AVIGNON FESTIVAL

The Avignon Festival is an annual theater festival founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, following a meeting with the poet René Char. It takes place every summer in July in the main courtyard of the Palais des Papes, in multiple theaters and places in the historic center of Avignon (Vaucluse), as well as in a few places outside the “city of the Popes” .

The Avignon Festival is the largest theater and performing arts event in France, and one of the largest in the world in terms of the number of creations and spectators gathered, and one of the oldest major decentralized artistic events. .

The Court of Honor of the Palais des Papes is the cradle of the Festival which takes over more than 30 places in the city, listed as a UNESCO world heritage site, and its region, in works of art but also gymnasiums, cloisters, chapels , gardens, quarries, churches.

BIRTH OF THE AVIGNON FESTIVAL

1947, drama week

As part of an exhibition of modern art that they organized in the large chapel of the Palais des Papes in Avignon, the art critic Christian Zervos and the poet René Char suggested in 1947 to Jean Vilar, actor, director stage and troupe director, to propose to the city to create a “week of dramatic art”.

Jean Vilar first refused to implement this project, he doubted its technical feasibility, and the Mayor of Avignon Georges Pons did not provide him with the expected support.

La municipalité, qui veut faire renaître la ville par les reconstructions mais aussi la culture suite aux bombardements d'avril 1944, donne enfin son accord au projet et la Cour d'honneur du Palais des Papes est aménagée. Jean Vilar peut créer « Une semaine d'Art en Avignon » du 4 au 10 septembre 1947. Ce sont 4 800 spectateurs, dont 2 900 payant (le grand nombre d'invités a d'ailleurs été reproché), qui assistent dans trois lieux (la Cour d'Honneur du Palais des Papes, le Théâtre municipal et le Verger d'Urbain V), à sept représentations des « trois créations » :

The Tragedy of King Richard II, by Shakespeare,

a little-known play in France, La Terrasse de midi, by Maurice Clavel, an author then still unknown, and

The Story of Tobias and Sarah, by Paul Claudel:

Fort du succès d'estime initial, Jean Vilar revient l'année suivante pour une Semaine d'art dramatique, avec la reprise de la tragédie du roi Richard II, et les créations de La Mort de Danton de Georg Buchner, et Shéhérazade de Jules Supervielle, qu'il met en scène toute trois.

He has attached a troupe of actors who now come every year to bring together a growing and increasingly loyal audience.

These young talents include: 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, already famous on screen, joined the troupe when the TNP took over in 1951, and became its icon, with his roles as Le Cid and the Prince de Hombourg.

Success is growing, despite sometimes very virulent criticism; Vilar is thus called “Stalinist”, “fascist”, “populist” and “cosmopolitan”. The deputy director of shows and music Jeanne Laurent gave her support to Vilar, and in 1951 appointed him head of the TNP, whose shows fed the festival from then on until Georges Wilson replaced him at Chaillot in 1963 .

The rare invited directors came from the TNP: Jean-Pierre Darras in 1953, Gérard Philipe in 1958, Georges Wilson in 1953 then from 1964, when Vilar no longer produced plays. Under the name of the Avignon Festival from 1954, the work of Jean Vilar grew, giving substance to its creator's idea of popular theater, and highlighting the vitality of theatrical decentralization through the creations of the TNP .

In the current of popular education, youth movements and secular networks participate in the militant renewal of theater and its public, invited to participate in readings and debates on dramatic art, new forms of staging, cultural policies…

In 1965, Jean-Louis Barrault's troupe from the Odéon-Théâtre de France presented Numance, which marked the beginning of an important opening which would be marked, from 1966, by the extension of the duration to one month and by the reception, in addition to the TNP productions, of two creations from the Théâtre de la Cité by Roger Planchon and Jacques Rosner, certified as a permanent troupe, and nine dance shows by Maurice Béjart with his Ballet du XX siècle.

But the festival is a reflection of the transformation of theater. Thus, in parallel with the production of national drama institutions, theaters and drama centers, an unofficial and independent “Off” festival emerged from 1966 on the initiative of the Théâtre des Carmes, co-founded by André Benedetto and Bertrand Hurault. . Alone and without intention of creating a movement, André Benedetto's company was joined the following year by other troops.

