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The Avignon Festival, first stop in France

Show flyers Street performers

We met up with our friends Dana and Jaime (along with their friends Dan and Sara) for a few fun-filled days in Avignon, a beautiful and charming walled city in Provence which is famous for the performing arts festival that is held there each summer. Needless to say, time amidst creative art forms, people of all kinds, with good friends and lots of fantastic wine made for a great time.

The Avignon Festival was started in 1947 and is about to celebrate its 60th anniversary. There are technically two festivals that take place. The first is the ‘In-Festival’, or official festival, which consists of about 40 specially selected productions (in both drama and dance), most of which make their debut at the festival. The neat thing is that each of these productions are put on in some of Avignon’s unique performance venues which include churches, cloisters, an old stone quarry, and one of the city´s main attractions, the Pope’s Palace (aka. Palais des Papes). The other festival that takes place is the ‘Off-Festival’ which is made up of a few hundred other shows and productions put on by companys from all around the world that are showcased as well….its a bit like the Fringe Festival that goes on in Edinburgh every year.

Street performers Lining up for a show

We found ourselves caught up in the wonderful energy there as there were people everywhere in the streets – street performers of all types: musicians, dancers, comedians, contortionists, balloon-men, jugglers, magicians, and etc; performers out advertising their shows in costume, handing out flyers, and/or sharing little snippets of their production; people out strolling, enjoying the extremely warm summer night and checking out all the action; and cafes full of people on every corner and in every open square. During our time there we discovered that the activity, energy and excitement began early every AM and kept going until the wee hours of every night.

We spent the majority of our time wandering around the network of narrow, stone-paved streets and open plazas checking out all the street performers. We saw a really unique production called “Rictus”, which (with our limited understanding of French we were able to figure out) was a unique depiction of a totalitarian society which ends in chaos after a rebellion, and was put on by a company whose 8 out of 11 members had a mental disability. It was an engaging and thought-provoking show that we all really enjoyed. Aside from all the theater, we also spent an afternoon visiting the Palais des Papas, an enormous and impressive palace with a great view of the city, built in the 14th century showing just how wealthy the papacy was back then. Unfortunately, along with our entrance fee we were given possibly the WORST audio tour in existance that seemed to be made up primarily of boring and irrelevant filler material than interesting facts. Regardless, we left with the satisfaction of having seen the ‘must-see’ sight of the city while we were there.

>Palais des Papas The river

On the final night we realized we made it to France just in time to celebrate Bastille Day. Though there were surprise showers throughout the day, the skies cleared up in time for the fireworks, which we all watched sitting along the wall of the Palais des Papas with our homemade travel wine-glasses (which were invented by Dana – INGENIOUS!!!). Afterwards, we danced the night away to a Classic Rock cover band who played a slough of old favorites (its hilarious what a little ‘lost in translation’ can do to you favority class rock songs).

Besides enjoying the great company and the awesome energy in Avignon during the festival, we were particularly impressed by the number of families with children of all ages that were there. Aside from the incredible variety of street performers, which are entertaining for adults and children alike, the environment there is perfect for kids. It´s a great event/trip to bring kids to to introduce them to the arts and to different cultures and to have a good time. To all our friends with little sidekicks looking something fun and new to bring their kids to, we would highly reccomend it.

Special thanks to Dana and Jaime for inviting us along and Dan and Sara for putting up with us!

For more pictures from Avignon:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanlovesphotos/sets/72157594205762324/

-Shan



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One Response to “The Avignon Festival, first stop in France”

  1. Kelly Says:

    Hi Shan! I would love to get in touch with you. I am traveling to some places in the Middle East that you have visited and would like to get some tips from you if you are willing! Please contact me! 🙂

  2. Posted from United States United States

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