Avignon Theater Festival: minute’s silence for dead Nahel | free press

2023-07-06 17:02:41

Recent events in France also have an impact on cultural life. At the festival in Avignon, this can be seen in several ways.

Avignon.

The Avignon Theater Festival started with a lot of social criticism and a minute’s silence for 17-year-old Nahel, who was killed in a police check near Paris. “Welfare” (welfare) in a production by Julie Deliquet – a play about the social misery in 1973 in a New York social welfare office – kicked off in the famous courtyard of the papal palace on Wednesday evening.

The play is based on the film of the same name by the American director Frederick Wiseman (93), who was present at the performance. It describes the everyday life of a social welfare office in New York more than 40 years ago: the misery of single mothers, junkies and alcoholics who beg for support; overwhelmed officials who may or may not help them. In view of increasing poverty due to inflation, “welfare” is more relevant today than ever.

Deliquet is known for staging films such as “Fanny and Alexandre” by Ingmar Bergman or “Eight Hours Are Not a Day” by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. After Ariane Mnouchkine and Pina Bausch, she is one of the few women to fill the huge courtyard with its imposing façade.

Text about racist police violence

Before the performance began, the director and the new festival director, the Portuguese Tiago Rodrigues, asked the around 2,000 spectators for a minute’s silence for the young North African Nahel, whose death had triggered riots in France for days. The festival is an event about the world and certainly about the current context, Rodrigues said before the festival, which lasts until July 25.

The dance and performance piece “GROOVE” by choreographer Bintou Dembélé, which was partly performed outdoors, also began with a text about racist police violence in France. She is considered a pioneer of hip hop. With her rappers, hip-hoppers and her expressive street dance, she caused a sensation in 2019 at the Bastille Opera in Paris to the sounds of the ballet opera “Les Indes Galantes” by Jean-Philippe Rameau. (dpa)