Avignon Festival

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The Papal Palace of Avignon
Stage in the Papal Palace

The Avignon Festival ( Festival d'Avignon ) is a theater , dance and song festival in the southern French city of Avignon . It was founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar and takes place annually in the last three weeks of July. From 1971 it was continued by the then 35-year-old Paul Puaux with a generation change of the artistic directors until 1979. Since then it has had the legal form of an association owned by the city, represented by the mayor. The directors of the festival were Bernard Faivre d'Arcier (1980–1984, again 1993–2003), Alain Crombecque (1985–1992) and, from September 2003, Hortense Archambault and Vincent Baudriller .

In addition to the "In" performances in the Papal Palace , the Carmelite Monastery and other venues that are funded by public institutions, there are also hundreds of "Off" performances in which private theater groups and individuals perform their works in backyards, on the street, etc. demonstrate. During the festival there is a lot of activity in the streets - especially worth seeing: the Rue des Teinturiers, Place de l'horloge and the square in front of the Palais des Papes.

This interplay of conventional and new productions , which has been repeatedly restructured - also by strikes by the stage staff - has had a strong influence on the theater in France and Europe . The choreographic ballet theater z. B. got his starting chance here.

history

Founded and managed by Jean Vilar

As part of an exhibition for modern art in 1947, which took place in the great chapel of the Papal Palace, the art critic Christian Zervos and the poet René Char Jean Vilar proposed to create and organize the "semaine d'art dramatique". Jean Vilar was an actor, director and head of a theater company.

Initially, Jean Vilar rejected this project because he had doubts about the technical feasibility and the Mayor of Avignon did not support him as expected. The government wanted to promote the reconstruction of the city and its culture after the bombings in April 1944. Therefore she gave her consent to the financial support of the festival and allowed the use of the courtyard of the Papal Palace. Jean Vilar was able to bring "Une semaine d'Art en Avignon" into being from September 4th to 10th 1947. 4800, including 2900 paying visitors, came to this festival. It took place in three places: in the courtyard of the Papal Palace, in the theater and in “le Verger d'Urban V”. There were seven performances of the three works: La Tragédie du roi Richard II by Shakespeare , La Terrasse de midi by Maurice Clavel and L'Histoire de Tobie et de Sara by Paul Claudel . Due to the success, Jean Vilar organized the "Semaine d'art dramatique" also in the following year. He again included the work La Tragédie du roi Richard II (Richard II) by Shakespeare. He also added the works La Morte de Danton (Danton's death) by Georg Büchner and Shéhérazade (Scheherazade) by Jules Supervielle , who staged all three works.

Some notable young talents were: Jean Négroni , Germaine Montero , Alain Cuny , Michel Bouquet , Jean-Pierre Jorris , Silvia Montfort , Jeanne Moreau , Daniel Sorano , Maria Casarès , Philippe Noiret , Monique Chaumette , Jean Le Poulain , Charles Denner , Jean Deschamps , Georges Wilson ... Gérard Philipe , known from the film industry, joined TNP in 1951 and became an icon through his roles as Cid in Le Cid and the Prince (Prince Friedrich von Homburg) in Prince de Hombourg (The Battle of Fehrbellin).

Despite very strong reviews, the festival became increasingly successful; Vilar has often been referred to as a Stalinist, fascist, populist, and cosmopolitan. The deputy director of the festival and music Jeanne Laurent stood behind Vilar from 1951 to 1963. That year he was replaced by Georges Wilson . The writer Elisabeth Barbier helped organize the festival for many years.

The rarely seen directors Jean-Pierre Darras (1953), Gérard Philipe (1958) and Georges Wilson (1953) were invited to the festival. From 1964 onwards, Vilar had not staged any further plays. As early as 1954, under the name Festival d'Avignon and with a play by Vilar, the idea of ​​popular theater and the decentralization of theater were strengthened by the creation of the TNP.

The theater could be revived through popular ties, youth movements and the integration of global networks. His audience was invited to readings, discussions on various pieces, cultural politics, etc.

In 1965, Jean-Louis Barrault's theater company from the Odéon Theater (l'Odéon-Théâtre de France) presented Numance . This marked the beginning of great changes. B. the duration of the event extended to one month.

The festival has always been a reflection of the development of theater. From 1966 on, the non-official and independent festival “Off” was introduced parallel to the event with established dramas, theaters and various show pieces. This was initiated by André Benedetto and Bertrand Hurault .

Vilar directed the festival until his death in 1971. Thirty-eight pieces were performed that year.

The movements in May 1968 resulted in the 22nd Festival d'Avignon not showing any French plays. This was half of the 83 planned events.

