About us
Awards
Festival de l'Imaginaire
Performances
Exhibitions
Intangible cultural heritage
MEDLIHER (Mediterranean Living Heritage)
Ethnoscenology
Cultural engineering
Training and residency programs
International resource center on world performing arts
INÉDIT CD collection
The journal Internationale de l'Imaginaire

The "Prix Diderot Universalis" of 1989 was awarded to the Maison des Cultures du Monde for its efforts to popularise traditional and modern forms of theatre.
The France-Korea Cultural Award of 1999 was conferred to the Maison des Cultures du Monde for its commitment to the promotion of Korean arts and performances.
The French-Taiwanese cultural foundation Prize of 2004 was awarded to the Maison des Cultures du Monde for its commitment to the promotion of Taiwanese cultures.

"There is no one single culture; there are cultures."

Over the centuries, people have created the means and forms of their own expressions, using the cultural attributes of their neighbours at random – as historical bonds or conflicts provided – and remodelling them according to their needs, tastes, fears and beliefs.
At a time when no one spoke of globalization, cultural diversity, or intangible cultural heritage, Chérif Khaznadar established the Festival for Traditional Arts in France (Rennes) in 1974.

The Maison des Cultures du Monde is convinced that knowledge of others comes for discovery of their intrinsic cultures and that these cultures are in a process of continuous renewal. Since the time of its founding, it has been dedicated to the astonishing wealth of cultural expression, regardless of place of origin, form (music, performance, fine arts), whether traditional or contemporary, erudite or widespread, professional or amateur, literary or oral, erudite or widespread, minimalist or sophisticated.

The importance and success of this action can be measured by looking at the number of programs and festivals that have followed in its footsteps and the numerous performances from abroad and world music concerts that now take place in Parisian, French and European venues.

The Institute for World Cultures programs exclusively forms that still have a profound meaning and important purpose for the people who perform them, focusing on the question of the human path: where do we come from, where are we going? It does not limit its interest to "traditional“ forms, but is also strongly committed to presenting contemporary forms when these are rooted in the imagination of a people and a society and not merely the pale reflections of Western models. Artists are often from an ethnic background and are usually considered, in their own countries, as “backward” and their art as “primitive”.

Due to this undermining, young generations are less and less inclined to perpetuate the traditions of their ancestors and there is a high risk that this precious heritage will soon disappear forever. However, this process is reversed when these groups are invited to perform in Paris and other European cities and are acclaimed with great success. By consistently skirting the pitfalls of the star system, the World Cultures Institute brings recognition to hitherto unrenowned artists, thus giving them the opportunity to launch an international career (e.g., Alim Qâsimov, virtuoso of Azerbaijani mugam, or Faiz Ali Faiz, Pakistan’s golden voice) and often confers the visibility required to ignite the revival of an endangered art form (e.g., the Muqam music of the Dolan, a Uighur sub-group living in the desert of Taklamakan, in the center of Xinjiang, China).

"The practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage."

As President of the Culture Committee of the French National Commission for Unesco, Chérif Khaznadar has played an important role in drafting the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). This convention was adopted in 2003 and is currently being ratified at a steady pace by member states around the world. It should be implemen-ted as of 2009.

The intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. For the purposes of this Convention, consideration will be given solely to such intangible cultural heritage as is compatible with existing international human rights instruments, as well as with the requirements of mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals, and of sustainable development.

The ICH as defined above is manifested in the following domains among others :
- oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;
- performing arts;
- social practices, rituals and festive events;
- knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;
- traditional craftsmanship.

The ICH is traditional and living at the same time. It is constantly recreated and mainly transmitted orally. It is difficult to use the term authentic in relation to ICH; some experts advise against its use in relation to living heritage.

The Wolrd Cultures Instituteorganizes, during each editionof the Festival de l’Imaginaire, an ICH workshop co-organized with the UNESCO Division of cultural heritage.

The MEDLIHER project aims at enhancing institutional capacities in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic to facilitate their effective participation in the international mechanisms established by the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, as well as to support the elaboration of specific safeguarding measures with the participation of communities and groups concerned in each of them. The Medliher project is lead by the UNESCO, in partnership with:
- Egyptian National Commission for UNESCO, Ministry of Higher Education
- Lebanese Ministry of Culture
- Department of Folk Heritage, Ministry of Culture, Syria
- Jordan National Commission for Education, Culture and Science, Ministry of Education
- Maison des Cultures du Monde, France

"Avoiding ethnocentrism in the study of performing arts and practices in their cultural, historical and social context."

