From 28 to 31 August, Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg and the TROIS C-L | Maison pour la danse are presenting the richness and diversity of Luxembourg’s contemporary dance scene on a national stand in Düsseldorf (Germany) as part of the international tanzmesse nrw 2024.

No fewer than 5 Luxembourg choreographers have been invited to take part in the world’s largest gathering dedicated to contemporary dance: William Cardoso, Jennifer Gohier, Saeed Hanni, Rhiannon Morgan and Giovanni Zazzera, who will be taking advantage of this platform to forge links with the international professionals attending the fair.

The ‘Dance from Luxembourg’ stand will be a key meeting point for the Luxembourg dance scene as a whole, giving them the opportunity to make contacts, exchange knowledge, talk to international professionals and present their current and future projects. Support modules and communication tools (visuals, brochures, presentation videos, etc.) have been developed for each choreographer to help artists promote and disseminate their work.

MEGASTRUCTURE, a choreographic collaboration between Sarah Baltzinger & Isaiah Wilson, will be presented as one of 27 works selected for the Open Studio at the tanzmesse. After the presentation of the piece, which is available for touring, a Q&A session will be held with the artists. This duet, like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces are constantly being dismantled, searched for, fitted together, tested and reinvented, will be presented on 29 August from 2.15pm to 3.35pm at Studio 4.

Visit the “Dance from Luxembourg” stand from 28 to 31 August at the tanzmesse nrw.

Luxembourg’s creative talent is making its presence felt on the French Riviera this summer, in the fields of photography, visual arts and performing arts. From Arles to Avignon, via Marseille, we take a look back at an extremely rich programme featuring Luxembourg artists!

After being a regular visitor to Les Rencontres d’Arles, Michel Medinger has been awarded the Luxembourg Photography Award 2024 by Lët’z Arles, which is devoting an exhibition to him curated by Sylvie Meunier at Les Rencontres d’Arles from 1 July to 29 September 2024, at the Chapelle de la Charité.

Comprising some thirty original photographs and around a dozen prints reproduced on light boxes, as well as numerous objects displayed in a monumental cabinet of curiosities, the exhibition Michel Medinger – L’ordre des choses resonates with the baroque architecture of the Chapelle de la Charité.

The exhibition, which opened on 3 July in the presence of Eric Thill, Minister for Culture; H.R.H. the Hereditary Grand Duchess of Luxembourg; H.E. Mr Marc Ungeheuer, Ambassador of Luxembourg to France; Florence Reckinger-Taddeï, President of Lët’z Arles; Gilles Zeimet, Director of the CNA; Cécilia Zunt-Radot, Director of Lët’z Arles; Patrick de Carolis, Mayor of Arles; Christoph Wiesner, Director of Les Rencontres d’Arles and Isabelle Medinger, the artist’s daughter.

In Avignon, the international press and professionals will also have the opportunity to discover the 8 Luxembourg productions and co-productions that will be shown at the Festivals IN and OFF Avignon. A breakfast with artists and venue managers hosting Luxembourg productions was organised on Thursday 4 May in the presence of Eric Thill, Minister for Culture. It was an opportunity to talk to the artists about the challenges of the Festival OFF d’Avignon and to find out about the productions being presented there until 21 July.

Marion Rothhaar and Jennifer Gohier put sports at the heart of creation in this Olympic year. Jennifer Gohier presents her show for young audiences, GO! at Train Bleu, which places the moral path of the martial arts and respect for one’s opponent at the heart of this creation. At La Manufacture, Corps au bout de monde retraces the experience of top-level sports by a former West German gymnast, Marion Rothhaar, now a member of the Luxembourg multi-disciplinary collective Maskénada. “It’s my first time in Avignon and I had no idea what the atmosphere would be like: the competition but also the complicity between the cultural players, it’s enormous! And with so many people interested in different kinds of theatre, it’s great to see“, says Marion Rothhaar.

At l’Atelier, in partnership with Les Hivernales as part of the “On (y) danse aussi l’été!” festival, the production MEGASTRUCTURE presents a performative dance duo. Led by cross-border choreographers Sarah Baltzinger and Isaiah Wilson, they say they are “[…] very happy to be experiencing this special moment, to have the chance to perform a series and to receive such a warm welcome from the audience. The venue is getting fuller and fuller, with a full house last night! We’re continuing to work on our communications and hope to have some great spin-offs!”