In response, Jean Vilar took the Cour d'Honneur festival out of the Palais des Papes in 1967, and installed at the Cloître des Carmes, next to André Benedetto's theater, a second stage entrusted to the CDN du Sud-Est Antoine Bourseiller.

The other dramatic centers and national theaters in turn presented their productions (Jorge Lavelli for the Théâtre de l'Odéon, the Maison de la culture de Bourges), while four new places were invested in the city between 1967 and 1971 (cloître des Célestins, Municipal Theater and chapel of the White Pénitents complete the cloister of the Carmelites), and the festival is internationalized, like the thirteen nations present during the first International Youth Meetings organized by the CEMEA, or the presence of the Living Theater in 1968.

This broadening of the artistic fields of the “Avignon Festival” continued in the following years, via the youth shows of Catherine Dasté from the Théâtre du Soleil, the cinema with the previews of La Chinoise by Jean-Luc Godard in the Cour d' honor in 1967 and Stolen Kisses by François Truffaut in 1968, musical theater with Orden by Jorge Lavelli in 1969, and music from that same year, leaving for the occasion the city ramparts to take over the church of Saint -Théodorit d’Uzès.

Vilar directed the festival until his death in 1971. That year, thirty-eight shows were offered alongside the festival.

La crise de 68

After the movements of May 68 and the resulting actors' strikes, there are no French shows in this 22nd edition of the Avignon Festival, which eliminates almost half of the 83 scheduled shows. The Living Theater shows were maintained, as well as Béjart's work in the Court of Honor, as well as a large cinematographic program which took advantage of the cancellation of the Cannes Festival of the same year7.

On June 21, in a press conference, the Festival management announced that it would give way to the protests in May, in particular by transforming the “Meetings” into “Assises”.

The presence since May 18 of the Living Theater - highlighted in the documentary Being Free released in November 1968 -, whose behavior shocked some Avignon residents, can be considered responsible for Jean-Pierre Roux's victory in the legislative elections.

When La Paillasse aux seins nus by Gérard Gelas in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon was censored by the prefect of Gard on July 18, 1968, who saw there a potential presence of anarchist terrorists, the already tense atmosphere exploded. After two leaflets questioning the Assises as a recovery and institutionalization of the protest, as well as a virulent criticism of Gaullian cultural policy and its institutions ("Does industrial culture, like the bourgeois university, not constitute a smoke screen intended to make it impossible, to prohibit any awareness and any liberating political activity?"), a third leaflet is distributed to inform of the censorship and to announce that the Living Theater and Béjart will not play in solidarity. Béjart was not aware of it since he was rehearsing. Julian Beck refuses Vilar's proposal to make a statement in solidarity with the Théâtre du Chêne Noir by Gérard Gelas and proposes to play La Paillasse aux seins nus at the Carmes in place of Antigone at the Living Theatre. The mayor and Vilar refuse.

Des manifestations ont lieu sur la place de l'Horloge et des CRS interviennent. Tous les soirs, cette place prend forme d'un forum où les hommes politiques ne manquent pas de présence.

Béjart's July 19 presentation in the Court of Honor was disrupted by a spectator, Saul Gottlieb, who took the stage and called on Béjart not to perform. Towards the end of the presentation, the actors from the Théâtre du Chêne Noir take the stage in protest, the Béjart dancers improvise around them. This is an “off” festival entry into the Avignon Festival.

The conflicts rise to their extremes when the "sportsmen" with anti-Semitic words ("foreigners to the city, dirty like Job on his dunghill, poor like the wandering Jew, daring and perverse" speaking of the hippies surrounding the Living Theater), close by Jean-Pierre Roux, want to clean the city of protesters (“the filthy horde”) who will be protected by the gendarmerie.

After the Living Theater's proposal to stage a performance of Paradise Now in a working-class district of Avignon was banned, Julian Beck and Judith Malina announced their withdrawal from Avignon in an "11-point declaration". The seventh point says: "We are leaving the festival because the time has come for us to finally begin to refuse to serve those who want the knowledge and power of art to belong only to those who can pay, the very people who wish to keep the people in the dark, who work to ensure that power remains with the elites, who wish to control the life of the artist, and that of other men. FOR US TOO THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES. »

In 1969, the appearance of the first musical theater at the Avignon Festival with the presentation of Arrigo's opera "Orden" in a production by Jorge Lavelli with a libretto by Pierre Bourgeade.