The term ethnoscenology was first coined in 1995 in Paris. The concept was born of a scientific need defined by the Institute for World Cultures and the specialized Research Laboratory on the Study of Human Performing Phenomena of the University of Paris VIII Saint-Denis. The founding symposium was organized under the auspices of UNESCO on May 3, 1995. The discipline attempts to view the immensity of human expression with new eyes, through an array of performances juxtaposed with a study of forms, avoiding all hierarchies and exclusions: theatre, music, dance, masked games, puppets, shadow shows, rituals, coded tracings, etc., all these and more find their way into ethnoscenology's sweeping embrace.

The aims of this new field which comprises anthropology of theatre, ethnology, musicology and sociology are manifold :

- to question the way we look at the immense diversity of human expression, today endan-gered by the ramifications of "mass production". The dubious terms "universality" and "fusion" have in fact reduced observers' capacity for objectivity. The universality of cultures can only be achieved at the expense of the weaker ones - progress in technology automatically favors the stronger cultures. Ethnoscenology is thus an unswerving champion of diversity;

- to forge a concept, a notion, a method and to bring together all that lies scattered. To tirelessly explore and publish inventories and research findings. To patiently but firmly remind people that forms as diverse as the Gambuh from Bali, the Kagura from Japan, the Teyyam from India, the Tchiloli from São Tomé, the Sulamiyya rituals from Tunisia, or the Diablada from Bolivia, are full-fledged art forms, and not - as is often condescendingly implied - poor relatives of Western theatre, itself a relic inherited from ancient Greek drama;

- to emphasise that these art forms obey other rules, meet other criteria and are appraised by other value systems

Through the study of these forms, using all the possible means at our disposal today and by correlating them, we will eventually witness the emergence of a new field of scientific enquiry, shorn of all ethnocentricity.

Several meetings, symposiums, seminars and workshops have been held since the official "birth" of ethnoscenology: in Paris (UNESCO and the Maison des Cultures du Monde), in Cuernavaca (Mexico), and in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil).

Ethnoscenology is now taught in several French universities such as Paris VII, Paris VIII and Paris X.

The World Cultures Institute has gained solid experience in organising cultural events (music festivals, performing arts festivals, etc.), developing methods of recording and disseminating culture, and organizing meetings and symposia for discussion and comparing of experience, not to mention exchanges and training of culture officials throughout the world. The World Cultures Institute has proven expertise in field exploration and research as well as identification of various forms of ICH.

Cultural programming, especially in the field of traditional arts, entails a particular know-how that the World Cultures Institute has acquired through the organization of many festivals, events and festivities at the request of public authorities and private bodies. It has organized numerous prestigious events, including the Grand Mela that marked the opening of the Year of India in France (1985), and reciprocally, the French Mela in India (1989), the Carnival of Venice in the Palais Royal Gardens (1987), the concert of Sacred Music of the World at the Pantheon (1992) and the Icelandic Fortnight (2004).

The World Cultures Institute has also been in charge of the programming of the Mawazine-Rhythms of the World Festival in Rabat, Morocco since 2002 and of the Islamic world music programs of the Louvre Museum since 2004. It has been a co-organizer of the Asilah Forum in Morocco since 1982. It organized the first “Conference on Music in the World of Islam“ which took place in Morocco in August 2007. The goal of this Conference was to encourage the vitality and the diversity of the traditions and musical practices of the world of Islam today and to promote greater circulation of knowledge and practices in a spirit of tolerance and mutual recognition.

The French Ministry of Culture and Communication and other governmental bodies also frequently call on the World Cultures Institute the organization of international meetings, such as Europe in Paris (1992), Europe Culture Horizon (1994), the Colors of Freedom (1994), the European Conference of Recording Industries (1996), the Slovakian Presence (1996), the Symposium on Japanese Architecture (1997), the Franco-Japanese Cultural Summit (1997) and the Iceland Fortnight Festival (2004).

In August 2007, the World Cultures Institute organised the first Conference on Music in the World of Islam in partnership with the Assilah Forum Foundation in Morocco. Chérif Khaznadar has since been appointed head of project for the Al Aïn Centre for Music in the World of Islam (Abu Dhabi).

