The stage turned into a center for social assistance at the start of the 77th session of the Avignon Festival. The opening performance of this event, which is considered one of the largest in the world in the field of dramatic art, began with a minute of silence for the spirit of the teenager Nael, whose killing by a policeman’s bullet led to the outbreak of violence, the worst since years in France.
This minute of silence was carried out at the request of the director of the inaugural play “Wilvier” Julie Deliquet, who also runs a theater located in the Parisian suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest region in mainland France.
The new director of the Portuguese festival, Tiago Rodriguez, chose to start the first session, which will be held under his supervision, with the play “Wilver”, a show of a social nature written by Julie Delicé, adapted from the documentary film by the American Frederick Wiseman about “15 unknown heroes during one day in a social assistance center in New York.” The director of the festival told AFP.
He added: This documentary film, which was filmed 50 years ago, “tells stories that unfortunately still resemble our current reality about the relationship between the most vulnerable and the state, but at the same time it embodies the ability to find richness in human comedy.”
For this purpose, the courtyard of honor in the Palace of the Popes, where the play was staged, was transformed into a center for social assistance, with a basketball court in the middle, benches and cabinets surrounded by sleeping mattresses, as noted by Agence France-Presse.
The Avignon Festival shows in about forty venues (for 44 performances), in the city but also outside, while the Avignon Festival, the largest live performance market in France, takes place in 140 venues and hosts nearly 1,200 theater companies.
On the occasion of the festival, strict security measures were taken, given its launch after the violence that took place in French cities for days, represented by the deployment of car units and others designated for pedestrian areas, the implementation of random operations to verify identities in public places, and the conduct of foot patrols and mountain bikes.
