The Avignon Festival is reputed for its freedom of expression. The three-week annual bonanza of theatre, dance, conferences and recitals is a place where anything can happen. At a time when conflict has erupted again in Europe, performers from around the world are encouraged to share their vision in an atmosphere of peace and solidarity.
Festival director Olivier Py insists that Avignon’s strength lies in the solidarity between international artists, who gather to share their creations in a dynamic, peaceful environment.
While some contemplate fantasy or futuristic worlds through the magic of escapism, others choose to mirror real-life drama, including the conflict in Ukraine.
Dozens of mayors across France and Europe signed a petition in support of Ukraine and democratic values at the beginning of the second week of the festival.
Utopia
They accused Russia of targeting the very idea of a peaceful coexistence between neighbours of languages, traditions, beliefs and opinions. In other words, an attack on the “principle of pluralism at the foundation of democracy, of the European project”.
The petition made a parallel to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992 when Serbian nationalists encircled the capital Sarajevo in a bid to “ethnically purify” it, destroying the symbol of cohabitation between citizens of all nationalities and religions. To this day the country remains ethnically divided.
“War is the worst thing in humanity and the theatre is the best...that's why there is a dialectic between the worst and the best,” Py told RFI.
“What is happening at the festival for three weeks in July is a utopia, a utopia of living together”.
“Even if we don't talk about politics, it is political because we are at peace and because the links between artists are more important than the links between states. Yesterday I explained this to the Russians and the Chinese (present at the festival): what we are creating here is a moment of peace.”
The 2022 programme is dense with some 50 performances, including dance, recitals, poetry and conferences on offer until 26 July, enhanced by many more events in the “Off” parallel programme which runs until 30 August.
While war and peace are common themes, other preoccupations of today’s society also come into sharp focus.
“Jogging” is Lebanese director Hanane Hajj Ali’s way of dealing with the catastrophes that have struck her home over the past two years. Even though she wrote the play before the economic crisis began, she says there was already a distinct feeling of "decay" in the air.
“Everytime I went jogging through Beirut, I could smell the corruption in the air,” she says. She places the act of jogging as a healthy contrast to the uglier side of humanity. She refused to submit the play to the censorship board and instead took it overseas, where it’s being staged in some 50 countries.
“The presence of artists from the Middle East on the world scene is even more important now in the face of mounting extremism,” she says.
The theme of exile is dealt with by Syrian director Rasha Omran, who was forced to flee to Egypt in 2012 after criticising the repressive regime of Bachar al-Assad. “Not being able to go home is like a wound, I miss it,” she says.
At Avignon, she is part of the "Shaeirat" ("poetesses" in arabic) performance. Her piece called “The woman who lived in the house before me”, was inspired by her time living in a flat previously inhabited by a solitary Greek woman.
She says her piece is “an act of resistance” and she holds out a tiny bit of hope for her country despite the ongoing conflict. “Entire generations are buried or have left the country, but things keep ticking over”.
Then there’s misery and suffering caused by tax evasion, a thorny subject tackled by Quebec director and actress Alix Dufresne.
The idea for “Hidden Paradise” – presented in the “Off” programme –came from hearing an interview on the radio with a philosopher who pointed out that tax evasion is not something that concerns only one percent of the population, it’s connected to so many ordinary types of suffering on an everyday level.
“I was shocked when I heard him say that waiting an extra hour for your bus or waiting 8 hours at the hospital emergency services, is directly because of tax evasion,” she told RFI’s Muriel Maalouf.
Theatre and humanism
Alix Dufresne began to look around at the people suffering in society, victims of poverty, and she could see the physical strain in their bodies. That’s the energy she wanted to capture in her performance which features several re-enactments of the radio interview, each faster that the last, culminating in an explosive, frenetic dance.
The repetition and exhaustion, Dufresne explains, are a comment on how the situation has not changed in all these years, despite whistleblowers and observers constantly calling for tax evasion to be dealt with.
Olivier Py is well aware of the heartbreak, the violence, and the dark side that can be brought to the stage as well as the joy and the magic. Since ancient times, theatre has provided a way for cultures to come together and share the universal act of storytelling.
“I believe it is about bringing humans together in silence … reminding them that they are mortal and that they must take care of each other," he says.
"There is an unbreakable link between theatre and humanism. I don't think we can do theatre that isn't humanist ... even the most monstrous, blackest, bloodiest theatre. Despite everything, theatre tells us what it is to be human and it tries to teach us to live with more dignity.”