1971 – 1979 direction Paul Puaux

From 1971 to 1979, Paul Puaux, designated heir, continued his work, despite critics who qualified him as “a communist institute without artistic talent”. He refuses the title of director and prefers the more modest one of “administrator”. His main contributions are the birth of Open Theater and the expansion of the festival to artists from far away: Merce Cunningham, Mnouchkine, Besson. This period is also that of the birth of “Off”, with the tetralogy of Molière by Antoine Vitez and Einstein on the beach by Bob Wilson.

He left the management of the festival in 1979 to devote himself to the Maison Jean-Vilar, memory of the festival. Béjart, Mnouchkine and Planchon refused his succession, before Bernard Faivre d'Arcier was appointed.

1980 – 1984 direction Bernard Faivre d’Arcier or the administrative, legal and financial overhaul

In 1980, Paulo Portas moved to the Maison Jean Vilar, and Bernard Faivre d'Arcier took over the management of the festival, which that same year became an association governed by the law of 1901. Each of the public authorities which subsidize the festival (State, city of Avignon, general council of Vaucluse, regional council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur), is represented on the board of directors which also includes seven qualified personalities.

Under the leadership of the new director Bernard Faivre d'Arcier (1980-1984 and 1993-2003), and Alain Crombecque (1985-1992), the festival professionalized its management and increased its international reputation. We[Who?] accuse him of being a “tradition-breaking socialist enarch”. Crombecque also developed theatrical production and increased the number of major events, such as Mahabharata by Peter Brook in 1985 or Soulier de satin by Antoine Vitez in 1987. The expenses linked to the Mahabharata were criticized, before those who criticized him are revived by the result. The fact that he also limits the number of places available for shows taking place in the main courtyard to 2,300 has also been criticized.

The OFF also became institutionalized and in 1982, under the leadership of Alain Léonard, created an association, “Avignon Public Off”, for the coordination and publication of an exhaustive program of Off shows.

Since the creation of Drama Week in 1947, almost everything has changed:

Duration: originally one week, with a few shows, the festival now takes place every summer for 3 to 4 weeks. Locations: the festival has spread its performances to places other than the legendary Cour d'Honneur from the Palais des Papes, in around twenty sites set up for the occasion (schools, chapels, gymnasiums, etc.). These places are partly located in Avignon intramural (inside the ramparts), such as the salt granary, others extramural such as the Paul Giera gymnasium, but are scattered throughout the Greater Avignon conurbation. Other municipalities host the festival, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon in its Chartreuse, Boulbon in its quarry, Vedène and Montfavet in their performance halls, Le Pontet in its auditorium, Cavaillon, etc. In 2013, the festival opened the FabricA , permanent place of rehearsals (room the size of the stage of the Court of Honor) and residence. Each year, new venues are opened to host OFF shows.

The nature of the festival: from the outset, Avignon has been a festival of contemporary theatrical creation. He subsequently opened up to other arts, notably contemporary dance (Maurice Béjart from 1966), mime, puppets, musical theater, equestrian shows (Zingaro), street arts, etc. ..

The festival's initial ambition to bring together the best of French theater in one place has expanded over the years to reach an international audience, with a growing number of non-French companies coming each year to perform in Avignon.

If since “The Drama Week” of 1947 everything or almost everything has changed, if the Festival has lost its emblematic force, according to Robert Abirached, it remains an essential event for an entire profession, while the off has become a “theatrical production supermarket”, in which nine hundred companies seek to find audiences and programmers.

1985 – 1992 direction Alain Crombecque

1993 – 2002 return of Bernard Faivre d’Arcier

2003: the year of cancellation

Seven hundred and fifty shows were planned in 2003. The strike of intermittent entertainment workers, actors, technicians, etc. which aimed to protest against the reform of the Assedic compensation schemes led to the cancellation of the 2003 Avignon Festival and around a hundred of Off shows. This fight began in February 2003 and aims to protect the specific regime of the intermittency of the show. In 2003, the public paraded through the streets with performing arts professionals. Numerous regional collectives were created and a national coordination has since met regularly.

