The public responded, with a 92 %overall frequentation rate, for a festival a little catch-all, without much aesthetic shock.
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Olivier Py bowed out, and the Avignon festival, 2022 edition, with him, Tuesday, July 26 in the evening. Pope PY slipped for the occasion in the black satin sheath and the red fur coat of Miss Knife, this cabaret singer whom he invented as her double, her superlative and transgender alter that which said a lot about him and his ability to put on multiple roles.
diva, again and again. But Py also shared the evening with the formidable Ukrainian singers of the Dakh Daughters group, and it was a moment of emotion that made the room get up as one man. His way, both festive and committed, to draw the curtain over his nine years at the head of the festival, from which he took the reins in 2013. The 1 er September, he will leave the Keys to the Portuguese author and director Tiago Rodrigues, first foreign artist to be sacred in Avignon.
Everyone, no doubt, dreamed that this final edition under the seal of PY is particularly flamboyant, which it was not. Without demerit. The public was there and well there, which is a first good news, at the time of the exit of COVVI-19 crisis, where strong concerns are expressed about the return of spectators in theaters. We had never seen as many people in the streets of Avignon as this year, and the overall frequentation rate of the “in” festival is 92 % – which is only slightly lower than what it was before the pandemic, and does not necessarily give an idea of the greed with which the places were torn for most of the programmed shows.
an edition held and varied
On the artistic level, it was an edition held and varied, not to say a little tote, where we could see a number of successful shows. But of great aesthetic shock, of those who wash everything by the evidence of their beauty, there was not, in this vintage 2022. The black monk, the creation of opening in the courtyard of the palace of Popes, signed by the dissident Russian artist Kirill Serebrennikov, could have played this role. But the indisputable operative power of the show, its talent to invest this difficult space that is the courtyard, have drowned in a mystico-large finish.
The Antwerp choreographer Jan Martens also seduced with his near future, the second show scheduled in the Honor Court, which deploys a collective and humanist choreographic writing. But without it being either one of these electroshocs which we know that we will keep them in memory all his life. We will put away in the department of happy memories of this transit festival, Iranian Amir Reza Koohestani, the delicious Samuel Achache drum, two children’s shows, Hansel and Gretel and Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, Anima, of the trio of shock formed by Noémie Goudal, Maëlle Poéesy and Chloé Moglia, or the Richard II signed by Christophe Rauck with a large -form Micha Lescot.
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