Avignon: Liddell, Charmatz, Lola Arias, La Ribot, Formiga Atómica are Tiago Rodrigues’ main bets
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The second edition of the Avignon Festival directed by Tiago Rodrigues, the only foreigner in its leadership since its creation 78 years ago, will be dedicated to the idea of transmission. After having imagined the festival as a “European café, very bright, a place for debate, democratic meeting and discussion around artistic creation, very inspired by what determined its foundation”, a concept that allowed him to convince political decision-makers French people choosing him for that place, the Portuguese director wants to focus again on the idea of exchange. “The phenomenon of civilization involves the idea of transmission, which I see as opposition to the idea of archive. Transmission is what we are doing in this conversation, it is what happens in a classroom. It has a dimension of imperfection, but it also has a side of invention, and it is this idea that will permeate this edition of the festival”.
Dedicated to the Spanish language, after the first edition was devoted to the English language, the Avignon Festival may have fewer surprises for the Portuguese than for the French, similar to what happened last year. Tim Crouch, for example, presented for the first time in France last year – and an integral part of Tiago Rodrigues’ candidacy for director of the festival – has been a regular presence in Portugal over the last 20 years, namely at Culturgest, where Tiago Rodrigues saw it for the first time. “That’s one of the advantages of being a foreign artist arriving in France. I carry my luggage with me, my Portuguese history. I have some cards, some aces saved in my pocket that we know here,” concludes the former director of the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II. This year the formula repeats itself. Some of the names that Tiago Rodrigues bets on are well known to Portuguese audiences. Less than the French ones. This is the case of Angélica Liddell, Boris Charmatz, Lola Arias or La Ribot.
Angélica Liddell, “the only woman who was present in Avignon in the last three directions”, highlights Tiago Rodrigues, has been a regular presence at the Citemor Festival, in Montemor-o-Velho, where she usually does creative residencies, as happened in the last edition. The Spanish playwright and director arrived in Baixo Mondego in 2007 to present three performances, returned in 2009, 2013, 2018 and 2023, and has already presented some of her largest works at Culturgest and also at Teatro D. Maria II .
Spanish playwright and director Angélica Liddell
This time, Angélica Liddell will have the honor of performing the opening show of the festival, on the stage of Palácio dos Papas, “where I don’t think she has ever been”, says Tiago Rodrigues. The Spanish playwright and director presents a show created based on the instructions that Ingmar Bergman himself left written, down to the smallest detail, for his funeral, transforming this ceremony into his last performance and prohibiting any type of audiovisual collection. During the 2023 residency, at the Citemor Festival, Liddell created and presented, at the Esther de Carvalho Theater, a kind of equally funeral ceremony (see photo), a small part of a larger show.
Liddel will be the first creator to take the stage, at a festival that has the Spanish language as a guest. The program will seek to offer a panorama that encompasses the various dimensions of Castilian, meaning there will be room to present performative production from South America, as well as historical and colonial issues. Artists from Chile, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina are expected. From the latter country, the most important of the guests is Lola Arias, who will present a work that Tiago Rodrigues awaits with some expectation: “One of the projects that I believe could be quite notable at this festival will be the new creation of Lola Arias, another regular artist on Lisbon stages. After visiting Avignon, more than ten years ago, in the context of the presentation of a work by Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protokoll), Lola Arias – recently winner of the Ibsen Prize, which in theater is equivalent to the Nobel Prize for Literature – presents now with a new creation that is the continuation of the film that has just been presented at the Berlin Festival, about transgender women who were detained and went through the transition process in prison.”
Another of the important moments of the first days of Avignon will be handed over to another well-known figure among the Portuguese, the also Spanish La Ribot. “It looks incredible, but it has never performed at the festival. She is an artist that I know particularly well, and with whom I have worked. It seemed absolutely inevitable to have her at the festival, especially in a year in which the Spanish language is invited, because she is perhaps one of the greatest living choreographers in Spain”, explains Tiago Rodrigues. La Ribot will present ‘Juana Ficción’, which deals with the story of “Joana, first of Castile, who, for many years, and unfortunately, was called Joan, the crazy one, and this is in some way a way of revisiting and recovering a figure of a woman who was completely marginalized”.
“It would be provincial for the Portuguese to be harmed because I am Portuguese. Therefore, I will try to exercise the same impartiality and objectivity that I exercise in relation to all other nationalities and invite artists for their quality”, Tiago Rodrigues
Tiago Rodrigues created the role of accomplice artist within the festival, and called Boris Charmatz to occupy it. The choreographer presents three works. “One of them is a kind of open-air studio, with free entry, where two hundred people learn to dance in a circle.” Another is “Liberté Cathédrale” – Charmatz’s first creation as director of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal – and the last, the most important, is presented as one of the great moments by Tiago Rodrigues. This is a revisitation of the show “Café Müller”, by Pina Bausch. The emblematic piece in the history of dance will be remade in a ‘loop’ that will last seven hours, as if it were a choreographic installation that can be visited in a museum. Throughout these hours, in the various casts, the performers, some of the original, current and also amateurs, rotate. “We challenge Charmatz to think about something around “Café Müller”, which is a piece that was also very influential in his career”, and which lives up to the idea of transmission, the subtext of this edition.
Portugal will have a single participation in this edition. These are Miguel Fragata and Inês Barahona, founders of Formiga Atómica. They present “Terminal, OK”, a show anchored in documentary work about vanished landscapes. “Part of the research was carried out in Avignon on a mountain that burned in 2021, and which caused a major tragedy in the region. It is a very strong work, and one that we think deserves to continue to be followed by the festival. They were previously at the Avignon Festival, with work for children and youth, so this is a return, which we greatly appreciate. It would be provincial for the Portuguese to be harmed because I am Portuguese and, therefore, I will try to exercise the same impartiality and objectivity that I exercise in relation to all other nationalities and, above all, invite artists for their quality and the urgency to share them with the festival audience,” explains Tiago Rodrigues.
It is recalled that Tiago Rodrigues was invited to present a candidacy for the direction of the festival, whose final decision on appointment took place after a meeting with Macron, who had the last word. He had to present a proposal, and went through several phases like other candidates. The choice of Tiago Rodrigues broke with the past, as the festival had never been directed by a foreigner. Tiago Rodrigues highlighted his vision of the festival as a place created by the artists themselves: “It is not a festival just for distributing pieces that already exist, but it is a festival that accompanies artists when they have ideas and need to create their pieces. A festival that discusses the world, that debates what theater and the performing arts should be, and that is famous for its passionate audience, and sometimes visceral reaction to the shows.”
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