2004-2013: The duo Archambault and Baudriller

Appointed in January, Faivre d'Arcier's deputies, Hortense Archambault and Vincent Baudriller, took over the management of the festival in September 2003 after its cancellation in July. They were reappointed for 4 years in 2008. In 2010, they managed to convince the board of directors to modify the association's statutes to obtain an additional half-term. This being justified by the conduct of the work of FabricA, which they had made one of the objectives of their second mandate. If they achieve the feat of completing the project in one year, they fail to provide an operating budget.

They moved the Paris offices to Avignon and organized the programming around one or two associated artists, different each year. Thus, they invited Thomas Ostermeier in 2004, Jan Fabre in 2005, Josef Nadj in 2006, Frédéric Fisbach in 2007, Valérie 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, Dieudonné Niangouna and Stanislas Nordey in 2013.

Although they managed to grow and rejuvenate the public, they did not escape criticism which peaked during the 2005 edition. Some festival shows saw a large number of spectators leave their seats during the performance, and Le Figaro judged in several articles the 2005 edition as a "catastrophic artistic and moral disaster", while France Inter speaks of an "Avignon catastrophe" and La Provence of "public discontent". Libération takes up the criticism in more measured terms, defending the festival. Of the same nature as the famous controversy between the "ancients" and the "moderns", this one opposed the proponents of a traditional theater entirely dedicated to the text and the presence of the actor (including Jacques Julliard or Régis Debray who there dedicated a work), mostly critics from the baby boom generation, and younger critics and spectators accustomed to post-dramatic theater after 1968, closer to performance and using images on stage (these points of view having been collected in a work coordinated by Georges Banu and Bruno Tackels, Le Cas Avignon 2005).

For the 2006 edition, 133,760 tickets were issued during this 60th edition of Avignon, out of a capacity of 152,000 seats. The attendance rate is therefore 88%, which places this edition at the level of “historic” years (it was 85% in 2005). 15,000 entries were also recorded for free events such as exhibitions, readings, meetings, films, etc. Tickets issued to young people under 25 or students represented an increasing share, which reached 12%. One show boosted attendance at the festival: Battuta, by Bartabas and his Zingaro Equestrian Theater, which recorded an attendance rate of 98%: 28,000 spectators in 22 performances, or more than 20% of the total.

The two associated artists of the 64th edition of the festival, from July 7 to 27, 2010, are the director Christoph Marthaler and the writer Olivier Cadiot.

En 2011, le choix du danseur et chorégraphe Boris Charmatz comme artiste associé souligne la place grandissante de ladanse contemporaine. La création africaine fait son entrée dans le « in » lors de la 67e édition.

2014: A new director, Olivier Py

After the non-renewal of his management at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in April 2011 and a large petition in support, the Minister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, plans Olivier Py to manage the Avignon Festival, then first artist since Jean Vilar in this place. On December 2, 2011, the festival's board of directors voted for the appointment of Olivier Py, who will take up his position as director on September 1, 2013, at the end of the mandate of his predecessors.

Le 20 mars 2014, lors d'une conférence de presse donnée à la FabricA, il présente le programme de la 68e édition du Festival d'Avignon, qui s'est tenu du 4 au 27 juillet 2014. Il y énonce les axes forts de son projet pour le Festival d'Avignon :

Youth: spectators and content creators International and the Mediterranean: five continents present in the programming; a focus on SyriaHomelessness and the decentralization of the 3 km: the show Othello, variation for three actors, by the Zieu company, was performed roaming in VauclusePoetry and contemporary literature: Lydie Dattas and her work will be presented in the spotlightDigital technology, a vector of social and cultural integration, is an important area of development. Based on digital FabricA, an idea launched in October 2013 with the think tank Terra Nova, the Avignon Festival and Pascal Keizer (Technocité) are working on an application for the French Tech label.

2014, however, was a very difficult year for the new director:

- La FabricA : un lieu sans budget de fonctionnement.

- Élections municipales de mars 2014 : le Front national arrive en tête du premier tour. Olivier Py appelle publiquement les abstentionnistes à voter. Un flot de haine et de reproches fleurit de tous bords politiques, FN, UMP et PS.

