At Aicom, students learn to become musical comedy stars
Since 2018, the students of the musical comedy school in Creteil have stopped the course days of singing, dancing and theater.
“You put the bottom of your tongue on your epiglottis, it sounds bad.” This sentence may suggest consultation with an ENT or speech therapist. But in fact, Lionel Losada, music director of the Aicom School of Performing Arts, gives good advice to third-year student Coralie during a singing class devoted to laryngeal mechanisms. A young blonde woman just translated “without words” from the musical Aladdin. In the room, his two friends are wiping away tears. “He moved me, there was so much power…”, Morgane admits. With her clear voice, Coralie already looks like a Disney princess. The school is similar to Star Academy. Dance, singing, theater: students practice these subjects daily and practice tap dancing, including improvisation, as well as jazz.
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Founded in 2004 in the 9th arrondissement of Paris by singer and vocal director Pierre-Yves Duchesne (fired in 2022), the International Academy of Musical Comedy has been located in Creteil since 2018, a stone’s throw from the University of Paris-Est. Twenty years ago, there was no such school. After the boom starmania In the 1980s and Broadway productions, musicals proliferated in France: Notre-Dame de Paris, Romeo and Juliet, The Ten Commandments… The list is long. Today, several well-known faces from successful shows cut their teeth at Aicom. As Gwendal Marimoutou, former contestant on The Voice, current translator for Simba The Lion King at the Mogador Theater. Or Stanislas Souffoy-Rittner, candidate for Star Ac’ 2022. Or Aurore Delplace, who played Cinderella in the musical and is now an actress in the series such a great sun France 2.
Teachers are professional workers
300 Aicom students have busy days. Whether in Créteil, Paris, Lyon or Brussels campus. They go from singing to dancing in the blink of an eye. “Did you sleep last night or were you at the nightclub?”, asks Claire Duport, professor of classics and director of Les reines du Cancan, with a laugh. A raven-haired teacher in a black dress corrects the posture of ten students. “How can I improve my shooting?”, one of them asks. As she dances, Celia can’t help but hum “A Piece of Sugar” from the movie Mary Poppins.
All employees of the school are modern professionals. Actress Ann Richard and choreographer Johan Nus are in charge of the theater and dance departments. “It is important to collaborate with artists who follow the evolution of the sector”, notes Claire Jomard, director of Aicom. He graduated in 2010 and has been leading the school for four years. “I am on all fronts. But I prefer it, it’s making shows with students and teaching them perseverance and seriousness in work.”shares.
80 students in the 1st year, half as many at the end of the course
These young artists know this: they don’t need to lack energy to be the best. “We have a lot of work to do, but it’s very encouraging!”He shares with Gaïa, 20, from Morbihan. “It’s great to be able to combine three arts and express yourself in a different way”, complements 19-year-old Camille from Seine-et-Marne. At the beginning of the training, 80 students (mostly girls) are registered, but only 40 finish. “A lot of people change their direction. Others are called up along the way in productions. There are also those who refuse for financial reasons.raises the director.
Although this atypical training has made a name for itself, it is not recognized by the state. Aicom issues a certificate of achievement approved by the Ministry of Labour. The tuition fee is 7,450 euros in the 1st year, 5,300 euros in the 2nd year and 3,800 euros in the final year. The school offers 18 scholarships, half of which are for students recruited throughout France during the Aicom Tour. Special courses are also available for 11-17-year-olds studying, for example, at the Rognoni College, the Abbé Grégoire vocational school or the non-contracted Diagonal school in Paris. It’s open to young and old, not forgetting recreational classes.
