With the audience

The Festival Parallèle is also a series of artistic and cultural initiatives designed for various audiences, aiming to actively experiment with contemporary creation. These initiatives are always developed in close collaboration with organizations in education, social work, mutual aid, and solidarity sectors. Contemporary forms explore new, sensitive, and poetic languages to engage with today's world, and we assert that they are relevant to everyone.

This year, Parallèle offers:

— An immersive experience for art students, in partnership with the Aix School of Art (ESSAIX) and the Beaux-Arts-INSEAMM. We are building a program that allows students to attend all performances, meet the featured artists, and develop their critical perspectives. They will be supported by educational mentors from each school: Abraham Poincheval and Céline Marx for ESSAIX, and Pauline Brun for Beaux-Arts-INSEAMM.

Activities include: attending dress rehearsals and performances, meeting with artists and the festival director, collective discussions between students and instructors to develop critical analyses of the work presented, and creating a record of their experience (collective journal, drawings, texts, podcasts, performances, etc.).

— Partnerships with mutual aid and solidarity organizations such as Un Autre Monde and Culture du Cœur. These collaborations include offering a quota of free tickets to their beneficiaries, providing specific support (e.g., introducing the performance, venue tours), and creating visibility spaces for presenting their respective initiatives.

— A radio creation project with ASLAA (Association for Sports and Leisure for the Blind and Visually Impaired), promoting accessibility to works and inclusivity in programming spaces, as part of the European project Radio That Matters.

— Artistic practice workshops for children and adults, both professionals and amateurs.

— A pedagogical project linked to the Pass Culture program and with schools.

— Post-performance discussions between artists and audiences.

— Professional networking sessions between artists and programmers from Marseille, France, and Europe.

— Professional meetings within the framework of Canal, in partnership with Chroniques and Onda.

The Parallèle Professionalization Cycle

Young Choreographers from the South, La Relève, Future Directions of Cultural Structures Dedicated to Emerging Artists.

For 18 years, Parallèle has been a key player in fostering emerging artistic talent. Now, it is reinventing its model by launching a professionalization cycle aimed at strengthening the cultural sector’s sustainability. This program targets young choreographers from the South, recent graduates from art schools, and future directions of cultural structures.

Its goals include mitigating the precariousness of emerging artists, ensuring generational renewal, fostering connections among artists of the same generation, promoting gender equality in access to structural resources, and amplifying feminine perspectives. The program encourages interdisciplinarity, builds Mediterranean networks, and supports artists' autonomy in managing their careers.

Five choreographers — Anat Bosak, Aïda Jamal, Yu-Hsuan Chiu, Amit Noy, and Luara Raio — will participate in professionalization workshops, residencies, mentorships, and co-productions, culminating in a presentation at the Parallèle Festival 2026.

20 artists and one artist collective have been selected for the La Relève 7 exhibition.

The three laureates of the Future Leaders program — Flora Fettah, Assia Ugobor, and Lamia Zanna — will develop the 2026 Festival program, attend professionalization workshops, and engage with the cultural ecosystem.

The Professionalization Cycle for the Sustainability of the Cultural Sector is fully supported by the Cultures and Creation program of the Fondation de France. The Young Choreographers of the South component is also supported by sponsorship from the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations.

Artistic mentorships will be provided by Maud Blandel, Katerina Andreou, and Dorothée Munyaneza.