A reading organised by Le Gueuloir as part of the Souffle d’Avignon festival brought together 3 Luxembourg authors in the Cloître Benoît XII of the Palais des Papes, which was sold out. Jean Boillot gave voice to texts by Aude-Laurence Biver, Ian De Toffoli and Tullio Forgiarini. “Le Gueuloir is a house that welcomes the diversity of contemporary theatrical writing, its authors and also its voices, those who read our texts. Being here at the Souffle d’Avignon, in this prestigious venue that is the Palais des Papes, has proved to us that being a playwright means being “shouted at, to write better”.

Last but not least, the Mediterranean will be the setting for three Luxembourg artists in the city of Marseille: MUCEM, with a site-specific light installation by Brognon Rollin entitled “Le Phare”, followed by Marie Capesius in a collective exhibition entitled “Paradis Naturiste”, on view until 9 December, and Triangle-Astéride, with “Le prix du ticket”, an exhibition by Aline Bouvy which has been extended until 1 September.

Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg is thrilled to support for the second time the presence of Luxembourg productions both in dance and theatre at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe which will take place from 2 to 26 August.

The Luxembourg performing arts scene, just like the country itself, is rich in languages, influences and aesthetics, and has long been open to the international scene and involved in numerous creative and cooperation networks. Presenting at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is therefore an obvious milestone on its development path.

Several shows from Luxembourg have already been successfully staged at the Fringe in recent years.
Supported by Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg, and hosted by Summerhall, C Venues, Dance base and Assembly, this second Luxembourg selection at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe will shine the spotlight on dance and physical theater. The three aesthetically different productions made by three diverse choreographers will fully showcase the range and multiplicity of Luxembourg’s culture and creations.

Luxembourg’s official selection at Festival Fringe

Masquerading as a sequel to an earlier, non-existent version of itself, The Passion of Andrea 2 is a mischievous con artist of a dance piece about feelings of uneasiness, the inability to fully understand, and the painful desire for more. In a whirlwind of tours de force as skilful as frivolous, three figures in curly wigs are propelled through odd loops of burlesque scenes and increasingly disconcerting worlds of impossibilities. This work created by Simone Mousset will be presented from 13 to 25 August at 19:00 (excluding 19.08) at The Assembly (Dance Base – Studio 1).

Growing up we loose the ability to live in connection with our mind. We become increasingly preoccupied by what is useful. The desire for power, control and perfection. Man becomes comparable to a supernatural creature. Obsessed, this creature sucks the life out of those who dare to confront it. Dreams, simple pleasures and poetry are suffocated. The Hidden Garden by Jill Crovisier is a mysterious place where the real and the fantastic are intertwined. A choreography inspired by the gothic novel, fantastic literature, and the modern customs of today’s society which will be shown from 13 to 26 August at 15:35 (excluding 19.08) at Summerhall – TechCube0

Giovanni Zazzera invite you to immerse yourself for a short time in the discovery of a curious and atypical character who will transport you to his absurd and poetic universe where negation is confronted with convictions, thus creating in the opposition a journey of transformation and metamorphosis of bodies. NEGARE is a choreographic solo as a part of a Triptych series of the CREDERE which will be presented from 12 to 25 August at 14:40 (excluding 19.08) at C ARTS | C venues | C aquila.

Extend your discovery of Luxembourg creation

In the wake of these three shows of the Luxembourg selection, take time to also discover two comedies from Anu Vaidyanathan : BC.AD – Before Children, after Diapers and Menagerie at Gilded Balloon – The Penny.

Detailed programme here.

This year 8 productions and co-productions from Luxembourg will be staged at the Avignon IN and OFF Festivals. A reading organised by Le Gueuloir, bringing together 3 playwrights from Luxembourg, will also be hosted as part of Souffle d’Avignon.

Luxembourg Selection at Avignon

In a year with the Olympics, two of the selected productions revolve around sport. Corps au bout de monde at the Manufacture tells the story of Marion Rothhaar, a retired elite gymnast from the former West Germany, now a member of Maskénada, a multidisciplinary collective from Luxembourg. The play will run every day from 4 to 21 July (except 9, 10, 16 and 17 July) at 4.45 p.m.

