Why Are So Many Dancers Moving to Marseille?

In recent years, the southern French port city of Marseille—the country’s second-largest metropolis—has become an increasingly attractive hub for artists and cultural workers. The city’s designation as the European Capital of Culture in 2013 helped spur its rise as an artistic destination, and since then, the dance world has been waking up to its creative energy. 

The Festival de Marseille, for example, has featured strong dance programming for years, but its current artistic team has helped it attract more international programmers and journalists. The Ballet National de Marseille has also taken a bold new direction under the leadership of the experimental collective (LA)Horde, producing edgy performances drawing on internet-native styles like jumpstyle and TikTok choreography. Dancers and choreographers are relocating to the city too, from European stars like Northern Irish choreographer Oona Doherty, who moved there in 2023, to emerging artists.

Could the city be on its way to becoming a major European dance hub?

Space to Go Wrong
While Marseille’s warm climate and coastal location are natural draws, it’s not just the setting that’s pulling dancers to the city. Andrew Graham, co-founder of L’Autre Maison, a company focused on fighting social exclusion in the cultural sector, moved to Marseille in 2018 after 11 years in London, three of which included dancing with inclusive company Candoco. “Everything was so precarious” in London, he says: There, he had had three-month jobs canceled just two weeks before they were due to start, and securing residencies and funding to create his own work was difficult. “Everything got quite dark,” adds Solène Weinachter, who is currently based between Glasgow and Marseille. She cites Brexit, the economic crisis, and current global conflicts as factors making life increasingly hard for UK-based artists.

By contrast, in Marseille, there’s a wide availability of studios—at venues like KLAP Maison pour la Danse and La Friche, a former tobacco-factory—that can be rented for free or very little money. “It allows a certain culture of experimentation that is difficult in London,” Graham explains. “I feel like I can go wrong. It allows me to create unusual work.”

Being able to share that work with French audiences is another plus. “There’s a real tradition here of seeing culture as part of the social life of the citizen,” says Amit Noy, a dancer and choreographer who was raised in Hawaii and Aotearoa (New Zealand) and who arrived in Marseille in the summer of 2023. As a result, shows are often sold out and attract diverse crowds. “People are used to being spectators and being in front of challenging work,” says Graham. “They have really interesting feedback to give.”

Solidarity and Resilience
A widespread appreciation for the arts in France has long been fostered by generous financial investments in culture. “In the [19]90s, an obscene amount of money was poured into dance,” says Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat, who has been based in the Marseille area for 17 years. But the country isn’t the utopia it once was. Like across the rest of Europe, “you can really feel it tightening up everywhere,” Gat says.

Despite challenges, “the independent scene [in Marseille] is very resilient,” says Weinachter. “Dancing can be full of solidarity. Even if it’s challenging, everyone’s banding together.” She highlights others who have made Marseille a home base, including Sati Veyrunes, a regular collaborator with Doherty, and Jean-Daniel (JD) Broussé, co-founder of the queer cabaret Shit Show. Graham also notes fellow former London resident Anne-Gaëlle Thiriot, who co-founded Le FIL, a series of monthly somatic-training workshops in the city. And initiatives like France’s intermittent du spectacle—an unemployment-insurance program for freelance artists and entertainment workers—help provide a degree of stability for Marseille’s dance community, too.

From Transience to Belonging
Many Marseille-based artists travel frequently to work on projects elsewhere. Noy, for example, regularly travels to Ireland to dance with choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan. Still, choreographers like Gat are adapting their practices to help create a stronger local community of dancers. “For around 15 years, my dancers were spread all over Europe. We only came together for creation processes or tours,” he explains. “For my next production, I’m asking that applicants live here, so the studio relationship can extend into real life.”

Noy has also appreciated recent opportunities to work more locally. This year, he’s being supported in part by Parallèle, which mounts an annual festival with a program for choreographers from the South of France, the Middle East, and North Africa, focused on rooting them in the region. His most recent work, Good Luck, was rehearsed entirely in the city, where it was recently presented at Actoral—a fall festival that also runs residencies and performances throughout the year. “It was fantastic,” he says. “I could work and still be at home, which I prefer to having to leave my life behind.”

Malleable, Not Mapped Out
Despite bubbling artistic activity, the programming and training opportunities in Marseille are relatively condensed compared to other dance capitals. Noy notes that most festivals are itinerant (without dedicated performance spaces), and that few have year-round programming. That can actually be a positive thing for dancers. “It’s not too overwhelming or insular, and you can actually have a life outside of dance,” Noy says.

The lack of oversaturation also means that artists who move there feel like they’re building something. “If you’re in Paris, it’s a bit like ‘How can I carve out a space for myself?’ ” says Noy. “It’s been the locus of a highly centralized country for hundreds of years. Marseille feels more malleable. There’s more of a spirit of doing things yourself.”

This malleability is strengthened by Marseille’s vibrant cultural makeup, which includes strong communities from North Africa and the Middle East. It’s precisely this diversity that makes the city so attractive to artists. Graham, for example, appreciates the connections the city has to parts of the world he wasn’t exposed to in London. “There’s a sense of the city as a meeting point for many different communities and cultures,” says Noy. “That’s the kind of place I want to be.”