2023-07-25 05:10:00
The Avignon festival brought together nearly 115,000 spectators for its 77th edition, the organizers of the event announced on Tuesday. Started on July 5, attendance at the festival has increased this year, and reached an “attendance rate of 94%” for paid entries.
The Avignon Festival, one of the biggest theatrical events in the world, brought together nearly 115,000 spectators for its 77th edition, the organizers announced on Tuesday. Started on July 5, the event ends on Tuesday, with a “total attendance forecast” of “114,600 entries” (compared to 105,260 in 2022). Or a “94% attendance rate” for paid entries.
The 2023 edition took place over 21 days (one day more than in 2022), for the first time under the leadership of new director Tiago Rodrigues, who succeeded Olivier Py (2013-2022). This 77th edition stood out with “56% of the projects carried or co-carried by a woman”. The program thus highlighted two female directors for the opening. In “Welfare”, Julie Deliquet, director of the Théâtre Gérard Philipe-Centre Dramatique de Saint-Denis, shined the spotlight on the marginalized, in the courtyard of the Palais des Papes. For her part, the hip-hop choreographer Bintou Dembélé made performers and spectators wander with her performance “GROOVE”.
A festival postponed next year because of the Olympics
The festival was also placed under the sign of English, with plays by British playwrights Tim Crouch, Alistair McDowall and Alexander Zeldin, Tiago Rodrigues having launched the idea of guest languages. In 2024, the guest language will be Spanish, which “like English is a European language with a global presence”, indicated Tiago Rodrigues. “There is also an artistic succession in South America, which has not yet been discovered at European level”, added the director.
The 2024 edition will notably welcome the Argentinian director Mariano Pensotti. Among the other artists already announced, there will be Caroline Guiela Nguyen (“Lacrima”), revealed in 2017 with her play “Saigon” while Tiago Rodrigues will present a preview of an “original creation”, “Hécube” from the work of Euripides with the Comédie Française. The festival will start earlier next year, on June 29, due to the Paris Olympics, and end on July 21, two days longer than the 2023 edition.
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