Avignon Over and Out

Avignon moves towards its final week with a handful of shows and artists still to discover, from festival habitués to unknown talents. After introducing Avignon to la murga, the outsider carnival of Buenos Aires, to write a new chapter in his virulent critique of consumer society, Argentine director Rodrigo Garcia proposes “Approche de l’idée de méfiance”, a pantomime of his now familiar dramatic language – a primitive dance of bodies covered in comestibles – accompanied by Garcia’s latest reflections on his chosen theme, offered as a silent text in projection. Co-founder with Avignon Associate Artist Frédéric Fisbach of the forthcoming Parisian artspace known as “104”, Robert Cantarella makes his fourth appearance here with “Hippolyte”, an alternative writing from the 16th century of the story told more famously by Racine’s “Phèdre”. And young French actor and director Gildas Milin wraps up his “Machine sans cible”, a not entirely tongue-in-cheek experiment examining the potential applications of artificial intelligence for understanding the phenomenon of love. Finally, two untested newcomers to Avignon bring up the rear of the month-long program. The Franco-Austrian collective known as Superamas concludes a trilogy of pieces incorporating video, dance and live music to irreverently explore the social confessional offered by Internet and reality shows, with “Big 3rd Episode. Happy/end”, where American voices are dubbed over the stage action. From Bulgaria via Brussels, Galin Stoev directs “Genèse nº2”, a rewriting of the Book of Genesis, “co-authored” by Ivan Viripaev, an up-and-coming playwright in his native Russia, and the fictional psychiatric patient Antonina Velikanova, who believes herself to be the wife of the Biblical figure Loth. From the conflicts of the 20th century to the origins of the world, Avignon comes full circle to finish a largely peaceful edition in 2007.

Photos: (left) “Machine sans cible”, (right) “Big 3rd Episode. Happy/end” ; Christophe Raynaud de Lage / Festival d'Avignon