"Dynamic networks for cultural leaders from abroad.
Over 2700 professionnals invited since 1992."

Welcoming professionals from abroad to France is one of the key international areas of action of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. Because it helps build long-term networks for exchange, this policy meets one of France’s primary goals: the promotion of cultural diversity. It takes the form of visits, internships and training programs in every cultural sector. The European and International Affairs Department of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication entrusted the organization of these programs to the World Cultures Institute in 1994.

World Trends Program (Programme “Courants”)

A dynamic network materialized through this interactive directory of professionals around the world who hold positions of responsibility and who are confirmed specialists in their field of activity, creating sustained co-operation and exchange activities in the field of culture between France and foreign countries.

The most frequently requested fields include cultural management and administration, books and reading, decorative and fine arts, museums, audio-visual and multimedia, performing arts, archives, heritage, publishing, libraries, architecture and city planning.

This program, set up and administered by the Institute for World Cultures, receives the support of the European and International Affairs Department as well as that of the various specialized Divisions of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. It also relies on a large network of public and private cultural infrastructures, whose broad range of competencies covers every aspect of modern cultural activities.


1) Training workshops & seminars

These take place all year round in Paris and other French cities and aim at providing cultural leaders with practical tools for the analysis, design and management of cultural projects and institutions. At the same time, these workshops promote the creation of networks of cultural leaders from around the world.

Interaction among specialists in smaller groups is encouraged around specific technical topics over a two-week period. The participants take part in training courses and information sessions held by both academics and practitioners, meet up with leaders of French cultural institutions, visit a large number of cultural organizations and participate in discussions and debates. There are currently eight of these programs per year :

> Leading and Managing Cultural Projects (French speaking professionals);
> Cultural Industries in Europe and in the Euromed countries (bilingual);
> European Seminar for Curators (bilingual);
> Cultural Policies and Cultural Administration (French speaking professionals);
> Financing and Economics of Culture (French speaking professionals);
> Archival Theories and Practices (French speaking professionals);
> Managing Library Projects (French speaking professionals);
> Electronic Resources in Librairies (French speaking professionals).


2) Cultural residencies and individual networking programs

Every year, the World Cultures Institute invites 50 to 60 cultural professionals for custom-designed programs to promote exchanges of know-how between participants and their French counterparts and to encourage partnerships. These two-week programs are intended for cultural leaders in the following fields: fine arts, museum, theater, circus, music, dance, cinema, archive, library, architecture, city planning and heritage.


3) Bilingual Art Administrator Exchange Programs

Expertise projects are organized for non French-speaking professionals upon request from foreign institutions* with the European and International Affairs Department of the Ministry of Culture and Communication, according to pre-established agreements.

Some of the specific topics that have been addressed so far are: Film preservation, heritage preservation and promotion, music industry and property rights, design, prehistoric rock art, organization of festivals, publishing industry, educational and outreach policies in the field of Arts and Culture, creative centers formed from grassroots artistic initiatives and founded with the involvement of communities, etc.

*USA - French-American Foundation
Japan- Japan Foundation for Regional Art Activities (JAFRA)
Taiwan - Ministry of Culture
Korea - Korean Culture and Arts Foundation
South Africa (Department for Arts and Culture)...

Starting January of each year, application forms may be downloaded from www.mcm.asso.fr or from the French Embassy’s Service for Cooperation and Cultural Action (SCAC) website in the candidate’s country of residence.

Online alumni directory : www.mcm.asso.fr

The Center is located in a former Benedictine priory in Vitré, one of the oldest cities in Brittany. The restauration of the historical building of the Resource Centre was jointly funded by the city of Vitré, the Departmental Council of Ille-et-Vilaine and the Regional Council of Brittany.

Documentation

The Center has a unique library that covers all forms of traditional performing arts from all over the world: music, theater, dance, marionettes, shadow puppets, and rituals. It is based on the archives of the Maison des Cultures du Monde and the Festival des Arts traditionnels of Rennes (1974-1983) and includes more than one thousand books and journals, encyclo-pedias and reference books, 1,500 unpublished texts (performance programs, reports, papers, theses and travel notes), 50,000 photos and more than 2,500 sound and audio-visual recordings.
A digitizing, cataloging and indexing program has organized all of these documents in a database by topic, genre and cultural area with a thesaurus of 3,800 key words specially developed for the needs of the database.
This on-line database, called Ibn Battuta to pay tribute to the famous 14th-century Moroccan explorer who traveled all over the world for more than twenty years and brought back descriptions that were very accurate for the time, is thus a real webencyclopedia of performance traditions from around the world. Each form is presented with texts, photos, sound recordings and video sequences.

