Office National de Diffusion Artistique

Presentation Orientations Activity Partners Financial support Team

Onda

All about Onda

Drive / Support / Identify / Advise / Facilitate / Connect / Stimulate / Confront points of view / Cooperate / Re-generate

The mission of Onda - French national office for artistic dissemination - is to encourage the dissemination of contemporary forms of performing arts throughout France.

To achieve its mission, Onda:

Connects the community of performing arts professionals by organizing regular meetings. These meetings mainly involve programmers and facilitate the exchange around performances seen and issues related to changes in the sector;
Identifies new artistic projects in all fields, in France and abroad, and is thus a resource for performing arts professionals;
Provides financial support to French venues and festivals for the dissemination of shows produced in France or abroad, favoring shows shared between several venues and/or dissemination projects enabling teams of artists to have more extended touring opportunities;
Fosters cooperation between French and international professionals by participating in the various international performing arts networks and events - Advises artists and companies on dissemination and programming venues and festivals on programming;
Contributes to the transnational debate on changes in the sector, and new professional practices, by leading and participating in European cooperation projects and interacting with bodies and organizations in France and internationally;
Produces and shares resources about performing arts dissemination (newsletters, recommendations on “must see” shows, studies, etc.).

Onda has an 18-member team, six of whom are advisors whose work is to identify artistic projects in France and internationally and to advise French performing arts stakeholders.
Onda’s area of expertise covers all fields of the performing arts created in France or abroad, and addresses all types of audiences: theater, dance, performance, circus, puppetry, creations in digital spaces, experimental and improvised music, performances in conventional as well as public spaces, site-specific projects…

Onda was in founded in 1975 by Philippe Thiry who was director from 1975 to 1995, followed by Fabien Jannelle until 2014, Pascale Henrot up to 2020, Cécile Le Vaguerèse-Marie in 2021 and, since the 1st of September 2022, by Marie-Pia Bureau.

Onda is a non profit organization governed by a board of directors under the presidency of Bernard Latarjet since 2012. The members of the board of directors elected for a three-year term are: Jean-Paul Angot (qualified person), Catherine Blondeau (Director - Grand T), Pascal Brunet (Director – Relais Culture Europe), Barbara Engelhardt (Director – Le Maillon), Véronique Evanno and Christopher Miles (representatives of the DGCA – General Directorate for artistic creation/French Ministry of Culture), Yannick Faure and Nicolas Doyard (representatives of the General Secretariat – French Ministry of Culture), Nicole Martin (qualified person), Alice Orange (qualified person), Christophe Pomez (representative – DRACs – French Regional Cultural Affairs Directorates) and Emmanuelle Wattier (L’Amicale).

Onda is supported by the French Ministry of Culture and the French Ministry of Overseas Departments and Territories.

ONDA’s DNA

Good vibes

Onda encourages, facilitates, supports, connects, listens, advises……. always intending to develop the performing arts sector.

Together

Onda is a tool for performing arts professionals. Using the expertise and input of programmers and artistic teams. Onda aims to bring them together by improving the circulation of works and ideas, and at the heart of this is the concept of co-operation.
Onda links local, regional, national and international stakeholders by bringing together French and international programmers and by supporting the dissemination in France of works created in France and abroad.

Onda as a forerunner

Onda takes particular interest in projects that experiment artistic forms and work processes, both in the field of digital works and in social innovation. When pursuing this aim, Onda’s guiding principle is that art brings people together and that this relationship is continuously reinvented.

A kaleidoscope of perspectives

Onda values diversity, inclusivity and gender balance by supporting works whose creative processes and contexts reflect these same values.
Onda particularly encourages the dissemination in France of works created by French artists from the overseas territories and artists from the Global South, both those living in those regions and those who are part of the diaspora. Onda is also attentive to works created by and with disabled artists.

Caring for living species

Convinced that a wide range of viewpoints and forms of life constitutes an asset, Onda pays attention to the carbon footprint of the performances, so that it does not negatively impact human and non-human living species. With this aim in mind, Onda encourages sustainable circulation of performances, it encourages cooperation between programming venues and festivals over a single territory and participates in the reflection in the sector on environmental issues.