La Volière in partnership with Le Théâtre, Scène Nationale Simone Veil*, is inviting 5 young emerging artists (18-30) for the Aerial Art project On the line.
La Volière invites 5 emerging circus artists aged 18 to 30, legally residing in one of the Creative Europe countries (excluding France), to join an international research and creation residency exploring the concept of “robustness.”
This residency is part of La Volière’s third selection as a residency host within the Culture Moves Europe programme (Creative Europe).
📍 Saint-Nazaire, France
📅 14 October – 12 December 2026
Public presentation: 5 December 2026, as part of Quel Cirque! in partnership with Le Théâtre Scène Nationale de Saint-Nazaire
👉 Application deadline: 15 September 2026
Project: ON THE LINE
What if instability became a resource? With ON THE LINE, La Volière offers a collaborative residency exploring the concept of “robustness” within aerial circus arts. Over 60 days, 5 artists from different countries are invited to experiment together with balance, instability, adaptation and cooperation. Rather than seeking to control everything, the project aims to explore how error, constraints and uncertainty can become creative drivers.
The project is open to, in particular:
- circus and aerial artists;
- dancers and aerial dance artists;
- scenographers;
- lighting designers;
- sound designers;
- artists working within transdisciplinary practices.
The residency is based on a collective approach: participants will be encouraged to share their practices, experiment together and progressively develop a collaborative creation.
Through immersive laboratories, peer-to-peer workshops, improvisation sessions, physical and dramaturgical research, and encounters with artists, mentors and researchers, participants will explore different ways of working with instability and adaptation.
Particular attention will also be given to the relationship with audiences: participants will experiment with hybrid and participatory counter-performance formats, in which the audience is invited to intervene and contribute to the evolution of the artistic process.
Although the residency is primarily collective, it also provides space for each artist to develop their own research.
One day per week will be dedicated to individual work, allowing participants to pursue their own artistic projects alongside the collective research.
Each participant will also benefit from up to 20 hours of individual mentoring with La Volière’s artistic team, focusing on their artistic project and professional development.
Professional networking opportunities, work-in-progress presentations, networking lunches and group meetings will also be part of the programme.
Read the full open call on the page linked below!