Interview with Michel Sajn, one of the project leaders of the Crossover Festival. The event will blend musical cultures as well as artistic disciplines, audiences, and places from May 26 to June 3, 2012, in Nice.
Nice Premium: What is “Crossover”?
Michel Sajn: Crossover is a multidisciplinary festival dedicated to contemporary music and emerging cultures. It is in its fourth edition. Crossover is also a state of mind, one of blending, where Nice becomes a crossroad of cultures, arts, operational modes: private and public, a mix between free and paid events, between young talents and headliners where ultimately, what matters is bringing people together: whether they are creators, merchants, politicians, spectators, etc. Isn’t that the true meaning of the word culture: to unite places, concepts, events in a certain way? Thus, Nice becomes the stage for a festival giving an interesting subtitle to Crossover: The City is a Stage!
NP: From one edition to another the festival evolves, transforms, do you think you have reached a good artistic “crossover” this year?
MS: Isn’t good the enemy of better … We always hope to do better. It is true that the connection box is starting to gain momentum this year with: over 30 high-level art venues with the Botox[s] network (museums, galleries, artist collectives) as well as the cinematheque, the old slaughterhouses/New Blood project, the Théâtre de Verdure, the beach, a nocturnal and urban circuit of clubs, Place Pierre Gautier and the gardens of Cimiez Arena are involved; all this to discover electro, rock, rap, contemporary art, cinema, performances, video, photography …
NP: Organizers have often spoken of the difficulty they had organizing events in Nice; do you think today the city council and the people of Nice are more open to such events?
MS: First of all, I would say that Nice is currently experiencing a “cooperative” breeze, where the people of Nice, rather clannish in the recent past, are now finding a taste for their Latinity and tradition with the network work that the “Risorgimento,” dear to Garibaldi, had established. In the past, Nice was a model of openness to others, to foreigners, and René Cassin with his drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Giuseppe Garibaldi are indeed examples from Nice of this will to unite without “collateral damage,” without violence while defending points of view where liberty, the right to difference, and innovation prevail. Also, it is a city that awakens, making Crossover possible; that is: how to live together, how to dream together, how to build together. Of course, the creation of a Directorate of Contemporary Music within the events department of the City of Nice greatly facilitated the realization of Crossover. Furthermore, this year a steering committee with the three main sponsors: City of Nice, General Council, and Regional Council was established, aligning with a “Crossover spirit,” hence confirming our analysis emphasizing the necessary and desirable articulation between private and public.
NP: Nice has often been labeled a “city of old people, city of machos,” do you think this image is starting to fade?
MS: I don’t think we can give an opinion or analysis on how people vote. We are not here for that. Regarding what you call “old,” I remind you that the guitarist of the Rolling Stones is over 70 years old, and this group, it seems to me, still makes contemporary music. So, we will not engage in any segregationist path, whether regarding age, religion, origin, social belonging, etc. We are not here to silence rumors. We are neither for nor against; our position is rather alternative—offering something different, the difference, without thinking that we have invented the wheel, since multidisciplinary festivals are the future for such events if they are to grow without harming their natural and socio-cultural environment. It’s essential to grow without damaging. Therefore, our development is more complex and is not solely measured by concentrating the most people possible in one place, but by having as many people as possible across the city, with a different interpretation of it.
NP: To conclude, a final word for our readers?
MJ: We hope they find our mindset relevant, that they come to share creation with us, maybe rediscover Nice under a different light, relax, and open up to others. The Crossover in this is an invitation to rediscover Nice: an open and modern city, a Mediterranean capital, that has a say in the north-south competition, if only it remembers that it can count on its Mediterranean sisters.
