2023-07-08 17:09:19
The biggest live performance event is also displayed as “an eco-responsible festival”. Beyond the ecological sensitivity, the climate catastrophe to come more and more palpable in the scheduled shows, what are the concrete steps taken in the matter? Interview with Ève Lombard, the administrator of the Festival d’Avignon.
Published on: 07/08/2023 – 17:09Modified on: 07/08/2023 – 17:32
RFI: The Festival Off d’Avignon association has required the 1,395 theater companies to drastically limit posters in the streets and declares that it wants to reduce paper waste this year from 60 tonnes to 25 tonnes. What is the flagship measure of the Festival In d’Avignon this year in the field of eco-responsibility? ?
Eve Lombard : We will work primarily on energy saving. In particular with our own building, La FabricA [inaugurée en 2013, cette salle de 600 places est la seule salle de théâtre permanente du Festival d’Avignon, NDLR]. Since 2022 and until 2024, we are installing two systems to centralize flows, to adjust energy consumption and also the installation of photovoltaic panels.
What is the quantified goal of the Festival d’Avignon in the field of ecological transition? Is there a planned carbon footprint for the 2023 edition ?
Our objective is quite simply to respect the Paris Agreements [signés lors de la COP21 en 2015, ils prévoient de limiter le réchauffement climatique en dessous des 2 °C, NDLR]. We do not quantify the carbon footprint. Each year, we will focus the energy of our teams on modifying their professional practices. That’s really what we’re focused on. These are small gestures in everyday life and in all professional practice that must evolve. It is not only by numbers that we reach the Paris Agreements.
► Read also : “Let’s decarbonize culture”, arts, cinema, books, entertainment, digital…
The reopening of the Carrière de Boulbon, a legendary site and, with 1,200 seats, the second stage of the Festival, represents one of the events of this 2023 edition. To the planned cost of 350,000 euros for the reopening of the natural site were added 250,000 euros for fire safety, following the terrible fires of last summer. Have you also thought about establishing a carbon footprint for the current show The Garden of Delights of Philippe Quesne and the future exploitation of this exceptional natural and artistic site ?
By discovering Philippe Quesne’s show, you will see that he is very respectful and highlights the Carrière de Boulbon site. This is really the approach we want to take when reinvesting in a natural place like the Carrière de Boulbon. That the site be more protected by our occupation than if there were no occupation of the Festival d’Avignon. All the prevention measures, brush clearing, presence on watch to monitor possible fires, mean that the site is better protected today with the presence of the Festival d’Avignon teams than without.
That is to say, there is no planned carbon footprint ?
No, we really focus our energy and our intention. It is also more mobilizing for the teams to be in the action and to modify their practices than to be in the counting, to be followed by slightly more administrative criteria which consist at the end of quantifying a carbon footprint . We didn’t take that angle.
Ève Lombard, the administrator and responsible for environmental concerns at the Festival d’Avignon. © Siegfried Forster / RFI
In the program of the Festival this year, it is obvious that there are many shows in nature or offering another link with the environment that surrounds us. Above the garden of delights by Philippe Quesne, Caroline Barneaud and Stefan Kaegi propose, for example, to explore plains and forests to discover during a seven-hour walk (!) their set of seven pieces named Shared landscapes. Clara Hédouin designed That remains my joya show alternating play and walking in a living environment… Does this increasingly pressing ecological awareness also modify the content, aesthetics and forms of the shows selected? ?
Today, both on the side of the artists, but also of the public, we have the feeling that the connection to nature needs to be felt. It’s true, in the shows presented, the place of nature, this relationship to the living, is much more significant. We want a more meaningful relationship with the living. It’s less easy to present shows in the open air and in nature, but this relationship to the show questions our relationship to the world. Today, the heart of our relationship to the world is in our relationship to the living and to nature.
Does the Festival d’Avignon have the ambition to be a pioneer in the ecological field in the years to come? ?
Absolutely. The particularity of the Festival d’Avignon is to be this professional platform where everyone from the theater comes to Avignon during this month of July. It is also a great opportunity for discussion, demonstration, perhaps setting an example, on the evolution of our practices, collective reflection on how our professions must evolve, must mutate to be more sober in terms of professional practices. and therefore achieve these objectives of reducing our emissions within the framework of the Paris Agreements, which would be a general objective. For this, we want to benefit from the exceptional place of the Festival d’Avignon where all the professionals come together to share their practices. It is obviously the role and the ambition of the Festival d’Avignon to be this inspirer of new practices.
► July 15 at 5 p.m.: “Producing better: ecological emergency and social emergency”.
As part of the Café des Idées, the Festival d’Avignon has programmed a round table with Nicolas Dubourg (Syndeac), Jeanne Candel (director and co-director of the Théâtre de l’Aquarium), Émilie Capliez (co-director of the Comédie de Comar and President of the Association of National Dramatic Centres), Denis Gravouil (CGT), Christopher Miles (Ministry of Culture).
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