1971–1979 The director Paul Puaux

From 1971 to 1979 , despite criticism, Paul Puaux directed the Festival d'Avignon. He refused to assume the title of director and preferred the humble title of administrator. He expanded the number of artists with new international influences: Merce Cunningham , Mnouchkine , Besson . These years also marked the birth of “Off” with pieces by Antoine Vitez and Bob Wilson .

He finished his post in 1979. Bernard Faivre d'Arcier was appointed after him .

1980–1984: The director Bernard Faivre d'Arcier and the redesign of the administrative, legal and financial

In 1980, Bernard Faivre d'Arcier took over the management of the Festival d'Avignon. During his time as festival director (1980–1984 and 1993–2003) and during Alain Crombecque's phase (1985–1992), management was professionalized and the international reputation of the festival expanded.

Many changes have been made since it was founded in 1947 as La semaine d'Art dramatique:

  • The duration: In the beginning the duration of the festival was one week and there were only a few events. Now the festival takes place every year for 3–4 weeks.
  • The venues: The festival has expanded the number of venues to over twenty (schools, chapels, gyms, etc.). Many locations are within the city walls. However, there are also locations outside of it, such as B. the gym Paul Giera. Other municipalities are now also participating in the festival, such as B. Villeneuve-lès-Avignon , Boulbon , Verdène , Montfavet , Le Pontet , Cavaillon etc. Since 2013 La Fabrica has been an integral part of the event.
  • The nature of the festival: In the beginning the festival focused on contemporary theater arts. Over time, it has opened up to other genres as well, such as: B. contemporary dance, pantomime, puppet shows, musicals, horse shows, etc. ...
  • The actual aim of the Festival d'Avignon was to showcase the best of French theater and to appeal to an international audience. International artists are now also performing their pieces.

1985–1992: The director Alain Crombecque

1993–2002: The return of Bernard Faivre d'Arcier

2003: the year of cancellation

In 2003 an entertainment industry strike took place against the reform of the Assedic remuneration systems . This led to the cancellation of the Festival d'Avignon. 750 different events were actually planned.

2004–2013: The duo Archambault and Baudriller

After their appointment in January, Hortense Archambault and Vicent Baudriller took over the organization of the festival. In 2008 they were re-elected for four years.

The two prompted the Paris office to move to Avignon and organized the program, which specializes in one or two other artists each year. They invited Thomas Ostermeier in 2004, Jan Fabre in 2005, Josef Nadj in 2006, Frédéric Fisbach in 2007, Valerie Dréville and Romeo Castellucci in 2008, Wajdi Mouawad in 2009, Olivier Cadiot and Christoph Marthaler in 2010 , Boris Charmatz in 2011, Simon McBurney in 2012 and Dieudonné Niangouna & Stanislas Nordey in 2011.

2014: With the new director Olivier Py

Olivier Py was appointed the new director of the Festival d'Avignons by the board on December 2nd, 2011. He was able to take office on September 1, 2013, after his predecessor's contract had expired.

On March 20, 2014, during a press conference, he presented the program for the 68th edition of the Festival d'Avignons in La Fabrica . July 2014 took place. When developing the event, he attached particular importance to the following aspects:

  • Youth: The focus should be on young viewers and artists.
  • Internationality and the Mediterranean: five different continents could be found in the program. A special focus was on Syria.
  • The decentralization of the festival and integration of the surrounding area
  • Poetry and Contemporary Literature
  • The digitization and use of the internet is an increasingly important aspect and is the intersection between culture and society.

But 2014 was also a very difficult year for the new director:

  • La Fabrica did not have an operating budget.
  • Social movements in July 2014
  • Thunderstorm in July 2014

Venues

  • Courtyard of the Palais des Papes (Cour d'honneur de Palais des Papes)
  • Opéra Grand Avignon
  • Carrière de Boulbon
  • Cloître des Carmes
  • Cloître des Célestins

La Fabrica

In 2004, Hortense Archambault and Vincent Baudriller , co-directors of the Festival d'Avignon, expressed the need to establish a place for rehearsals and a retreat for the artists. La Fabrica , a building designed by architect Maria Godlewska , opened in July 2013. This project, which was supported by the state (Ministry of Culture and Communication) and the local authorities (the city of Avignon, the Conseil Général du Vaucluse and the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region), cost around 10 million euros. The initiators considered the geographical location between the districts of Champfleury and Monclar to be the best prerequisite for integrating disadvantaged people into the project. In addition, artistic projects were initiated that are specifically aimed at young people.

The fabrica consists of:

  • a rehearsal room: this enables the rehearsal of the performances in the main courtyard of the Papal Palace with 600 seats,
  • a private retreat: this gives the actors a place to live and work,
  • a small technical area: this is used as a material store.

