For greater visibility of Quebec performing arts at the Festival d’Avignon
This week-long mission was led by CINARS, which works to support the export of Quebec and Canadian performing arts. It should have taken place in 2020, but the pandemic postponed the project for two years.
It was an extraordinary dive
rejoices Alain Paré, President and CEO of CINARS. It was important to rename the existence of Quebec after two years of pandemic. With COVID-19, we have to be even more aggressive [dans la présence du Québec].
The objective of this week was to meet potential partners on site and to explore how to better position and adapt our ways of offering for visibility in Quebec in Avignon
he adds.
Five Quebec companies – the DLD dance company; the contemporary skating troupe Le patin libre; The illusion, puppet theatre; the Agence Roger Roger, which specializes in the production of shows, and the theater company L’acteur en marche – took part in this mission, which was also joined by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
As every year, several Quebec companies have performed on their own in the Avignon adventure, such as Machine de cirque, FLIP Fabrique and Le gros oreille, all of which operate in the circus field.
Conquering Europe
While countries like Belgium and Switzerland have been organizing for a long time to showcase their performing arts at the Avignon Festival, Quebec is more timid even though the stakes are high.
The festival, which includes an official program and a much larger unofficial one, attracts the general public, but also around 1,000 programmers, mostly from France, who come to find shows to put on display in their halls. .
If Quebec companies want to shoot abroad, Avignon is the gateway
explains Quebec director and performer Alix Dufresne, whose show hidden paradise was successfully presented by DLD during the festival this year.
If we speak well of you in Avignon, the doors of Europe open much more easily
she adds, adding that up to 40 programmers a day have seen her show on tax evasion combining theater and dance created in 2018.
Sign of the importance of this event, the show mixing clowns and acrobatics Globalperformed for the first time at the festival by the Montreal company Les Foutoukours, left Avignon with dates on his agenda for the next three years in France. The professionals responded very well to the show, indicates Rémi Jacques, one of the interpreters of Global and one of the co-founders of Foutoukours. We are very happy.
The artist is all the more pleased that the French, Belgian and Swiss markets are quite difficult to conquer
according to his words, because the competition is very strong and there is already a lot of circus
.
A colossal investment and an exhausting marathon
If the festival can represent a good springboard to shine in Europe, performing there represents a big financial risk.
It is at your own risk, underlines Alix Dufresne. There are companies that went bankrupt after Avignon.
It’s’American dream : you hope that your company will be discovered, that you will sell tickets and your show, but out of the 1570 shows presented in a month, not everyone succeeds
she continues.
Rémi Jacques agrees. You have to have strong reins, he says. There are people who put on shows in front of three people
.
Presenter hidden paradise at the Avignon Festival required four years of preparation for Alix Dufresne. She estimates the cost of the project at $200,000 – partly subsidized – between the rental of the hall, the remuneration of the interpreters, the payment of copyright, public relations and communication expenses, but also housing, food. and airfare. Just an advertising insert in a newspaper, it’s 7000 euros, [soit plus de 9000 dollars canadiens].
Beyond the financial aspect, participating in this festival is a marathon, with days of warm-ups, daily performances, setting up and taking down the set in 15 minutes – the same theater can host five different shows a day – distribution flyers for an hour or two a day and networking. And this, under a suffocating heat and in a small town full of people from 8 am to 3 am.
That’s the intensity of two years of my normal life in a month
summarizes Alix Dufresne.
Going to the streets to make yourself known by putting up posters or handing out flyers is essential to bring the public into the cinema. So that Global stands out among the 1,570 shows on offer, Les Foutoukours invested in a float making bubbles with which Rémi Jacques and his colleague traveled the streets of Avignon, dressed in white fur suits.
Towards more public support?
To financially and mentally survive this madness
as the two artists describe the experience of the Avignon festival, a collective effort to structure Quebec’s presence at the festival, as Belgium or Switzerland do, and increased support from public authorities would be welcome.
A structure must exist, because it is hard to bear for a small company
explains Alix Dufresne, who would like to see Quebec set up a pavilion at an upcoming Avignon festival and offer companies more money to shine abroad.
The mission led this year by CINARS was a first step, according to Alain Paré. We will definitely be in Avignon again next year.
In the meantime, CINARS is also organizing a first mission to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which takes place until August 29 in Scotland and which attracts programmers from all over the world.
This event, in which Les Foutoukours also participates with the Brotipo show this time, but also FLIP Fabrique, is even bigger than the Avignon festival, because it brings together around 3,500 different shows.