At the Théâtre du Train bleu, the morals of martial arts and respect for one’s opponent are explored in GO !, a play for young audiences performed by the cross-border company Artezia/Corps in Situ, running from 3 to 21 July (except 8 and 15 July) at 7 p.m.

At the Atelier, in partnership with Hivernales as part of the On (y) danse aussi l’été! Festival (Let’s dance (here) in summer too!), MEGASTRUCTURE is a dance performance created by Sarah Baltzinger and Isaiah Wilson, an award-winning cross-border duo of choreographers listed by the Aerowaves network as one of the top 20 emerging creators to follow in 2024. The show will run from 6 to 16 July at 6 p.m. (except 10 July).

As part Souffle d’Avignon, organised by Scènes d’Avignon, 6 French-language playwrights living in Luxembourg, the Grand Est region and Belgium will explore the theme ‘inhabit the Earth, populate the world, write for the stage’ through texts created as part of the cross-border collective Le Gueuloir. Discover new writing by Luxembourgers Aude-Laurence Biver, Ian De Toffoli and Tullio Forgiarini read by Jean Boillot with Massimo Riggi, Ali Esmili, Régis Laroche, Laure Roldàn, Pauline Collet and Aude-Laurence Biver on 9 July at 6.30 p.m. in the Cloître Benoît XII du Palais des Papes.

A rich and diverse programme beyond the official selection

Héritage by Cédric Eeckhout, co-produced by Les Théâtres de la Ville, will run at the Théâtre des Doms and also represent Luxembourg at the Festival OFF d’Avignon.

In addition to shows at the OFF festival, 4 co-productions from Luxembourg by Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg will showcase Luxembourg’s outstanding dynamic arts scene during the IN festival: Absalon, Absalon ! based on the work by William Faulkner and produced by Séverine Chavrier; Elizabeth Costello. Sept leçons et cinq contes moraux (Elizabeth Costello, Seven lessons and five moral tales) based on the work by J.M. Coetzee and directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski; Lacrima by Caroline Guiela Nguyen; and  Liberté Cathédrale by Boris Charmatz.

Following a call for applications for the choreography research and production residency at Uferstudios Berlin, choreographer William Cardoso was selected from a list of four applicants.

Jury members Ainhoa Achutegui (neimënster), Mathis Junet (TROIS C-L – Centre de Création Chorégraphique Luxembourgeois), Jérôme Konen (Kinneksbond, Centre Culturel Mamer) and Anne-Mareike Hess (choreographer and 2023 laureate) assessed the applications received and made their recommendation to Uferstudios. At the end of the procedure, William Cardoso was selected by the Uferstudios Berlin board.

This six-week international residency allows choreographers to immerse themselves in the Berlin creative scene and network with local artists, thus serving as a boost to their long-term career development.

Statement by Uferstudios
Simone Willeit, director of Uferstudios, commended the standard of the four applications forwarded by the jury. She noted both the support that William Cardoso receives as well as the vulnerability of the choreographer’s early career and the important role he plays in the LGBTQI+ community. The Director felt that this second opportunity, like the first residency (William Cardoso was a resident at Ueferstudios in 2021), would quicken the pace of William Cardoso’s development work and also promote the causes he defends.

Statement by William Cardoso
During this residency, William Cardoso hopes to “explore the local scene, experiment with new approaches (…) Angriff explores an intimate scene between two men and aims to create a performance that transcends the limits of the ground, rising up to new heights. The residency in Berlin will allow me to be in the same place as a stable team and thus immerse myself fully into the topic and the performance without being hindered by logistical considerations. This is a luxury for any artist because it guarantees continuity in the research process.”

About William Cardoso
William Cardoso is a choreographer and dancer based in Luxembourg and Portugal. His work celebrates everything that is a contradiction, unpredictable, creative and committed. It addresses intimate, personal issues that affect everyone. His performances point the finger at a heteronormative, patriarchal society. Hungry for change and filled with anger at injustice, his work often focuses on a fight and a physical effort as it defends various issues.

With his three works to date (Raum, Dear Mum, Baby), William Cardoso has developed his own identity using a unique language. A dialogue between bodies in conflict with their minds. His work echoes contact improvisation, yet goes against the flow with non-fluid, short, sharp movements.

