Les halles and Europe

Since its origin, the program of Les Halles reflects a natural opening to creators from all over Europe.  This international program was built thanks to initiatives and partnerships with artists, festivals and international cultural institutions, but also thanks to our own team's initiatives.

Apart from programming, Les Halles, since the eighties, have also been a dynamic force in the development of the "Europe of Cultures".  In 1983, they created  TransEuropeHalles: a European network of independant cultural centers privileging the intercultural forum spirit open to social and artistic expression.

In 1984, they join the Informal European Theater Meeting, an international association of contemporary performance art professionals, that enables meetings, exchange of information and transnational cooperations.  Since then, Les Halles have participated in the regular encounters of the TransEuropeHalles, the Informal European Theater Meeting, the Forum of European Cultural networks, The European forum for Arts and Patrimony and they also took part in several information exchange platforms.  In 1991, Les Halles officially received the title of European Cultural Center of the French Community.                                                               

More precisely, Les Halles organized the tenth annual assembly of the Forum of European Cultural networks (September 1997), the first international conference of Circus Art schools (May 2000), the event "Jour de Fête" (July 2000) in relation with the French presidency of the European Union, a meeting of the Regional Group of Cultural Action/North (October 2000), the fiftieth encounter of the TransEuropeHalles (November 2000).  Also in 2000, they decide to present a significant artistic program called Bruxelles à L'Arche, at the Divadlo Archa in Prague.

Since 2001, and in partnership with the Ferme du Buisson in Marne La Vallée (France), the Roma-Europa Festival (Italy), the Otto de Reimscheid Theatre (Germany) and Dupla Cena (Por), they develop the European project Temps d'Images.

Les Halles embrace a vast territory of imageries that also allow original cooperations: exchange and transmissions of experiences, international presentation projects for artists who are supported by Les Halles.  The European Cultural Center of the French Community identifies itself precisely through the will of building a project within a plural Europe that is open to the world.