Wednesday, June 20, 2007

What's an Avignon Theater Festival?

I didn't know about the Festival until 2004, when I visited Angers, France, and attended several plays that summer. A french teacher told me about both the Festival and the Theatre de la Huchette in Paris. I started plans to take this trip three years ago, and originally had expected to go in 2006--- in fact, I'd prepared a folder and called it "Avignon 2006" but job problems intervened. This year the scheduling works better.

Here's a english language description of the festival from the website (http://www.festival-avignon.org/) :

"The Festival is a more modest event than it used to be, but it is still an annual rendez-vous for theatre-lovers, new or old audiences and people from the stage professions.

It is difficult to know exactly how many spectators come to the Festival because one person may see several shows in the "In" and several more in the "Off" each year. However, it is possible to say that the audiences are big, enthusiastic and open because they attend the Festival at their leisure, and to be entertained. If we were to look more closely, we notice that the Avignon Festival public is made up of several types of visitor. Each has their own view of the city and has their preferred quarters. There are regular visitors and even those for whom coming to the Festival is like a pilgrimage, and who organise their stay well in advance. At the other extreme, there are people who just like to wander, explore and follow their whims. Some people come only to the "In", others to the "Off", but most invent their own special mix. The public gets into discussions, criticism, criticising the critics, challenging and debating in the CloƮtre Saint-Louis like they did previously in the Urbain V orchard, where they can now meet the artists in the Festival. It is a place where theatre-lovers can build on their knowledge, where they can even take part in workshops organised by CEMEA (an educational institution particularly oriented towards young people and visitors from abroad). However, much of what people learn at the Festival is gleaned in an informal way, through chance meetings and casual conversation."

Sounds like fun to me!!


The walled city center will become largely a pedestrian zone and performers who didn't make it into an "On" or and "Off" play will be mime-ing, juggling, eating fire and doing spontaneous theater in the streets. Weather is said to be like the southwest, hot but dry, and lots of the plays take place outside, at night under the stars. And yes, the plays are all in French; that's why nobody signed on to do this with me!!

I will be at a small school which teaches language/culture for two weeks, taking a theater course in the mornings which will consist of play readings, a study of some of the plays in the festival, and some insider stuff like meeting actors, directors, going for backstage tours, etc. It is mainly a course designed to teach french language skills through theater, but the courses during the festival do a bit more. See the school (C.E.I.L.A) (another French acronym, surprise!!!) at http://www.ceila.com/

The big thing the school did for me was solve the main problem of the summer festival visitor, namely, finding a comfortable/safe/affordable place to stay. The CEILA evidently has a network of locals who rent to their students, and I got an apartment for the entire month of July thru them. All I know about it is that it's right in the center of town and it's on the fourth floor of a building -- I phoned the owner when it was proposed to me.

What does this cost? Well, the course is 750 Euros for two weeks, and the apartment is 700 E for the month. I got frequent flyer seats on Air France both ways which I reserved back in December. The Euro costs $1.30 now, more or less, and that's expensive!!

What am I going to do? Well, besides going to lots of plays and attending the course, I intend to eat heartily of the Provencal fare and take some interesting bike rides (that's why I included the map.) I may take a quick one-morning cooking course. At the very end, I will spend two full days in Paris before returning home. I'm blogging this trip to provide details on the food, the plays & the bike rides that certain of my armchair traveler friends would find interesting. I don't think I will be writing a lot, or every day, but from time to time. Check back a few times a week and see what I'm up to. Comment if you feel like it & think about coming with me next time!

Salut!

- K