one place one company

The Chapel Dérézo is first the place where the Compagnie Dérézo regularly works (rehearsals, workshops, laboratories), but it’s also a shared open workshop for artists from everywhere seeking research, work or experiment new projects...

Anchored in Brest, in the popular and historical quarter of Recouvrance, this ancient now desacralised church is pointing toward the sea. Destroyed in the second world war and reconstructed after, this incredible desacralised space (12 meters high under the nave, 225 square meter stage) has been rented to the Compagnie Dérézo in 2011 by the city of Brest for a 21 years’ emphyteutic leave.

The Chapel is equiped with sound, light and video installations, it’s heated in the winter, has a small workshop, a kitchen, a studio and other spaces that can be found in the full-basement, ready or in process. The sound studio for example is now sheltering Jean-Luc Aimé, composer, for a 2 year residence.

Itinéraire d’artistes

L’association Au bout du plongeoir de la métropole rennaise et Les Fabriques, Laboratoire(s) Artistique(s) de Nantes sont à l’initiative de cette coopération.

Ce projet initié en 2013, s’inscrit dans la volonté de développer des coopérations dans le cadre du Pôle Métropolitain Loire Bretagne regroupant les villes de Rennes, Nantes, Brest, Angers et Saint-Nazaire.

C’est dans cet esprit et cette dynamique partenariale entre Nantes et Rennes, que la ville de Brest et la compagnie Dérézo s’engagent depuis 2017 dans cet itinéraire d’artistes "élargi" et à "trois bornes" qui permet aux artistes soutenus d’envisager des temps de résidences croisées dans les trois villes en offrant de nouvelles opportunités de parcours, de rencontres et de mobilités.

La ville de Brest porte une politique forte et ambitieuse pour la culture notamment en soutenant la Compagnie Dérézo dans son travail d’accueil et d’accompagnement d’artistes au sein de son lieu de travail : la Chapelle Dérézo.

Anchored in Brest since May 2000, the Compagnie Dérézo and its radical theater proposes some acting forms out of the scene. In or outdoor, from one genre to an other, the company states its necessary critical look at our society, without giving up the festive and civic part of it. As researchers, the artists give life to a poetic act pushed to its limit : the Political. The invited searching authors are put on the stage of sense. With its deep collective desire to make unstable the industry of comprehension that’s taking culture for business, the company’s fabric loops around the funny but stated idea there could be art without artists.
Present at the heart of the city, Dérézo receives the word, fantasy and worry of the inhabitants which magically collaborate in the search of togetherness taken as a task, a responsibility, a weapon.

The Compagnie Dérézo has a convention with the Ministry for Culture - DRAC Brittany, with the Brittany Region, with the Finistère Council of department and with the City of Brest.

Providing high standard logitic and technical supplies, this dead-ine free laboratory aims to build a bridge betwenn artists and institutions.

On stage, you find no act but «proposals» (under conditions!). No rent will be asked for, yet a participative contribution is required. Artists of any contemporary style meet here and exchange. The Chapel Dérézo is a place where research, intents and doubts are possible. Artists get no time pressure. They can try new things, look back, understand, perceive... their work, performance and connection; They have the time to study the structure, adapt their work to the set, and let their creativity wander and grow...
The Chapel Dérézo is a residence that respond to the artist’s needs, and is complementary to the manyother local cultural institutions of which the goals and missions are different, such as Le Quartz- National Scene, Le Fourneau- National Center for Street Arts ; Maison du Théâtre, La Carène, hall contemporary music ; Mac Orlan, ….
Too few spaces like this one enter the cultural mechanic of today, making us think new. The large number of artists in residence proves the Chapel Dérézo’s relevance.