Adjustment of educational rhythms

As part of the development of educational rhythms, the Festival d'Avignon organises theatre performances for children and teenagers in order to familiarise them with the performing arts and to create a quality of listening and sharing, particularly during the meetings after the shows.

This show tells the story of the friendship between a man and a troupe of elephants. When the man dies, the troupe of elephants get together and decide to march to his house to pay their last respects: for them, he was not just any man, he was one of them. March of the Elephants is about existence, life and death, and the journey we all have to take to find out how to say goodbye to someone one day.

La FabricA opened its doors to 900 people, including 42 classes from 20 schools (to be confirmed after performances) and 4 social, accessibility and health organisations (to be confirmed after performances) for 6 free performances of La Marche des Éléphants.

Extra-curricular workshops: over 7 weeks, 4 extra-curricular groups from Louis Gros, Roland Scheppler, Les Rotondes and Les Olivades schools benefited from 84 hours of practical theatre workshops led by artists.

Two toys, one made of tin, the other of paper: a soldier and a ballerina. They meet and it’s love at first sight… But—for there is always a but in a fairy tale—they are suddenly separated, lost in the outside world, in the city, in the world of adults. How to face this challenge?

La FabricA opened its doors to 1400 people, 42 classes from 20 schools but also 4 structures from the social field, accessibility and health for 4 free performances of the show Le Soldat et la Ballerine.

More about the show

over 6 weeks, 4 extracurricular groups from Simone Veil, Saint-Roch, Saint-Ruf and Louis Gros schools benefited from 72 hours of practical theatre workshops led by artists.

The performance on 18 November was offered in audiodescription. FabricA is fully accessible to people with reduced mobility and individual magnetic loops are available at the reception desk.

Joachim Latarjet turns the Grimm brothers' fairy tale into a cruel and funny musical with contemporary resonance. He focuses on the greed of men and the enigmatic character of the Pied Piper (whose instrument is a trombone).

La FabricA opened its doors to 1000 pupils, 40 classes from 24 schools for 4 free performances of The Pied Piper. During this event, 30 children from the Sainte Catherine School benefited from the audio description of the show and a tactile visit of the set. An additional session was offered to allow a hundred or so spectators from social, accessibility and health associations to attend the show.

At the same time, over a period of 6 weeks, 4 extracurricular groups from Grand Cyprès, Louis Gros, Saint-Ruf and Saint-Roch schools benefited from 70 hours of practical theatre workshops led by actors, as well as workshops to discover the technical professions and visits of La FabricA.

For refusing to obey her father, a young woman in love is locked up in a tower. When she is finally let out, she discovers the world has fallen into conflict. To find her prince, our heroine decides to listen to her desires and to face the world. Olivier Py’s fourth show inspired by the Brothers Grimm, Love Triumphant is an operetta in which a determined princess, a disfigured suitor, a devilish general, an environmentally-minded gardener, and a young dishwasher lead us on a series of adventures in Alexandrines full of love, resilience, and revelations.

After bringing together almost 4,000 spectators during the 73rd edition of the Festival d’Avignon, Olivier Py’s Love Triumphant was performed at La FabricA from 18 to 29 November 2019. As part of its artistic and cultural education project, the Festival invited over 3,000 children to attend this operetta for younger audiences for free. In addition, several Avignon schools (saint Jean, Bouquerie, Les Rotondes, Les Olivades) were invited to participate in drama workshops.

Born under Alain Badiou’s pen to denounce the tragedies of racism, Ahmed returns once more. Under his mask created by Erhard Stiefel, and in the body and voice of Didier Galas, this heir to Scapin, this flamboyant modern servant rejects the models of understanding of our world, which he finds saturated with information and opinion. He isn’t quite the same himself. He has to learn to reconstruct himself in space, to juggle with modern ideas and with the understanding men and women have of their own time. Nothing can escape the wild flow of his words, and he seems to be able to find the fun in everything.