IETM will come to Luxembourg for the first time with the support of Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg (28-30.11.2023). As a performing arts professional from Luxembourg, this is a unique opportunity to discover this network and engage with your international peers.

This Focus meeting will address the one topic we all have to face –  the climate crisis. Although the cultural sector is far from being the one that has the most impact on the environment, each and every one of us has to face reality and deal with it. This second edition of the Focus meeting will be the final event in IETM’s first year of environmental transitioning, and will bring members and professional guests together for a joint brainstorm. Participants will benefit from the targeted programmes and accumulated knowledge gathered by the network through all its activities in 2023 and work towards co-creating an eco charter for the entire network.

In addition to the networking opportunities, Luxembourg’s dance scene will be showcased, with the TROIS C-L – Centre de Création Chorégraphique Luxembourgeois presenting a panorama of the local contemporary dance scene.
Detailed program HERE

To better support Luxembourg’s dancers and choreographers, Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg, the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg and TROIS C-L – Centre de Création Chorégraphique Luxembourgeois, in partnership with the National Dance Centre in Lyon and Le Gymnase CDCN in Roubaix, offers grants to a creative team based in Luxembourg to develop a dance project.

This grant runs over two years (2024 + 2025) and will support all aspects of the creative process: project development, promotion and international networking. The grant will also provide direct financial support for the production, residencies in Lyon and Roubaix, presence on international platforms, and funding for the development phase.

Following a call for applications, five proposals were received and the jury unanimously decided to award the EXPEDITION grant to William Cardoso.

Winner Statement
For William Cardoso, this grant represents “an extraordinary, unmissable opportunity (…) which will be the perfect occasion to create a new choreography in the perfect conditions. It will allow me to consolidate and further strengthen my relationships with cultural stakeholders at international level. The high-quality residencies offered by prestigious institutions such as the CN D in Lyon, Le Gymnase CDCN in Roubaix, the Grand Théâtre and TROIS C-L in Luxembourg, will allow me to develop a new work titled Deadline.

Deadline will explore and present the theme of rupture, a frequent occurence throughout our lives. This work seeks to disrupt the system to make a fresh start, rupture for rebirth. ”

Jury Statement
The jury, composed of representatives from the five partner institutions (Bernard Baumgarten – TROIS C-L; Tom Leick-Burns and Anne Legill –  Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg; Davy Brun – CN D Lyon; Laurent Meheust – CDCN – Le Gymnase in Roubaix) commended the relevance and urgency of the theme of the project which demonstrate both the choreographer’s creative flow and the notions of our times. The jury noted William Cardoso’s unique approach to the body and the relationship between genders and praised the young choreographer’s maturity. The EXPEDITION grant will support the artist’s consistant career development, giving him the opportunity to take his research further, explore larger forms of choreography, and connect with international production and distribution networks.

About William Cardoso
William Cardoso is a choreographer and dancer based in Luxembourg and Portugal. His work celebrates everything that is a contradiction, unpredictable, creative and committed. It addresses intimate, personal issues that affect everyone. His performances point the finger at a heteronormative, patriarchal society. Hungry for change and filled with anger at injustice, his work often focuses on a fight and a physical effort as it defends various issues.

With his three works to date (Raum, Dear Mum, Baby), William Cardoso has developed his own identity using a unique language. A dialogue between bodies in conflict with their minds. His work echoes contact improvisation, yet goes against the flow with non-fluid, short, sharp movements.

The 2023 edition of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe welcome Luxembourg productions for the first time among the 3,553 shows from 67 countries. The Fringe, is an arts festival inaugurated in 1947 taking place every August in Edinburgh, Scotland, for three weeks. It’s currently the largest arts festival in the world. The Fringe – whose name refers to fringe theatre – is a non-juried festival with no selection committee, allowing any type of show to take part, and often featuring experimental work that would probably not have been presented at other festivals of its kind.

The Fringe is a recognised festival by international programmers who are looking for international creation. The festival is the ideal platform for showcasing contemporary work from the UK and 17 other countries in 2023, including the Luxembourg selection, which has been set up with the support of Kultur | lx.

