The back froms ZAT is the return of the pleasure of being together in the city ”, says Pascal Lebrun-Cordier, its founder.
Launched in November 2010, this artistic, festive and cultural event spread over an entire district of Montpellier, had to stop for a while due to the pandemic. Born in Antigone, this neighborhood with neoclassical architecture designed by the Catalan Riccardo Bofill, the ZAT * will be reborn there. Symbolically enough, the kick-off will be given on November 11th at 11:11 am, Place du Nombre d’Or. Deployed in Lez, this 14th ZAT will last two days.
All fire, all flames
“We keep the DNA of the ZAT. In other words, it is a question of revealing the city in its singularity, making it discovered or rediscovered, also obviously moving it, with poetry. And we add a dimension of reflection to it., summarizes Pascal Lebrun-Cordier. This is what he calls a “manifest” event. “There will be festive bubbles throughout the ZAT morning and evening, 100 meetings, shows, installations and urban surprises, including Olivier Dubois’s choreographic” coup de punch “, Tragédie Antigone, with 100 participants”It shows up.
A ZAT placed under the triptych of “Fire, party and future”. This teacher, who teaches art in the public space, explains: “Fire, because the archaic force of fire in the heart of the city warms bodies and hearts, and gives us strength. The party, because the return of the ZATs is celebrated, and the forty years of the Antigone district. “
As in an immense pagan festival of Antiquity, the walls of Antigone will be adorned with the moving orange glows of the flames, as soon as evening comes. Hundreds of braziers, candles and bonfires will be installed by Pierre de Mecquenem and the company La Machine. On November 12 at 8:30 pm an off-the-beaten-track fireworks display will set the Place du Nombre d’Or on fire. For two days, the party will transport the public in a great eclecticism of styles, Sevillian or electronic, jazz or hip hop, hard rock and accordion (…). From the office of the President of the Metropolis, the pianist Jean-François Zygel, from 14:00 to 20:00 on 11 November, will carry out a marathon of piano improvisations. A mini-ZAT, place de Thessalie, will put, and this is a novelty, the ZAT at the height of children.
In “manifesto” there are “festive” and “manifesto”. The appointments, for example on the Esplanade de l’Europe, will formalize a future of hospitality, tracing on the lawn the project of the future rescue ship for SOS Méditerranée migrants, for example. Antigone, Sophocles’ heroine, “Figure of civil disobedience”, it will also be celebrated.
Caterina Vingtrinier
* Free. Complete program on zat.montpellier.fr
