Micro-Festivals on the Fringe: The OFF d’Avignon in 2020

Abstract

The management of the coronavirus crisis of 2020 required immediate and top-down decisions, which contradicts the bottom-up philosophy of the non-curated Festival OFF d’Avignon. As a consequence, the loose organizational structure risked breaking apart and every theatre director acted autonomously by either cancelling the scheduled programme, creating online alternatives, or organising independent micro-festivals. The events of 2020 demonstrate that the non-curated festival is composed of multiple independent theatres following their own artistic orientation and business model. The OFF d’Avignon is, in fact, a festival of festivals.

Keywords:

• Festival OFF d’Avignon
• fringe festival
• COVID-19
• France
• 2020

Hanna Huber has been employed at the University of Vienna (Austria) since 2019; she currently works on her PhD project ‘Performing on the Fringe: Narratives on the Festival OFF d’Avignon’. Conceptualized as a mixed-method research, the project draws on a combination of qualitative interviews, quantitative data evaluation, and performance analyses. Hanna Huber successfully completed Theatre, Film, and Media Studies, English and American Studies as well as Romance Studies at Universities in Vienna, Malta, and Avignon.

Notes

1. The Festival d’Avignon was founded by Jean Vilar in 1947 and has significantly shaped the cultural landscape of Avignon since then. For more information, see Emmanuelle Loyer and Antoine de Baecque, Histoire du Festival d’Avignon (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2016); and Philippa Wehle, ‘Avignon, Everybody’s Dream’, Contemporary Theatre Review 13, no. 4 (2003): 27–41. For more information on the origins and development of the Festival OFF d’Avignon, see Alain Léonard and Gérard Vantaggioli, Festival Off Avignon (Paris: Éditions des Quatre-Vents, 1989); and Joël Rumello, Réinventer une Utopie: Le Off d’Avignon (Paris: Ateliers Henry Dougier, 2016).

2. Interview with author, September 7, 2020. [All interviews were conducted in French. The direct quotations in this article have been translated into English for reasons of better legibility.]

3. Interview with author, July 27, 2020.

4. Interview with author, August 14, 2020.

5. Olivier Py, quoted in Léa Salamé, ‘Olivier Py: “La situation est catastrophique pour le monde du spectacle”’, L’invité de 7h50, France Inter, April 8, 2020, https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/l-invite-de-7h50/l-invite-de-7h50-08-avril-2020 (accessed January 19, 2022).

6. Anaïs Heluin, ‘Covid-19: Pour l’annulation des festivals d’été, des voix s’élèvent’, sceneweb.fr, April 8, 2020, https://sceneweb.fr/actu-covid-19-pour-lannulation-des-festivals-dete-des-voix-selevent/ (accessed January 19, 2022).

7. Renato Ribeiro, ‘Avignon OFF 2020: Année Blanche’, change.org, 2020, https://www.change.org/p/m-franck-riester-avignon-2020-ann%C3%A9e-blanche (accessed January 19, 2022).

8. Festival d’Avignon, ‘Annulation. 74e édition du Festival d’Avignon’, Festival d’Avignon, April 13, 2020, https://www.festival-avignon.com/fr/ (accessed January 19, 2022).

9. Grégory Plouviez, ‘Coronavirus: après le In du Festival d’Avignon, le Off s’apprête à annuler’, Le Parisien, April 14, 2020, http://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/coronavirus-apres-le-in-du-festival-d-avignon-le-off-s-apprete-a-annuler-14-04-2020-8299467.php (accessed January 19, 2022).

10. Serge Barbuscia, quoted in Marie-Valentine Chaudon, ‘Avignon orpheline de son festival’, La Croix, July 22, 2020, https://www.la-croix.com/Culture/Avignon-orpheline-festival-2020-07-22-1201105957 (accessed January 19, 2022).

11. Later that year, in September 2020, Gérard Gelas, who contributed to the foundation of the OFF d’Avignon with his amateur acting company in 1968, passed on the direction of Le Chêne Noir to his son Julien.

12. Julien Gelas, quoted in Luc Leroux, ‘Avignon, un festival débranché mais pas tout à fait off’, Le Monde, June 24, 2020, https://www.lemonde.fr/m-le-mag/article/2020/06/24/avignon-un-festival-debranche-mais-pas-tout-a-fait-off_6043983_4500055.html (accessed January 19, 2022).

13. Alain Timár, quoted in Fabien Bonnieux, ‘En juillet, des théâtres veulent conjurer le sort’, La Provence, May 30, 2020.

14. Serge Barbuscia, quoted in Youness Bousenna, ‘A Avignon, les “gardiens du feu” font souffler l’esprit du Festival’, Marianne, July 24, 2020, https://www.marianne.net/culture/avignon-les-gardiens-du-feu-font-souffler-l-esprit-du-festival (accessed January 19, 2022).

15. Ibid.

16. Interview with author, July 23, 2020.

17. Interview with author, July 28, 2020.

18. Fabienne Govaerts, interview by Jacky Bornet, ‘“Le Festival d’Avignon aurait dû être reporté, pas annulé”, selon la directrice de théâtre Fabienne Govaerts’, franceinfo:culture, July 13, 2020, https://www.francetvinfo.fr/culture/spectacles/theatre/le-festival-d-avignon-aurait-du-etre-reporte-pas-annule-selon-la-directrice-de-theatre-fabienne-govaerts_4030945.html (accessed January 19, 2022).

19. Leroux, ‘Avignon, un festival débranché’.

20. Interview with author, September 7, 2020.

21. Interview with author, September 7, 2020.

22. Maud Cazabet, ‘Le Théâtre 14 offre à Paris son propre festival Off d’Avignon’, Le Figaro, July 18, 2020, https://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/le-theatre-14-a-offre-a-paris-son-propre-festival-off-d-avignon-20200718 (accessed January 19, 2022).

23. Ibid.

24. For more information on the federation and their statutes, see ‘Manifeste du 8 juillet’, Fédération des Théâtres Indépendants d’Avignon, July 8, 2020, https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/1e880139/files/uploaded/Manifeste%20du%208%20juillet.pdf (accessed January 19, 2022).

25. For discussion of the Edinburgh and Adelaide fringe festivals, see Jen Harvie, ‘International Theatre Festivals in the UK: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe as a Model Neo-liberal Market’, in The Cambridge Companion to International Theatre Festivals, ed. Ric Knowles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 101–117, and Sarah Thomasson, ‘“Too Big for Its Boots”? Precarity on the Adelaide Fringe’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 29, no. 1 (2019): 39–55. For more of the Avignon experience, see Paul Rasse, Le théâtre dans l’espace public: Avignon Off (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud, 2003).