Actor, writer and director Tiago Rodrigues, from Portugal, is the first foreigner to head up the Avignon Festival, now in its 77th year. In addition to maintaining the tradition of presenting innovative performing arts projects from around the globe to the diverse public that attends the festival, he is also keen to bring people together and promote social dialogue.
"The Festival d’Avignon is an artistic and political event, a civic-minded celebration where pleasure and reflection meet [as they would] in a café. Avignon is a luminous café of ideas," he writes in the festival programme notes.
