The Portuguese Tiago Guedes at the head of the Maison de la Danse in Lyon

Portuguese choreographer Tiago Guedes was unanimously selected by the jury responsible for auditioning applications for the direction of the Maison de la Danse de Lyon and the co-direction of the Biennale de Lyon, announced a press release on Thursday May 19. .

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Tiago Guedes, 51, directs the municipal theater of Porto where he notably created the Dias da dança festival.

His project "ON(L)Y Danse - a shared future for dance in Lyon" was preferred to those of the five other candidates.

His appointment comes as the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Council comes, under the impetus of its president LR Laurent Wauquiez, to suddenly reduce its subsidies for Lyon culture.

For the Maison de la Danse, the cut represents 47% of regional funding - 180,000 euros less out of an annual budget of around 6.5 million euros - motivated by a rebalancing in favor of rural areas and small structures.

"It is not trivial because everything is already committed for the next season, we are presented with a fait accompli",

while it is a question of operating subsidies registered in a multi-annual framework, lamented the director by interim Pierre Martinez contacted by AFP.

For him,

especially for the next Dance Biennial, scheduled for 2023, while the Contemporary Art Biennial scheduled alternately has just see its regional subsidy melt by a third (-253,000 euros) three months before its opening.

The period is all the more sensitive as the 2021/2022 season was affected by the effects of the Covid-19 health crisis, with a drop in its subscriptions of around -30%, in line with the national trend and a drop in attendance of 13% (with 106,000 spectators) according to the annual report.

The already scheduled 2022/2023 season provides for 139 performances with 36 national and international companies.

Tiago Guedes succeeds Dominique Hervieu, herself appointed cultural director of Paris 2024 after more than ten years at the helm of the Maison de la Danse.