4 Luxembourg Productions Set for Festival OFF Avignon

On Tuesday 5 July 2022, Luxembourg's Minister of Culture, Sam Tanson, went to a preview at the Festival d'Avignon to support the four Luxembourg shows presented at the Festival OFF in Avignon.

Documentary theatre, dance and a show for young audiences: aboriginal creation played on all registers of the performing arts.

While the festival will officially begin on 7 July, Minister Tanson took advantage of her stay to attend the general rehearsal of Terres Arides, written by Ian De Toffoli, with Luc Schiltz and Pitt Simon (joint staging). This co-production of the Théâtre du Centaure and the Kulturhaus Niederanven with the Kinneksbond Mamer was chosen by an independent jury set up by the Theater Federatioun to officially represent Luxembourg theatrical creation at the Avignon Festival. Since 2019, Luxembourg has been collaborating with the Grand Est Region, which hosts a Luxembourg creation each year at the Fire Station. Terres Arides, a documentary on the epic journey undertaken by a Luxembourg journalist to conduct an interview with a former Islamic State fighter from Meispelt and imprisoned in Rojava in Syria, will be performed there daily (from 7 to 26 July at 15:50; closed on Wednesdays).

Subsequently, Minister Tanson had a friendly exchange with the cultural scene during a Retrouvailles des luxembourgeois evening in Avignon, organised by Kultur|lx, which marks its presence in Provence for the second consecutive year to coordinate and promote Luxembourg culture. “Three years after its establishment, I am delighted with the good collaboration with the Grand Est at La Caserne, a proximity from which many lasting collaborations are born,” said Minister Tanson. In addition, she praised the richness and diversity of Luxembourg creation. Thus, the theatrical and dance scene was represented during this exchange, among others, by Claude Mangen, the president of the Theater Federatioun, or by Frank Hoffmann, who presents his staging of the play Frontalier by Jean Portante, with Jacques Bonnaffé solo-en-scène, a production of the Théâtre national du Luxembourg, throughout the festival at the Théâtre du Balcon (from 7 to 30 July at 12:15; closed on Tuesdays). Frontalier is a long internal monologue by a frontier worker caught in daily traffic jams, remembering the migrations of his ancestors and thinking about symbolic and real borders in general.

Luxembourgish dance is also well represented at this Festival d'Avignon with its revival tunes, after two years marked by the pandemic: after Simone Mousset in 2021, it will be the turn of choreographer Léa Tirabasso with her company Lipstick Traces to invest Les Hivernales – CDCN d'Avignon for ten days to present its play Starving Dingoes (from 10 to 20 July at 19:00; except 15 July), the play which is part of Luxembourg's official selection for the Festival Off d'Avignon will be able to be discovered as part of the festival On (y) danse aussi l'été! This cooperation was carried out in partnership with Les Hivernales – CDCN d’Avignon. In addition, the emerging choreographer Laura Arend offers, with the young audience show Midas, a mythical journey for young people from five years old (from 7 to 29 July at 10:30 at the Golovine Theater).

Taking advantage of the presence of two plays by contemporary authours from the Grand Duchy, Kultur|lx will organise a round table on 13 July at 16:00 with Ian De Toffoli, Jean Portante and guests Dominique Dolmieu, Sedef Ecer and Hassane Kouyaté entitled “Writing contemporary theatre” (at La Manufacture).