Four Luxembourg productions took center stage at some of the festival’s most prestigious venues: stark bollock naked  by Larisa Faber and Shoot the Cameraman by AWA – As We Are at Assembly, Lovefool by Gintare Parulyte at Summerhall and This is a scam. by Anne Klein at The Space UK.

This enabled them to confront a whole new audience and reach out to their peers from all over the world, as the festival registered 1,359 professionals from 49 countries. In the light of the public, professional and critical feedback, the Fringe should prove to be a career accelerator for the shows presented and their creators.

Kultur | lx will therefore continue its efforts in the years to come to support other companies as they explore the world’s largest platform for the performing arts.

Luxembourg productions and co-productions were strongly represented at the 77th Festival d’Avignon and the 57th Festival OFF Avignon.

While the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg supported 2 co-productions among the Festival d’Avignon programme, namely Extinction by Julien Gosselin and The Confessions by their associate artist Alexander Zeldin, 4 Luxembourg productions were well represented among the 1,491 shows that made up the Festival OFF. The Théâtre National du Luxembourg stood out at the Théâtre du Chêne noir with Frank Hoffmann‘s production of Roland Dubillard’s Crabes and at the Espace Saint Martial with Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables revisited by Isabelle Bonillo. Finally, as part of the Luxembourg Selection, Kultur | lx supported the presence of the play Petit frère – la grande histoire Aznavour by Laure Roldàn and Gaëtan Vassart at the Caserne des pompiers, Théâtre de la Région Grand Est, as well as the dance production Hear Eyes Move. Dances with Ligeti by Elisabeth Schilling at the CDCN d’Avignon – Les Hivernales as part of the “On (y) danse aussi l’été!” festival, all part of an increasingly interdisciplinary festival.

The presence of Luxembourgish productions at what is undoubtedly one of the largest live performance events in the world, and the largest in the French-speaking world, is an important opportunity for the country’s artistic teams to present their work to different audiences and to gain access to French and international professionals. While Avignon was an opportunity for Elisabeth Schilling to break into the French market and present her work to programmers from all over France, it was also a chance for people more familiar with the French scene, such as Laure Roldàn, to deepen their network and, beyond the prospects of touring the piece she presented, to consider collaborations for her next creation.

Kultur | lx will continue its efforts in the coming years to provide as many opportunities as possible for Luxembourgish directors and choreographers to showcase their work in Avignon, with the best support and conditions.

Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg is thrilled to support for the first time the presence of Luxembourg productions both in dance and theatre at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe which will take place from 2 to 28 August.

The Luxembourg performing arts scene, just like the country itself, is rich in languages, influences and aesthetics, and has long been open to the international scene and involved in numerous creative and cooperation networks. Presenting at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is therefore an obvious milestone on its development path.

Luxembourg’s official selection at Festival Fringe

Larisa Faber question motherhood in her play Stark bollock naked. An international smash hit about our reproductive shelf life and what (not) to do with those (ageing) eggs. Featuring stunning video mapping, comedy-infused storytelling and a live score of gynaecological instruments, Stark bollock naked is a multimedia show with a real naked body and an honest conversation about reproduction, abortion and the biological clock presented from, 02 to 28 August at 15:10 (excluding Tuesdays) at The Assembly. Game ovaries.

In Shoot the Cameraman, AWA – As We Are blend the instinctive and spontaneous quality of live performance with the possibilities of the seventh art by joining camera operators with live dancers on stage. The audience will thus be offered a permanent double reading of the piece and have the opportunity to simultaneously attend a live performance on stage and on screen. By forcing the audience to choose where to focus their attention, AWA – As We Are challenges them and plays with perspectives. If what we see with our own eyes seems unfalsifiable, it quickly becomes clear that the framing of a shot can be a matter of pure manipulation. Shoot the Cameraman questions the omnipresence of the image in our lives and ingeniously sharpens the critical gaze of the audience. An essential production to discover in the age of fake news from 02 to 28 August at 15:00 (excluding Wednesdays) at The Assembly Roxy Central.

Extend your discovery of Luxembourg creation

In the wake of these two shows of the Luxembourg selection, take time to also discover Lovefool by Gintare Parulyte performed from 02 to 27 August at 19:15 in Summerhall and This is a scam. by Sølve Sundsbø and Anne Klein from 21 to 26 August à 11:50 at The Space.

Detailed programme here.