programme eng 09 15/05/09 10:03 Page 1 63rd Festival d’Avignon 7-29 July 2009 Complement in English to the programme This document does not replace the full programme but complements it by offering an English translation of all the texts presenting the artists and shows of the festival. The page numbers refer to the programme in French where further details and full credits are also available. The Festival d’Avignon has long been an interna- Finally, a special programme has been prepared tional platform for the performing arts, gathering this summer: artists and audiences from all around the world. This year, the programme welcomes artists and • Some shows will benefit from English surtitles performances from many countries and many lan- or simultaneous translation into English. This guages will be heard on the festival stages: service will only be available for a limited number French from three different continents as well as of performances: English, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Polish, German Le Livre d’or de Jan, Saturday 11th July at 10 p.m. and Hebrew. It is important to allow the artists to Les Inepties volantes, Friday 12 July at 10 p.m. express themselves in their own languages, but it Des témoins ordinaires,Wednesday 21 July at is also important tofacilitate access to their work 2.30 p.m. & Sunday 26 July at6p.m. for as wide an audience as possible. For many Les Cauchemars du gecko, Friday 24 July at 6 p.m. years we have provided French surtitles for the La Menzogna, Saturday 25 July at 10 p.m. international productions. Since 2007, and with Loin…, Monday 27 July at 2.30 p.m. the support of the European Commission, the Festival d’Avignon has made a significant effort to • Four shows–La Maison des cerfs and the trilogy enable a growing number of non-French speaking Sad Face | Happy Face, Radio Muezzin, Orgie audiences to fully enjoy the artistic programme. de la tolérance – will be presented in French and English for all performances. The present document is part of that effort. It does not only offer a full translation of all the • Many of the shows presented in the programme texts of the programme but also provides useful have strong visual, musical or dance components information to help find your way through the and will be easily accessible to non French festival city. speakers: El final de este estado de cosas, redux, Le Préau d’un seul, Un peu de tendresse bordel The English version of the Festival website de merde !, Le Cri, L’Autre Rive, Non, Sylphides, www.festival-avignon.com has also been updated Cycle de musiques sacrées, as well as the new piece by Maguy Marin and the exhibition ... “Tels with improved access and more practical infor- des oasis dans le désert”. mation, accommodation tips, useful addresses, travel information… • Multilingual synopsis will also be available for You can also sign up on our website to our English some shows. Please ask at the box-office or at the enewsletter to receive regular update on the venues for details. activities and the programme of the Festival. • Finally, Les Rencontres européennes des festivals d’Aix-en-Provence et d’Avignon – a three- day programme of debates on artistic creation and creativity in a European context – are fully available with French and English simultaneous translation. We hope you enjoy your Festival and your stay in Avignon. shows accessible to non French speakers some performances accessible to English speakers (surtitles or simultaneous translation) Festival shuttle buses 1 programme eng 09 15/05/09 10:03 Page 2 page 2 page 4 Editorial Voyage pour le Festival d’Avignon 2009 The festival programme has been conceived together with this year's associate artist: play- wright and director Wajdi Mouawad. During our Journey for the Festival d’Avignon 2009 dialogue over the last two years we talked about the importance of telling stories and about The journey made for the preparation of this memory, about theatre, painting and literature, we 63rd edition with Wajdi Mouawad through artistic explored our respective relationship with a world and geographic territories gave rise to many in turmoil. We also travelled together to significant conversations with the Festival directors, in Avi- places of his own story, from Beyrouth to Montreal, gnon, Montreal and Beirut, and also letters from he told us about his Lebanese childhood during Wajdi Mouawad. You will find most of them in the the war, his exile to France then Quebec, about the book Voyage pour le Festival d’Avignon 2009, anger burning inside him when confronted to the published in collaboration with P.O.L. editions. incoherence of the world. This publication will be available for free at the Enriched by this dialogue, we invited artists to beginning of July on request at the Cloître Saint- come and create new pieces of work for the