2,000 students from the Aix-Marseille school district will attend one of the eight free performances offered by the Festival d’Avignon, from 12 to 23 November, 2018.

48 students from the Massillargues, Olivades, Scheppler, and Louis Gros schools took part in 18 hours of dramatic practice with Enzo Verdet, actor and director.

During those workshops, the children worked on:

• technology in the performing arts

• racism

• Japanese theatre

• the Cour d’honneur of the Palais des papes

• children’s theatre

• my word!

Better preparation for teachers:

• 2-hour artistic practice workshop with Enzo Verdet,

• discussion with the writers of the Pièce (dé)montée teaching guide on Ahmed’s return,

• open rehearsals and encounter with Didier Galas, actor and director of the show.
  

The Festival d’Avignon installed a Micro-Folie at the FabricA in the fall of 2017. Revolving around a digital museum, this project, conceived by La Villette and commissioned by the Minister of Culture, offered a selection of 250 masterpieces from 8 national museums, 360° VR experiences, reports created by college and secondary school students from Avignon (young culture reporters for the web TV of the Festival d’Avignon) and conferences.

Inspired by Bernard Tschumi, the architect of the Parc de la Villette, and his iconic Folies, the Micro-Folie offered additional features as part of a global cultural project:

• to give access to national treasures to all inhabitants, by broadcasting cultural content created by other national museums,

• to create new popular locations that reflect the values of the Republic in the regions.

The Micro-Folie is not only a place where cultural content can be accessed, but moreover one where accessing the works is made easy, in order to bring pleasure to a new public who will then feel the desire to go to museums and theatres…

The Micro-Folie was also a project for the schools of Avignon and of the Grand Avignon. Students were able to explore a state-of-the-art technological creation and discover great museums in their digital form, accompanied by experts.

Two experts were present to help the public with new digital tools (interactive tablets and VR headsets) and give presentations on four themes: Masterworks, Portraits, Liberty, and the Performing Arts.

72 students from four Avignon schools (Saint-Roch, Louis Gros, Scheppler, and Perrin-Monclar) took part in 21 hours of dramatic practice hosted by actors Sophie Mangin, Thomas Rousselot, and Enzo Verdet.

1,800 people visited the Festival d’Avignon Micro-Folie, including 16 schools from Avignon, Orange, Vedène, and Rognognas (618 students in total), as well as associations from Avignon and Villeneuve lez Avignon (104 people).

Created by STEREOPTIK (Romain Bermond and Jean-Baptiste Maillet), Dark Circus met with acclaim in July 2015 at the Chapelle des Pénitents blancs, a venue dedicated to shows for younger audiences.

In the fall of 2016, the two friends met again with students for exceptional performances in schools which touched over 2,400 students from Avignon and the Grand Avignon. And outside of school time, 105 students from the Grands Cyprès, Olivades, Saint-Ruf, Mistral, and Fabre B schools in Avignon, as well as 54 students from the elementary schools of Pujat, Sauveterre, and Saze, who discovered a passion for theatre thanks to the workshops (168 hours in total) led by professional actors Sophie Mangin and Nicolas Gény.

This new version, written and director by Olivier Py, was created specifically for the project of adaptation of educational rhythms.

Thanks to its very modest set, it creates a new proximity with the audience, and its 50-minute running time allows for a discussion after the play. In addition to the show itself, workshops (168 hours in total) led by actors Sophie Mangin and Thomas Pouget, based on the themes and form of The Young Girl, the Devil and the Mill allowed 150 children from 8 schools in Avignon (Scheppler, Saint-Roch, Thiers, Louis Gros, Monclar) and the Grand Avignon (Pujaut, Saze, Sauveterre) to discover the joy and magic of words.  

With The Young Girl, the Devil and the Mill playing at the FabricA, and as an extension of its action in the region, the Festival d’Avignon invited classes from 28 schools to 7 free performances, for a total of 2,500 young spectators, and a few grown-ups…