2023-07-29 12:00:11
Returning to the stage puts her particularly happy that day. In Neuchâtel, Switzerland, then the next day in Maury, in the Pyrénées-Orientales, Alexia Alexi – the professional pseudonym of Alexia Nguyen Thi – will highlight the singer Jeanne Added. And “It’s thanks to Jeanne that I gained self-confidence”insists the Parisian lighting designer, met a few hours before this joyous ball of energy hits the road again.
Five years ago, the electropop artist with two Victoires de la Musique had offered her to join his team, when she was struggling to flourish in her profession. Not for lack of skills – “From her first concert with us, she knew the show by heart, mastered all the programming”, remembers Jeanne Added – but because of her difficulties in feeling legitimate in a very masculine environment of technicians. “Until recently, when I arrived on a set, the reception teams assumed that I did not know”explains the light manager, aged 35, who, in addition to being a woman, has the disadvantage of looking younger than her age.
Alexia Alexi and her light console, at the Pan Piper, in Paris, June 23, 2023. REBECCA TOPAKIAN FOR “THE WORLD”
“This world of cash pushers and stiff pullers has long maintained the image of a corporation that is too physical for girls”, emphasizes Emmanuelle Saunier, head of communication at the National Center for Professional Training in Performing Arts. A universe all the more reserved for “guys” as pop mythology associated these “roadies” with all the excesses of the circus sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll.
If, in 2017, Prodiss, the national union for musical and variety shows, noted in a study that only 27% of intermittent show technicians were technicians, a feminization of these professions seems to be accelerating. “The number of female apprentices in our lighting technician training has increased from two out of twelve in 2010 to seven in 2022”, rejoices Emmanuelle Saunier. Models like Alexia Nguyen Thi and militant artists such as Jeanne Added, Pomme, Christine and the Queens or Mansfield.TYA, are probably not for nothing.
A first foot in the theater
Alexia Alexi came to light a bit by chance. After a bachelor’s degree in Japanese, his passion for comics led him to the world of publishing. For Futuropolis, it has stands in comic book festivals, in Angoulême or Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine). “I found it ideal to be able to alternate between periods of excitement and calm. A friend told me: “That’s the life of an intermittent worker!” »
You have 66.09% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
#Alexia #Alexi #manager #fight #machismo #music