Guy Darmet
Director of the Maison de la Danse (until the 30th June 2011)
Artistic Director of the season 2011/12

Guy Darmet was born in 1947 and graduated in law. He qualified in management and acquired experience in marketing. From 1974 to 1979 he was the promotional manager for a regional magazine and was also supervisor for the “shows and performances” section, writing about the cinema, theatre and dance. At the same time he became correspondent for the national dance magazine, Danse.

His interest in dance may well have arisen from a performance of  the Ballets de Marquis de Cuevas with Rosella Hightower when he was a child, while the arrival in Lyon of Vittoria Biagi as head of the Ballet de Lyon in 1969 proved also to be a great catalyst. He was a staunch supporter of dance in France and was a firm supporter of the Maison de la Danse project, of which he quite naturally became the director on January 1st 1980.  Twenty-six years later, with its 17,000 season ticket holders and 180,000 spectators each season, the Maison de la Danse, unique in France, has become one of the largest theatres for choreographic performances and creations in the world. In 1984, Guy Darmet went on to create the Biennale de la Danse and became artistic director. His first show raised a great deal of interest and he has become the author of a festival that has turned into one of the most important dance events. The Biennale is thematic and festive and tells superb tales to a public who discover, watch, listen, get involved and participate. In 1996, taking inspiration from the famous Carnival of Rio, he organised a parade through the streets of Lyon of more than 2,000 amateur and professional dancers before an audience of 200,000 people. This initiative was a veritable success hailed enthusiastically by the public and the national and international press. Since then the Défilé, or parade, has become an eagerly anticipated event at each Biennale, and now has 4,500 participants and 300,000 spectators. Guy Darmet has widely contributed and continues to contribute to making Lyon one of the Dance Capitals. The magazine Télérama elected him the 1989 cultural personality of the year and he was to be found heading the award winners ten years later in the same magazine. In July 1999 he was entrusted with the artistic direction of the 8th Eurovision Grand Prix for Young Dancers. In November 2002 once again he organised a choreographic evening, “Dance celebration”, to be televised direct from the Maison de la Danse and broadcast across 17 Eurovision channels, an operation that was repeated in 2004 and followed by one million television spectators. In 2003 he was selected by the Rolex Foundation to be part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Initiative programme alongside Pina Bausch, Carlos Saura, Ariel Dorfman, Mira Naïr and others...

After more than thirty years as the head of an internationally recognised organisation and festival, Guy Darmet has won his original bet of making the greatest possible number of people like dance. In July 2011, he will be handing over to Dominique Hervieu.

Guy Darmet was awarded :
Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (1984)
Chevalier dans l’Ordre National du Mérite (1992)
Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1997)
Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (1999)
Docteur Honoris Causa de l’Université de Québec à Montréal (2005)