They play every night for three weeks in the biggest theater event in France. 16 businesses in the region have been selected by the Hauts-de-France region for the Avignon festival. Among them, six companies from the North and three from Pas-de-Calais who will play from July 7 to July 30 in the unofficial selection, the “Off”.

This device allows them to obtain around 20,000 euros to cover the costs of room location for example, but also visibility. Since the support was launched in 2000, a hundred shows in the region have been supported by this system. Discover the 2022 selection:

The Six Northern Companies

Company in the tree – Like me
Lille (59) / Immersive and ambulatory theater in the swimming pool / 6 p.m. – Camille Muffat swimming pool

Like Me is a stroll in the swimming pool addressing our need to exist in the eyes of the world, to please at all costs, sometimes to the detriment of our truth. Equipped with headphones, the public is encouraged to question self-image in adolescence: real or fantasized image?

Ants in the Lantern Company – Our little inclinations
Lille (59) / Puppet / 10 hours – Artéphile

Don’t we all seek to live happily? Is a successful life necessarily a happy life? Doesn’t happiness differ according to everyone’s sensitivities? Hasn’t this quest become tyrannical? The company Des Fourmis dans la lanterne does not claim to answer it but invites us to question ourselves together.
This piece for young and old features puppets manipulated on sight, without words but with strong images (and
metaphors)

Lolium Company – Louise of your choice
Lomme (59) / Theater for young audiences / 10 a.m. – La Factory

With the world we leave them, should the children make a revolution? Should we always listen to us, the grown-ups?
The Lolium company offers a modern fable that travels between the court of Louis XIV and our time. A joyful show that wants to twist in every way the question of freedom, the relationship to authority, and the right to disobedience.

The Friendly – Friends we need to take a break
Lille (59) / Participatory show, theater & open air / 10 a.m. – Théâtre du Train Bleu

FRIENDS is an invitation to thought and the joy it brings, it’s a short, manual, jovial piece, full of waterfalls, lianas and waves. A ten-hour journey, intimate and adventurous, playful and philosophical in which we advance step by step, like an initiatory tale, until we “let go of everything”.

The Punctual – Sealskin
Lille (59) / Theater / 7:20 p.m. – Blue Train Theater

What is the seal? A carte blanche to Cie La Ponctuelle for two proposals around the difference. Two proposals that resemble and complement each other, from their theme to their way of having been created and staged, by two artists who share a deep artistic friendship.

Prism Theater – If I lie to you, do you love me?
Villeneuve d’Ascq (59) / Theater – young audience / 10:25 a.m. – La Manufacture

If I lie to you, do you love me? tries to understand why adults, today, are composed like children, and wonders if their concerns and their anxieties would not destroy the same thing that they want to protect. Partly told as a true story, an investigation, but above all as a purely imaginary story.

The three Pas de Calais companies

Company BVZK – Janis
Harnes (62) / Musical theater / 5:05 p.m. – The 11th

The actress brought us together to trust us: she has always been convinced that she is the reincarnation of Janis Joplin. Through her relationship with the rock n’roll icon, she will gradually weave a story through which her intimate relationship with Janis is mixed with biographical elements of the singer’s life.

Rouhault Company – Odysseys 2020
Béthune (62) / Theater / 12:15 p.m. – Blue Train Theater

Odyssées 2020 is the result of the major Escales/Odyssée project bringing together several structures in Pas-de-Calais around the Homère exhibition at the Louvre-Lens, and inviting four authors in writing residency in the colleges of Béthune, Sallaumines, Bruay-la -Buissière and Lens, in contact with 6th graders.

Watermark Company 111 – The art of losing
Carvin (62) / Radiovisual theater / 4:20 p.m. – Warehouse Theater

The story of an Algerian family, from Kabylia to suburban housing, through war and exile. Naïma delves into a family history that has never been told to her. The Filigrane 111 company has chosen to anchor the adaptation of The Art of Losing, (2017 Goncourt High School Students Prize) in Hauts-de-France and to give a voice to its inhabitants through testimonials and images.