Fred Sancère has ants in his pants. The director of the association Derrière le hublot travels kilometers to attend a performance by choreographer Katerina Andreou at the Théâtre Garonne in Toulouse. To develop an artistic project on the Mêjean causse, in Lozère, in partnership with the Théâtre du Centaure, a Marseille-based company. Soon, he will travel to Jongieux, a village in Savoie.
However, even if he regularly crisscrosses mountains and valleys, this globetrotter is attached to Capdenac-Gare, a commune in Aveyron with less than 4,500 inhabitants. This is where Fred Sancère founded, in 1996, with a group of about twenty friends, a theater without a dedicated room. On the clock of this atypical structure, recognized in 2020 as a “conventional stage for national interest in art in territory” by the Ministry of Culture: a thousand shows spread in halls, farms, factories, and parks, all located in a rural perimeter, ranging from the north to the west of Aveyron and in the Lot.
“Not having a dedicated space is a great luxury, a very great chance,” says Fred Sancère. “This singularity frees us from artistic boundaries to offer street theater, comic book publishing, and contemporary photography. It forces us to go everywhere to create projects based on what the territory is.”
