Angélica Liddell photo Christophe Raynaud de Lage
The 78th Avignon Festival is being held this year in the unprecedented and “disturbed” context of the legislative elections and opens with shows by Séverine Chavrier, Boris Charmatz and Angélica Liddell.
This edition was brought forward due to the Paris Olympic Games, which will require a massive mobilization of law enforcement, which raises fears of lower attendance at the Off festival in the first few days. For its director Tiago Rodrigues, the festival, also impacted by the schedule of the two rounds of legislative elections, ” is more necessary than ever« , « in the troubled context of French politics ” after the dissolution of the National Assembly by President Emmanuel Macron, stressing that it was an event ” democratic, popular, republican, environmentalist, feminist, anti-racist » and called to block the far right at the polls. Saturday afternoon, a rally is also planned in front of the Palais des Papes, at the call of an inter-union of the culture branch.
On the stage side, the festival highlights the Spanish language. It is also a Spanish artist, Angélica Liddell, known for disturbing shows, who opens the festivities in the Court of Honor of the Palais des Papes with the piece Damon. Bergman’s funeral. Second part of a trilogy devoted to death, it is a dive into the world of Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, who imagined and carefully wrote his own funeral, after having seen the funeral of Pope John Paul II on the television.
“Powerful and radical dramaturgy”
The opportunity, for the playwright, to organize the parade of her own demons, “ shame, anger, fear of death, loneliness, fear of madness” and, “above all, the worst of demons, guilt« , « the most destructive thing ever”, “like a spider’s egg stuck in the throat oozing poison“, she declared in an interview with AFP.
The play is not recommended for children under 16 (scenes that may be “offensive”). I try to convey the force of ideas through an aesthetic shock whose main objective is emotion, this pre-feeling, that is to say the nervous sensation before the feeling, which leaves the spectator in a situation of vulnerability and anxiety in the face of what he cannot explain or understand” she commented.
Present this artist « with powerful and radical dramaturgy ” was ” urgent, at a time when we see so many attacks on freedom of expression and artistic freedom“, estimated Tiago Rodrigues when presenting the program in April. “ It also means supporting artistic and aesthetic discourses that can shake us up” he had said. The Spanish artist, in 2021, had taken a performance to the extreme, with self-mutilation on stage.
This year, some 35 pieces, a third of which highlight Spanish or Latin American artists, are programmed on the “in” side.
More than 1,600 shows are also offered on the “off” side, the largest live performance market in France which officially opens on July 3 (until the 21st), even if nearly 25% of them are presented beforehand. premiere from the 29th.
Finally, note that, to reduce waste production, as in 2023, the number of posters per show is controlled by a distinctive badge, ensuring a maximum number limited to 150, indicate the organizers of the “off “.
And, while the transport of sets and materials is an expensive item, the sets of around twenty companies from Île-de-France are for the first time being transported to Avignon by shared rail freight.
Karine Perret © Agence France-Presse