World Performing Arts Web Portal : www.spectaclesdumonde.fr

Several key public institutions involved in the dissemination and documenting of world musical traditions, including the Cité de la Musique, the World Cultures Institute, the Musée du Quai Branly and the Théâtre de la Ville, have teamed up to develop a portal offering access to their audiovisual archives. The portal aims to contribute to our knowledge of these traditions based on archives dedicated to the performing arts, improve the visibility of stakeholders and resources, and help preserve this intangible heritage through digitisation. It brings together records of recorded music and audio and video extracts, revealing the diversity of programming in the field. This collection started being digitised in 2008 as part of the national digitisation plan, and the lexicons of partner catalogues have been merged and standardised.

www.spectaclesdumonde.fr

Education and outreach

The Center’s projects with schools aim to provide an opening to world cultures. Going beyond typical subjects of learning, the traditional arts provide an opportunity for dialogue with other cultures in the course of students’ daily lives. These meetings with distant cultures give them a new perspective in which to consider their immediate environment. The topics and issues raised by the Maison des Cultures du Monde encourage a cross-discipline approach, and the variety of sources available (books, CD’s, video, photos, objects) allow for a diversified exploration of traditional arts.
The potential of the Center’s documents as teaching resources and tools for reflection are all the greater because they offer content that is not governed by Western social norms and esthetics.
These activities intended for primary and secondary schools pupils and for university students are carried out in cooperation with teachers through topic-based projects such as "Ethnocentrism – racism", "Funeral Rites", "Initiation Rituals", "Commemoration of Ancestors", "Afro-Brazilian Culture", "Masks in Africa", "Ritual and daily life", "Jewellery", "Theater of the Orient”, etc.

Cultural activities

The Documentation Center also works on bringing performances from the Maison des Cultures du Monde’s Parisian programs to Brittany by establishing partnerships with local cultural institutions and acts as a consultant for performing arts programs.

Since 2007, the center has been organizing temporary exhibitions based on its collections of objects (masks, marionettes, musical instruments), workshops, meetings and artist in residence programs.

Foreign artists in residence

The Documentation Center on world performing arts, both withdrawn and open to the world, is a privileged setting for welcoming foreign artists who want to undertake thinking and creation work. The center’s team supports them in this approach and helps them to adapt their work to this new environment.

For more than twenty-five years now, the Maison des cultures du Monde has been scheduling, publishing and disseminating diverse and little-known forms of cultural expression, both traditional and contemporary. The performing arts (dance, theater, music, rituals, etc.) are predominant in its schedule, but it also hosts exhibitions that reflect specific practices and artistic and sociological thinking on the relationship between tradition and modernity in changing cultures. The purpose of this residence program is to deepen this approach by accompanying artists in their work of thinking, research, production and dissemination. The presence of creators in residence in Vitré gives the Maison des Cultures du Monde an opportunity to locally reinforce its role as a bridge between cultures, making it a place of reference for young foreign creators, particularly from southern countries.

The invited artists are free to take advantage of the residence to carry out a specific project, to go deeper with an earlier approach or to start on some new research. The Center’s team can offer them personalized approaches for starting new projects (help with drawing up a proposal, contacts with other artists or institutions involved, communication supports, etc.) or can help them extend and make concrete their projects already underway. It provides them with an appropriate work space, with assistance in terms of logistics and equipment, and makes every effort to disseminate their work with the public through workshops and a public presentation at the end of the residence.

This program of residences focuses on the fine arts, but can also include musicians, choreographer-dancers, and writers and can involve training activities, courses, workshops, and master classes for creation in the strict sense.

RESOURCE CENTER ON WORLD PERFORMING ARTS
2 rue des Bénédictins 35500 Vitré, France
Phone : 33 (0)2 99 75 82 90
Fax : 33 (0)2 99 78 82 93
documentation@mcm.asso.fr