, audiences and inhabitants. Issues of placeness aside, it is indeed the “space (of the cause) of the performing arts” that is at stake.


Some References
Calbérac, Y., 2020, « Habiter le théâtre. Pour une géographie des spatialités théâtrales », Amiens, colloque Géopoint 20, 17 p.
Calbérac, Y., 2021, « Tu crois que ça suffit d’être indigné pour investir l’espace des autres ? » Pour une géographie des spatialités théâtrales : la trilogie Des territoires de Baptiste Amann. Annales de géographie, 739-740, 80-100.
Cresswell, T. 2015. Place, an introduction (2nd ed.), Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
Fleury, C. 2015. Les irremplaçables. Paris: Gallimard.
Gieryn, T. F. 2000. “A Space for Place in Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology (26): 463-496.
Horvath, I, Saives, A-L., Dechamp G. et B. Sergot 2020. Renewing an emplaced creative and cultural organization: the case of the “Belle de Mai” wasteland, EURAM 2020 Conference, On-line, December 4-6.
Lazzarotti, O., Mercier G., Paquet S. (dir.) 2017, La part artistique de l’habiter. Perspectives contemporaines, Paris, L’Harmattan.
Massey, D. 2005. For Space. London: Sage.
Relph, E. 1976. Place and placelessness. London: Pion.
Salignon B., 1996. « Le seuil, un chiasme intime-dehors », in Michel Mangematin, Philippe Nys, Christiane Younès (dir), Le sens du lieu, Bruxelles, Ousia, 1996
Sergot, B. and A.-L. Saives 2016a. “Relating place to organization: A situated tribute to Doreen Massey”, M@n@gement 19(4): 335-352.
Sergot, B. and A.L. Saives 2016b. “Placing organized work: how and why place is a useful concept for Management and Organization Studies”, EURAM 2016 Conference, Paris, June 1-4.
Stock, M. (2015), « Habiter comme ’faire avec l’espace’. Réflexions à partir des théories de la pratique », Annales de géographie, n°704, p. 424-441

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