- Social movement of July 2014

- Thunderstorms of July 2014

Factory

Hortense Archambault and Vincent Baudriller, co-directors of the Avignon Festival in 2004, expressed the need for a rehearsal and residency space for artists invited to create shows at the Avignon Festival. FabricA, a building designed by architect Maria Godlewska, opened in July 2013. This project, estimated at 10 million euros, was financed by the State (Ministry of Culture and Communication) and local authorities. (City of Avignon, General Council of Vaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Region).

Its geographical location, at the crossroads of the Champfleury and Monclar districts, undergoing urban and social requalification, makes us dream of an ambitious project of working with excluded groups. Vincent Baudriller says: “there are billions of things to invent with these audiences”. However, it is Olivier Py who is responsible for finding the means to operate the building all year round and finance cultural mediation projects.

Artistic projects are set up for the population of these neighborhoods and, in particular, oriented towards young people (work with schoolchildren, middle schoolers and high school students), with the objective of reaching all social categories. However, the place still seems to be searching for its vocation and its place in the city and in the Festival.

FabricA is made up of:

a rehearsal room: it allows the shows given at the Cour d'Honneur to be worked on, with a capacity of 600 seats; a private space: it allows the artistic teams to live and work in good conditions; a small technical space : it is a material storage space.

In 2014, the Avignon Festival offers two shows at FabricA: Orlando by Olivier Py and Henri VI by Thomas Jolly.

EMERGENCE OF “OFF” AND EXPANSION OF THE AVIGNON FESTIVAL

In 1965, Jean-Louis Barrault's troupe from the Odéon-Théâtre de France presented Numance, which marked the beginning of an important opening which would be marked, from 1966, by the extension of the duration to one month and by the reception, in addition to the TNP productions, of two creations from the Théâtre de la Cité by Roger Planchon and Jacques Rosner, a permanent troupe, and nine dance shows by Maurice Béjart with his Ballet du XX siècle.

But the Festival is a reflection of the transformation of theater. Thus, in parallel with the production of national drama institutions, theaters and drama centers, an “off”, unofficial and independent festival emerged from 1966 on the initiative of the Théâtre des Carmes, co-founded by André Benedetto and Bertrand Hurault. . Alone and without intention of creating a movement, André Benedetto's company was joined the following year by other troops.

In response, Jean Vilar took the Cour d'Honneur festival out of the Palais des Papes in 1967, and installed at the Cloître des Carmes, next to André Benedetto's theater, a second stage entrusted to the CDN du Sud-Est Antoine Bourseiller.

The other dramatic centers and national theaters in turn presented their productions (Jorge Lavelli for the Théâtre de l'Odéon, the Maison de la culture de Bourges), while four new places were invested in the city between 1967 and 1971 (cloître des Célestins, Municipal Theater and chapel of the White Pénitents complete the cloister of the Carmelites), and the festival is internationalized, like the thirteen nations present during the first International Youth Meetings organized by the CEMEA, or the presence of the Living Theater in 1968.

This broadening of the artistic fields of the “Avignon Festival” continued in the following years, via the youth shows of Catherine Dasté from the Théâtre du Soleil, the cinema with the previews of La Chinoise by Jean-Luc Godard in the Cour d' honor in 1967 and Stolen Kisses by François Truffaut in 1968, musical theater with Orden by Jorge Lavelli in 1969, and music from that same year, leaving for the occasion the city ramparts to take over the church of Saint -Théodorit d’Uzès.

In 1968, through the banning of La Paillasse aux seins nus by Gérard Gelas in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, the "off" made an entry into the Avignon Festival, the troupe being invited by Maurice Béjart to go up gagged on the stage of the Court of Honor, and receiving support from the Living Theater.

Vilar directed the Festival until his death in 1971. That year, thirty-eight shows were offered alongside the festival.

From 1971 to 1979, Paul Puaux, designated heir, continued the work started.

Professionalization

In 1980, Paulo Portas moved to the Maison Jean Vilar, and Bernard Faivre d'Arcier took over the management of the festival, which that same year became an association governed by the law of 1901. Each of the public authorities which subsidize the Festival (State, city of Avignon, general council of Vaucluse, regional council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur), is represented on the board of directors which also includes seven qualified personalities.

