Culture

The BNP Paribas Foundation has supported contemporary dance creation for nearly 40 years and is committed to artists who create and explore new territories. Its long-term support helps its partners to carry out their projects and contributes to the vitality of artistic and cultural creation. Convinced that hybrid forms and cross-cutting disciplines are valuable to culture, it also supports contemporary circus artists.

The BNP Paribas Foundation extends its patronage abroad by supporting companies and creative projects mainly in Europe. 

As choreographers and circus artists’ creativity is nourished by varied environments, the Foundation supports residencies around the world with its partner structures: the Maison de la Danse de Lyon, the Centre national de la Danse, the residencies at the Montpellier Dance Festival, the Biennale Internationale des Arts du Cirque, the Plus Petit Cirque du Monde or the Fabrique Chaillot. To encourage international exposure for artists to further their work, this specific sponsorship is sometimes extended abroad by our subsidiaries.

In 1995, the BNP Paribas Foundation chose to take its cultural patronage off the beaten track. As with dance and contemporary circus arts, it has taken the path of audacity and modernity, by betting on creation in music. Listening to and being attentive to others, opening up to different cultures, being confident in a group while being able to make one’s own place, being involved in a collective process... these are all values that unite jazz and the BNP Paribas Foundation. 

25 years of loyalty and passion for jazz have benefited more than 30 artists and groups, as well as some thirty festivals and institutions in France and abroad. 

Supporting jazz creation involves enabling musicians to create but also, and above all, disseminating their work. Hence, the BNP Paribas Foundation supports festivals with ambitious programmes, in France or in countries where BNP Paribas is present. Each of these festivals, like the artists, benefits from tailor-made support and careful attention to their development ambitions. 

The BNP Paribas Foundation supports several major festivals in France, such as the  Saint-Germain-des-Prés Jazz Festival in Paris, the city of Lille’s piano festival, L’Esprit du Piano in Bordeaux, Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse or the Jazz sous les pommiers Festival in Coutances. In 2017, the Foundation co-founded the Variations Festival, a musical event dedicated to all keyboard music, with the city of Nantes’ Lieu Unique, a national stage. Since 2019, the Foundation also supports Jazzdor, a festival held in Strasbourg, in Berlin, Dresde and Budapest, which aims to highlight the singularity of jazz creation and the emergence of new musicians.

Building on its experience with Dream Up, a programme for education through artistic practice launched in 2015 and now deployed in 30 countries, the BNP Paribas Foundation is developing a support for cultural transmission. The aim is to open up cultural access or pratice to as many people as possible. 

Since 2021, the Foundation supports the Maîtrise de Radio France, the professional residencies at the Villa Médicis and participatory art projects at the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet.