Brochure © Birgit Brendgen
Le Générateur is an arts and performance venue located on the outskirts of Paris’s 13tharrondissement.
Dedicated to performance and all forms of contemporary artistic expression, Le Générateur prioritizes unique artistic productions as long as they involve research and creation.
Halfway between a theater and an exhibition space, its 600-square-meter venue fosters crossovers between the performing arts and the visual arts and sparks unexpected interactions between disciplines, genres, audiences, and generations.
A place of (rapid) incubation and (highly neutral) catalysis, Le Générateur is open to all levels of intensity and brings together artists and audiences around performance.
Inaugurated in 2006, Le Générateur was co-founded by painter Bernard Bousquet and choreographer Anne Dreyfus, who has served as its artistic director ever since.
Geographical Location / Artistic Position
Since its opening in 2006, Le Générateur has focused its programming on performance, positioning itself from the outset at the intersection of the performing arts and the visual arts. Given its history as a movie theater, Le Générateur could be described as a venue for art(s) and experimentation(s). As such, its primary mission is to give artists the freedom to reconnect with the experimental dimension of their work. Located in Gentilly and effectively removed from a certain Parisian microcosm, Le Générateur invites a step back by providing a sounding board for cross-disciplinary practices. Le Générateur prioritizes the creative process over the cultural product.
Physical Space / Empty Space
With its raw and minimalist architectural approach, Le Générateur offers a space conducive to all formats of work, from ephemeral gestures to sprawling installations. By confronting the artist with an empty space, Le Générateur becomes a canvas for recording their every gesture and movement, testing their resilience by forcing them to push their limits and constantly reinvent themselves.
Collective Experience / Intimate Experience
Through its ability to embrace often risky artistic practices, Le Générateur fulfills its role as a trailblazer and occupies a unique place in the current landscape of contemporary creation. Conceived and inhabited by artists, Le Générateur is a space of freedom that performance art demands. The collective experience is at the heart of Le Générateur’s operation, while still leaving room for the artist’s intimate experience.
Time for Creation / Time for Exhibition
The Générateur team is attentive to every stage of the creative process. Through its residency program, to which it dedicates 30 weeks a year, Le Générateur offers artists the space and time necessary for their artistic approach to mature, by mobilizing technical and human resources. Every fall, Le Générateur is in full swing, organizing FRASQ, a performance gathering: an opportunity to showcase the latest in performance art, giving emerging artists a chance to shine by bringing them together with their mentors. A highlight of its programming, FRASQ in no way overshadows the initiatives carried out throughout the year for all audiences. Le Générateur is thus characterized by its exploratory work, presenting original creations each season rather than off-the-shelf shows. This is how it fulfills its public service mission by welcoming artists who are often on the margins of the system.
A History of Encounters / A History of Transmission
Le Générateur is first and foremost a place for encounters and companionship. It allows artists to recognize one another and engage with diverse practices, all of which are driven by performance. Le Générateur is sufficiently established to attract artists of all stripes and generations who constantly question their practice and are revitalized by contact with the greatest diversity. Thus, the idea of transmission is fundamental to Le Générateur’s identity.
Energy Generator / Poetry Generator
By making performance its spearhead, Le Générateur has chosen to serve cross-disciplinary, even transgressive, artistic practices. For eighteen years, with the collaboration of a growing number of artists, it has responded to the need to constantly redefine the meaning of the word “performance”: art on the edge of life, life on the edge of art. From this fertile tension, Le Générateur, as a living organism, draws its strength and energy.