Sous l’impulsion du nouveau directeur Bernard Faivre d'Arcier (1980-1984 et 1993-2003), et d’Alain Crombecque (1985-1992), le festival professionnalise sa gestion et accroît sa notoriété internationale. Crombecque développe également la production théâtrale et multiplie les grands évènements, à l'image du Mahâbhârata de Peter Brook en 1985 ou du Soulier de satin par Antoine Vitez en 1987.

The Off also became institutionalized and in 1982, under the leadership of Alain Léonard, created an association, “Avignon Public Off”, for the coordination and publication of an exhaustive program of Off shows.

Since the creation of Drama Week in 1947, almost everything has changed:

Duration: originally one week, with a few shows, the festival now takes place every summer for 3 to 4 weeks.

The locations: the Festival spread its performances to places other than the legendary Cour d'Honneur of the Palais des Papes, in around twenty sites set up for the occasion (schools, chapels, gymnasiums, etc.). These places are located partly in Avignon intramural (inside the ramparts), others extramural such as the Paul Giera gymnasium, but are scattered throughout the Greater Avignon conurbation. Other towns host the Festival, Villeneuve lez Avignon in its Chartreuse, Boulbon in its quarry, Vedène and Montfavet in their performance halls, Le Pontet in its auditorium, Cavaillon, etc.

Chaque année, de nouveaux lieux sont ouverts pour abriter les spectacles du OFF.

The nature of the festival: from the outset, Avignon has been a festival of contemporary theatrical creation. He subsequently opened up to other arts, notably contemporary dance (Maurice Béjart from 1966), mime, puppets, musical theater, equestrian shows (Zingaro), street arts, etc. .The festival's initial ambition to bring together in one place the best of French theater has expanded over the years to reach an international audience, with a growing number of non-French companies coming each year to perform in Avignon.

If the festival has lost its emblematic force, according to Robert Abirached, it remains an essential event for an entire profession, while the OFF has become a “supermarket of theatrical production”, in which eight hundred companies seek to find an audience and programmers.

The contemporary festival

The cancellation of the 2003 edition

Seven hundred and fifty shows were planned for 2003. The strike of intermittent entertainment workers, actors, technicians, etc. which aimed to protest against the reform of the Assedic compensation schemes led to the cancellation of the 2003 Avignon Festival and around a hundred of Off shows. This fight began in February 2003 and aims to protect the specific regime of the intermittency of the show. In 2003, the public paraded through the streets with performing arts professionals. Many regional collectives were created and a national coordination has been meeting regularly since then.

The revival of the Archambault and Baudriller duo

Appointed in January, Faivre d'Arcier's deputies, Hortense Archambault and Vincent Baudriller, took over the management of the Festival in September 2003 after its cancellation in July.

They re-anchor the management of the Festival entirely in Avignon and organize the programming around one or two associated artists, different each year. Thus, they invited Thomas Ostermeier in 2004, Jan Fabre in 2005, Josef Nadj in 2006, Frédéric Fisbach in 2007, Valérie Dréville and Romeo Castellucci in 2008, Wajdi Mouawad in 2009, Olivier Cadiot and Christoph Marthaler in 2010, Boris Charmatz in 2011, and Simon McBurney in 2012.

Although they managed to grow and rejuvenate the audience, they did not escape criticism which peaked during the 2005 edition. Certain Festival shows saw a large number of spectators leave their seats during the performance, and Le Figaro judged in several articles the 2005 edition as a “catastrophic artistic and moral disaster”, while France Inter speaks of an “Avignon disaster” and La Provence of “public discontent”. Libération takes up the criticism in more measured terms, defending the Festival. Of the same nature as the famous controversy between the "ancients" and the "moderns", this one opposed the proponents of a traditional theater entirely dedicated to the text and the presence of the actor (including Jacques Julliard or Régis Debray who there dedicated a work), mostly critics from the baby boom generation, and younger critics and spectators accustomed to post-dramatic theater after 1968, closer to performance and using images on stage (these points of view having been collected in a work coordinated by Georges Banu and Bruno Tackels, Le Cas Avignon 2005).