In 2014 two plays were performed at the Fabrica: Orlando ou l'impatience by Olivier Py and Henri VI. by William Shakespeare , edited and directed by Thomas Jolly .

In 2015 three international plays were shown at this location:

Sociological profile

In 1995, 58,000 spectators attended the Festival d'Avignon. Almost half of them were from the greater Avignon area and neighboring regions. Almost 8% were foreigners. The rest consisted of visitors from the rest of France. The number of demonstrations attended and the length of time visitors stay increases with geographical distance. In 1995, the average length of stay in Avignon was 3 days and visitors watched an average of two performances. A study by the Université d'Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse in the late 1990s and early 2000s found that a third of visitors were residents of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region , 23% from Paris and 36% from the rest Regions of France are coming. The first attendance at the event takes place at the age of 29 on average.

Economic developments

In 1968 a comprehensive study of the economic impact of the events was carried out. After that, in 1967 a total of 923,000 francs was earned through ticket sales, program sales and catering. This was around 32 francs per visitor. The further the distance from the place of residence, the higher the costs for the audience. On average, Avignon residents paid 18 francs. The visitors who came from the region paid an average of CHF 26, the foreign viewers spent around CHF 42. The festival is subsidized with CHF 487,600 from the Département du Vaucluse and CHF 167,600 from the Commune d'Avignon.

Development of the budget

In 2002, the Institut d'Etudes politique de Bordeaux produced a scientific paper that paid particular attention to the management and financing with public and private funds.

In the 1960s the budget was still one and a half million francs. Then it rose rapidly after that. In 1985 it was 20 million francs, in 1990 it was 40 million francs, in 1995 it was 46 million francs and in 2000 it was 53 million francs. In 1967 wages accounted for 66% of spending, purchases for 20%, and taxes for 3%. In 1995 the budget was divided as follows: 22% for staff expenses, 26% for purchases and 21% for taxes.

The festival is supported by the city of Avignon , the Vaucluse department and the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region . There are also some public institutions that support the event: cultural organizations from Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Japan, France Culture , the French Association for Artistic Action (l'Association francaise d'action artistique), ADAMI , the Beauxmarchais Foundation , SACEM , the EDF Foundation and ANPE .

Sponsorship

The festival is supported by a number of sponsors. This includes parts of the financing, but also logistical and operational support. In 2014, local entrepreneurship funded the event with a total of € 150,000 (between € 3,000 and € 10,000 per company). Large international companies (e.g. BMW , EDF , SNCF , Total , Vivendi, etc.) also took part by supporting the festival's artistic, social and environmentally conscious projects.

Documentary collections and online resources

Documentary holdings of the Bibliothèque de France - Maison Jean Vilar

The Maison Jean Vilar houses the archive on Jean Vilar's work , including all 3,000 pieces since the Festival d'Avignon began in 1947. This house is in Avignon (8 Rue de Mons, Montée Paul-Puaux).

In addition, the Jean Vilar Society publishes the booklet “Les Cahiers Jean Vilar”, which is intended to commemorate the founder of the festival and the place of theater in society and the challenge to cultural policy.

CANOPE

An educational support network can be found on the reseau-canope.fr website. It is aimed at educational institutions, teachers, pupils, students and families. For example, documentaries are shown especially for young viewers so that they get an understanding of the event.

Theater-contemporain.net

On this website for contemporary theater, digital resources from the international theater scene can be accessed. There is a large database with many texts, articles, audiovisual recordings and plays.

Important productions

Actors of the early years
Gérard Philipe , Jeanne Moreau , Georges Wilson, Daniel Sorano, Maria Casarès
Maurice Béjart
1967: Fair pour le temps présent
Robert Wilson
1976: Einstein on the Beach ( opera composed by Philip Glass )
John Neumeier
1980, sketches for the St. Matthew Passion (ballet based on Bach)
Pina Bausch
1983, carnations
Antoine Vitez
1987, The Silk Shoe (Le Soulier de Satin)
Luc Bondy
1988, Winter's Tale (based on Shakespeare )
Sasha Waltz
2002, noBody
Peter Brook
Mahabharata (later made into a film)
Thomas Ostermeier
2004, Woyzeck
Jan Fabre
2005, L'histoire des larmes
Josef Nadj
2006, Asobu
Josef Nadj / Miquel Barcelo
2006, Paso Doble
Eric Lacascade
2006, Les Barbares

