The twelfth !

For 12 years now, Les Détours de Babel has been pursuing a simple idea: to accompany artists, composers and musicians, wherever they come from or claim to be, to free themselves from controlled designations of origin, institutional hierarchies, to imagine beautiful escapes, crossing trajectories away from marked paths.

At Les Détours, from the outset, we have supported “transcultural” projects. Those who cross borders, interpenetrate, question each other, respond to each other, love each other, and draw a new musical geography with composite spaces. Those who cross the state of the world, its fragilities, its contradictions and question the questions of identities, cultural appropriation, relations of domination, in a global and connected planet of which we measure the immense challenge of protecting it, of make it a livable common good for all.

Each creation is first of all an encounter that takes its time, that of the desire of the other, of its difference, of its representation of the world. Beyond comfort zones and aesthetic postures, it assumes its principle of uncertainty as a promise that draws the ferments of the unexpected from exchange.

This edition makes the music of the forest, the desert, the mountains, the steppes sing by those who live there intimately. It gives a voice to artists who are reduced to silence, minorities, forgotten peoples or deprived of territory. It sets in motion the fragile beauty of the vibration of matter and air. She also looks at the other side of the mirror, that of virtual worlds, the influence of artificial intelligence and algorithmic dizziness. Not to oppose them, but to express the complexity of a world which, bulimic for connections, needs to reconnect with the sensitive, with the living.

In this health crisis that never stops ending and shrinking our freedom of action, we remain determined to expand these musical adventures with free horizons to as many people as possible.

Creations, concerts, shows, music fairs, installations, performances, musical brunches, invest the many places of life, culture and heritage that share this adventure with us in Grenoble and Isère, inviting the public to savor together the risk of shared musical pleasures. Looking forward to see you there

Benoit Thiebergien