Louis, the École d’Art, the Festival shop, or may be 63rd edition of the festival. Now, as each one of downloaded from our Internet site. these projects is coming to life, strong resonances emerge with the issues raised byrecent events; the upheaval in Madagascar, the youth protests in Extract from a letter from Wajdi Mouawad Greece, the deaths in Gaza, the financial crisis and its serious social consequences, the election of Saturday, 30 June 2007 Barack Obama. TGV Avignon/Paris Telling stories makes Man more human and helps Dear Hortense and Vincent, him comprehend the world and fight the tempta- tion of amnesia. Stories have inhabited theatre How can I word the question? stages since the origins, they've bound us together but we've also learnt to be wary of them, particu- Reading the issue of Alternatives théâtrales larly when they carry nothing but certainties, or devoted to Avignon 2005, Georges Banu raises when the emotions they generate are instrumen- the question of risk. He asks himself, as well as talised by economic, political or religious powers. the artists and various thinkers, about this idea. “What is risk for you?” From one answer to the Your experiences as an audience, this summer, will other, we notice how indefinable, at bottom, be fed by multiple stories, fictions and documen- this idea is. But beyond that, and although we taries. Artists from different geographical – Canada can say that it was insightful on Georges’ part and the Mediterranean – as well as artistic territories, given what this edition was and what it was will come to share with us their questionings on the going to trigger, it seems to me that it wasn’t state of the world. We'll hear many languages: necessarily this question that you asked your- Polish, Arabic, Spanish… and French spreading selves, clearly at least when you announced the several continents. We'll see texts – from Greek 2005 programme and the name of its associate tragedy to contemporary drama – cross with choreo- artist. You didn’t say: “With Jan Fabre, we are graphy, visual arts and also, this year, with cinema. going to raise the question of risk.” This interro- We will indeed confront the various ways stories gation was brought in by an outside observer. He and memories are dealt with both in the theatre could have formulated another question given and in cinema with film-makers whose movies talk the programme, but he himself chose to examine of the territories visited this year by the Festival. this aspect of creation. You can say that it was one of the possible public answers to the public In the difficult times our societies are going gesture of your programme. through, we want this festival to be creative and impertinent, angry and enthusiastic and, in all From this viewpoint, it sometimes happens that cases, alive. you think you’re asking a question without rea- lising that you’re asking another one that is Hortense Archambault, Vincent Baudriller, directors different. So, asking ourselves the question of Avignon, 20 April 2009 narration, of subject and everything we talked 2 programme eng 09 15/05/09 10:03 Page 3 about yesterday, would it be possible that we So… are raising another question in believing that Wouldn’t the real question of the 2009 Festival be we’re raising the one of narration? more that of the mass grave? Isn’t saying: “The 2009 edition will bring up the question of narration” removing all the mystery How do you recount the mass grave? from the question? In other words: if one wants What is to be done with the mass grave that the to raise the question of the mode of the narra- 20th century was? What will they do, the others, tion, the identification with the subject and those that will come later, when they wonder: catharsis, shouldn’t things be envisaged in dif- “What happened?”; when the witnesses will no ferent terms? Isn’t saying: “The 2009 edition of longer be there to tell them: “We can’t say”? the Festival d’Avignon will be devoted to narra- tion and will have Wajdi Mouawad as the asso- To find a right place, shouldn’t we start by putting ciate artist” falling into a sort of justification the facts and events back into a relationship with that would divert the mysterious raison d’être of time? Time that goes by from fact to fact, in this the theatre? way creating the narration? But… And if, looking at the theatre as an endless field, Aren’t we, on the contrary, by avoiding asking the we created, after painstaking observation, a question clearly, missing an occasion to bring strange unevenness that does not seem to be due together the public and artists around a complex to nature, but to an artifice, that we decided to dig and provocative question? to uncover a mass grave, an indication of a slaughter? The need to solve the enigma: “What Am I asking too many questions? happened?” is built on this mass grave.