Documentaries

  • Avignon: court of honor and battlefield. Documentary, France 2006, screenplay: Bernard Faivre d'Arcie, director: Michel Viotte, production: arte France, first broadcast July 12, 2006, film information from arte.
  • Theater theater! A trip to the Avignon Festival 2012. Documentary, France 2012, 35 min., Directors: Marie Labory and Jérémie Cuvillier, production: arte France, German first broadcast: July 14, 2012, film information from arte.
  • Fresh wind in the Papal Palace. Visionary theater from the Festival d'Avignon. (OT: La vent souffle dans la cour d'honneur. ) Documentary, France, 2013, 95 min., Book: Elisabeth Perceval, Antoine de Baecque, Nicolas Klotz, directors: Nicolas Klotz, Elisabeth Perceval, production: La Compagnie des Indes , Gildas le Roux, francetélévisions, arte France, first broadcast: July 13, 2013 by arte, table of contents by arte. Among others
    with Thomas Ostermeier , Romeo Castellucci , Simon McBurney and Dieudonné Niangouna in the theater work.

Theater documentaries

Many productions are documented in the “Maison Jean Vilar” in Avignon.

literature

Web links

Commons : Festival d'Avignon  - collection of images, videos and audio files

credentials

  • Jean Lamotte, Le Rhône, fleuve fertile, Editions Publibook, 2011, p. 190.
  • Caroline Alexander, "Avignon tient bon: Cinquant ans de contestations et le spectacle continue", La Tribune, 5 June 1996.
  • "Festival d'Avignon", in Emmanuel de Waresquiel (dir.), Dictionnaire des politiques culturelles de la France depuis 1959. Paris: Larousse / CNRS éditions, 2001.
  • Emmanuelle Loyer , Antoine de Baecque : Histoire du Festival d'Avignon . Paris: Editions Gallimard, 2007
  • Parenthèse de juillet: quand la ville entière devient théâtre [archive] - Éric Collier, Le Monde, 7 juillet 2009.
  • La grève des intermittents du spectacle en France [archive] - Françoise Thull, World Socialist Web Site, June 29, 2003.
  • Laurence Liban, “Les patrons [archive]”, L'Express du 5 july 2007.
  • Le Festival d'Avignon 2013 est fini, le mouvement continue - Siegfried Forster, RFI, 27 June 2013.
  • “Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres donnera son agrément à la proposition de renouveler pour quatre ans le mandat de Vincent Baudriller et d'Hortense Archambault à la tête du Festival d'Avignon” [archive], Ministère de la culture et de la communication, 21 November 2006 (consulté le 31 juillet 2008).
  • 2005, l'année de toutes les polémiques, l'année de tous les paradoxes [archive] - Fabienne Darge et Brigitte Salino, Le Monde, June 27, 2005.
  • L'obscénité démocratique, coll. "Café voltaire", éd. Flammarion, 2007 ( ISBN 978-2-0812-1002-8 ). Dans cet ouvrage Régis Debray regrette les “grandes heures” du théâtre de la parole d'après-guerre tout en déplorant une “obscénité démocratique” dans le nouveau théâtre utilisant l'image: “Le délirant au communic, en politique théâtre du metteur en scene ne favorise pas d'évidence la belle langue, moins profitable et moins facilement exportable que la belle image. »(P. 74, Op. Cité).
  • Le Cas Avignon 2005, coordonné par Georges Banu et Bruno Tackels, éd. L'entretemps, 2006, ISBN 2-912877-57-1 .
  • Un Avignon qui s'annonce dansant dans Le Monde du 25 mars 2011.
  • Vincent Baudriller: Les artistes africains ont pris une place, RFI, 24 June 2013.
  • «" Avec Py, nous n'avons pas pu partager une vision commune "», Liberation, 2011.
  • Étude sur les retombées économiques du festival d'Avignon. Étude portant sur le Festival d'Avignon 1995 et réalisée par l'Association de Gestion du Festival d'Avignon.
  • Les nantis intra-muros, les pauvres à l'écart [archive] - Éric Collier, Le Monde, 7 July 2009.
  • Emmanuel Ethis, Jean-Louis Fabiani et Damien Malinas, Avignon ou le public participant: Une sociologie du spectateur réinventé, Montpellier, L'Entretemps éditions, 2008.
  • Nicole Lang, Les publics du Festival d'Avignon, Paris, Ministère de la culture, service des études et de la recherche, 1982.
  • Frédéric Gimello-Mesplomb, "Mytho-logiques: Lorsqu'il a fallu faire le choix d'Avignon pour implanter le Festival", in Avignon, le public réinventé, 2002.
  • Société générale de recherche et programmation, Observatoire économique Méditerranéen et Ministère des Affaires Culturelles, Impact du Festival d'Avignon sur l'économie de la ville, Marseille, 1968.
  • "Les marchands du temple", Jean Guerrin, Avignon: in, off, out. Et après? (Off 2006), propos recueillis par Vincent Cambier pour Les Trois Coups, June 27, 2006.