A trailblazing festival dedicated to contemporary choreographic creation, Les Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis began in 1969 and has accompanied a multitude of emerging artists over decades since. Alongside a performance programme combining excellence and experimentation, the festival features a vast range of artistic actions and activities that seek to engage with the inhabitants of the Seine-Saint-Denis region, too many of whom have limited access to culture.

Each of these projects is designed to best meet the needs of local people, with four different formats on offer: choreographic workshops conceived in dialogue with the festival performances to develop bodily expression; critical workshops that look to sharpen audiences’ understanding and enjoyment of watching dance; talks that promote and share choreographic culture; and pre-performance workshops. These initiatives pay particularly close attention to long-term projects that promote cross-generational transmission and dialogue.

True to its guiding belief that “our gestures define us and show who we are”, the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès has accompanied the Rencontres since 2010 as part of its Artists in the Community programme. With the goal of sharing dance culture and practice with a broad and uninitiated audience through high-quality workshops, the Foundation’s multifaceted engagement alongside the Rencontres looks to promote artistic awakenings and even to provide choreographic training to young people who are otherwise at a remove from the world of dance.