Avignon

Avignon [French pronunciation: ​[a.viˈɲɔ̃]] (Latin: Avenio, Arpitan: Avignoun, Occitan: Avinhon), is a commune in south-eastern France in the department of Vaucluse on the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 90,194 inhabitants of the city (as of 2011), about 12,000 live in the ancient town centre enclosed by its medieval ramparts.

Between 1309 and 1377 during the Avignon Papacy, seven successive popes resided in Avignon and in 1348 Pope Clement VI bought the town from Joanna I of Naples. Papal control persisted until 1791 when, during the French Revolution, it became part of France. The town is now the capital of the Vaucluse department and one of the few French cities to have preserved its ramparts.

The historic centre, which includes the Palais des Papes, the cathedral, and the Pont d'Avignon, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. The medieval monuments and the annual Festival d'Avignon have helped to make the town a major centre for tourism.

The commune has been awarded one flower by the National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom.

Festival d'Avignon

The Festival d'Avignon, or Avignon Festival, is an annual arts festival held in the French city of Avignon every summer in July in the courtyard of the Popes' Palace as well as in other locations of the city. Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, it is the oldest extant festival in France and one of the world's greatest. Alongside the official festival, the "In" one, a number of shows are presented in Avignon at the same time of the year and are known as the "Off".

In 2008, some 950 shows were performed during three weeks.

The Birth of a Festival

1947, The Week of Scenic Arts

Art critic Christian Zervos and poet René Char organized a modern art exhibition held in the main chapel of the Pope's Palace in Avignon. In that setting, they asked Jean Vilar, actor, director, theater director, and future festival founder, to present Meurtre dans la cathédrale which he adapted in 1945.

After refusing, Vilar proposed three plays: Shakespeare's Richard II, a play well known in France, La Terrasse de midi, by Maurice Clavel, then unknown author, and L'Histoire de Tobie et de Sara by Paul Claudel.

Festival

A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect of that community and its religion or traditions, often marked as a local or national holiday, mela or eid. Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern.

Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanksgiving. The celebrations offer a sense of belonging for religious, social, or geographical groups, contributing to group cohesiveness. They may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before the advent of mass-produced entertainment. Festivals that focus on cultural or ethnic topics also seek to inform community members of their traditions; the involvement of elders sharing stories and experience provides a means for unity among families.

Ivo van Hove

Ivo van Hove (born 28 October 1958, Heist-op-den-Berg) is a Belgian theater director best known as the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam in the Netherlands as well as for his avant garde experimental theater productions on Off-Broadway.

Career

Van Hove began his career as a stage director in 1981, working with plays he had written himself such as Ziektekiemen (Germs) and Geruchten (Rumors). He was artistic manager at AKT, Akt-Vertical and De Tijd, successively. Between 1990 and 2000 he worked as the director of Het Zuidelijk Toneel. Since 2001, van Hove has been general director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam (the Amsterdam Theatre Group). He has coordinated productions at the Edinburgh International Festival, the Venice Biennale, the Holland Festival, Theater der Welt, and the Wiener Festwochen. He has directed companies from Hamburg's Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Stuttgart's Staatstheater, directed Hedda Gabler, The Little Foxes and Scenes from a Marriage at the New York Theatre Workshop and the award winning A View from the Bridge at the Young Vic.