Death of Jean-Paul Montanari, major figure in contemporary dance in France-Liberation
It is a bit of a die on stage. And if the scenario was fictional, perhaps he would have said of all this, « what a bad theater! » Jean-Paul Montanari did not survive his departure, constantly pushed back after forty-one years of admired and controversial reign, of the position of emblematic director of the festival Montpellier Dance. Last June, when we met him to trace together, in his office, a story of contemporary dance that he helped deploy, the big boss leaving himself strangled: we had just diagnosed him with cancer leaving him little hope. This native of Algiers, of popular extraction, who has become a formidable and passionate director, crazy in love with dance when she is written by great authors, eager and militant reader, will have just held enough to learn the names of her successors. April 10 was announced the upcoming arrival of the team formed by the choreographer Dominique Hervieu (with Hofesh Shechter, Jann Gallois and Pierre Martinez) At the head of a new structure, the agorafrom the merger between Montpellier Dance And the adjoining choreographic center. Fifteen days later therefore falls the news from his death, at 77 years old.
« Dance loses its most faithful servant, the city of Montpellier a man who offered him a global artistic influence, and I lose a friend », wrote the mayor of the city, Michaël Delafosse, heir to the Georges Frêche clan, former councilor inseparable from the Montanari adventure. The ministry, for its part, celebrates a tireless and faithful builder and disgusting.
From year to year, the retirement of the « old dictator » – as he liked to be called – had become the most famous Arlesian in the area, a vaudeville which he has always pretended to delight rather than to blush: « It’s worse than Charles Aznavour … » He slipped in June. Never undoubtedly director of cultural structure had this point is so one with his creature. When he was asked why he had hung on his seat so long, Jean-Paul Montanari had chained the comic pirouettes before landing in this abyss: « Fear. I don’t have a boyfriend, no family, no friends. You would be amazed at the way I spend my weekends, sometimes, not to mention anyone. Montpellier Dance is all I am. So. »