Following the intermittent conflict of 2003, which divided the Off's 700 troupes, some of whom chose to continue their representation despite tensions and the cancellation of the Avignon Festival, the Off divided and must also restructure. 400 companies and most of the Off theaters, i.e. nearly 500 structures joined together to become Avignon Festival et Compagnies (AF&C) under the presidency of André Benedetto, definitively replacing the following year the former association of Alain Léonard . In 2009, the Off festival exceeded a cumulative number of daily shows and events of 980 (theater, musical theater, dance, café-theater, puppets, circus...), an increase of 11% each year from the start of 2000s.

In 2011, Hortense Archambault and Vicent Baudriller chose to associate the dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz as an associated artist for the edition, which underlines the growing place of contemporary dance11.

2006: 60th edition

For the 2006 edition, 133,760 tickets were issued during this 60th edition of Avignon, out of a capacity of 152,000 seats. The attendance rate is therefore 88%, which places this edition at the level of “historic” years (it was 85% in 2005). 15,000 entries were also recorded for free events such as exhibitions, readings, meetings, films, etc. Tickets issued to young people under 25 or students represented an increasing share, which reached 12%.

One show boosted attendance at the festival: Battuta, by Bartabas and his Zingaro Equestrian Theater, which recorded an attendance rate of 98%: 28,000 spectators in 22 performances, or more than 20% of the total.

“The Temple Merchants”

“Actors are not dogs!” » exclaimed Gérard Philipe in the title of a famous article. Any reflection on Avignon off, what it has become and what could become of it, should carry this scathing formula of wholesomeness.

Thus begins the reflection carried out again in 2006 by Jean Guerrin, actor, director, founder and director of the Montreuil theater-school, diligent “practitioner” of Off and guest of In in 1980 with Henri VI by Shakespeare and La Noce chez les Brecht’s petty bourgeoisie. In an interview with Vincent Cambier for the association Les Trois Coups, he denounces the "permanent scandal" of the reception conditions for actors, companies, directors and authors in the Off structures, conditions distorted by the bait of the renters' profit despite the efforts of the Festival administration to clean up the situation. The frantic pace of performances in the same place leads to infernal rates of installation and dismantling or worse: the mutilation of the texts. The importance of the costs incurred to have a performance venue is such that it rarely allows companies to pay their actors. These conditions are carefully hidden from the public whose windfall must be preserved. The solutions pass, for Jean Guerrin, through “recognition of the specific case of the actor” allowing treatment equivalent to that of technicians and managers who are systematically paid unlike actors and through the constitution of a “regulatory and control body on the conditions of management of the premises", even if it means refusing the labeling of the most indecent, so that "the Festival does not die of its uncontrolled swelling, like these beautiful stars collapsed under their own weight, the situation [commanding] the start to avoid the emphasis of the word revolution.

The 2010 edition

The two associated artists of this edition are the director Christoph Marthaler and the writer Olivier Cadiot. The 64th edition of the Festival took place from July 7 to 27, 2010. The Off Festival was held from July 8 to 31.

Documentary collection of Maison Jean-Vilar

The work of Jean Vilar and all of the 3,000 events scheduled at the Avignon Festival since its beginnings in 1947 are accessible at the Maison Jean Vilar, located in Avignon at 8, rue Mons, Montée Paul-Puaux (library, video library, exhibitions , database, etc.). The Jean Vilar Association publishes the magazine Cahiers Jean Vilar which places the thoughts of the creator of the Avignon festival in a resolutely contemporary perspective by analyzing the place of theater in society, and the challenge of cultural policies.

Fonds Fernand-Michaud

En 1988, la Bibliothèque nationale de France fait l'acquisition plus de 50000 négatifs et diapositives que le photographe Fernand Michaud a réalisés au cours des Festivals d'Avignon de 1970 à 1986.

2015: 50th edition of the OFF Festival

The Avignon Off Festival brings together hundreds of shows, from 10 a.m. to midnight in more than a hundred venues and theaters including the stage of the Laurette permanent theater in Avignon.

Official site

Off Festival official website

The notebooks of Maison Jean-Vilar no. 105 - Avignon, July 1968

The Avignon Festival in photos on Gallica

Source Wikipedia