Continuing to connect the Luxembourg performing arts sector with those of neighbouring countries, Kultur | lx organised a second field trip to Belgium, following the visit to Brussels in May 2022. This time, the meetings focused on the French-speaking area.
This meeting was organised with the aim of allowing artists, independent collectives and production companies from Luxembourg to discover their peers with the aim of nurturing cross-border collaborations.
A delegation of twelve artists and other performing arts professionals from all disciplines took advantage of this unique opportunity to meet the managements and discover the venues of the Wallonia-Brussels federation: the Théâtre and CCN of Namur, the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, the Théâtre des Martyrs, the Halles de Schaerbeek, MARS – Mons arts de la scène, Charleroi danse, the Théâtre de l’Ancre and the Théâtre de Liège.
This visit was an opportunity for some to strengthen ties forged during their studies in Belgium or through past collaborations, and for others it allowed them to open doors that were previously difficult to open. It was certainly a reminder of the geographical and cultural proximity and the many areas of exchange that exist and can be developed between Belgium and Luxembourg.
“I very much appreciated this field trip of the performing arts in Wallonia. The meeting between several cultural actors from different countries was greatly facilitated by this initiative. I also discovered more about the directors’ vision of their cultural institution, which allowed me to better understand their respective expectations. The meetings were also very enriching thanks to the sharing of experiences and the discovery of each other’s projects. This initiative is very relevant for the deployment of Luxembourg’s performing arts, thank you!” commented Paloma Georges from Bombyx, an artists’ collective, about this trip.
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Petit frère, a play written and produced by Laure Roldàn and Gaëtan Vassart, was selected by an independent jury of renowned experts from the Luxembourg and French theatre scene to represent French-language theatre from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg at the 2023 Avignon Festival OFF. With financial support from the Ministry of Culture and Kultur | lx, the play will be staged at the Caserne des pompiers, the venue for events from the Grand Est Region under an agreement with the Luxembourg Ministry of Culture. Performances shall run from 7 – 29 July 2023.
The jury included Serge Basso de March (author and poet), Pablo Chimienti (communication and PR director at THEATER FEDERATIOUN), Godefroy Gordet (journalist, author, director and president of Le Gueuloir, a cross-border collective of playwrights), Lee Fou Messica (artistic director of the Espace Bernard-Marie Koltès – an official national theatre in Metz and co-president of the Quint’Est network) and Ian De Toffoli (author and director selected by Luxembourg for the 2022 Avignon Festival OFF).
Laure Roldàn’s submission met the jury’s criteria in terms of artistic quality, adaptation to the constraints in Avignon, and the potential for distribution. The jury commented on the sensitivity of the performance and the excellent cabaret-theatre format, combining the dramatic with the narrative and exploring both history and biography. In addition to being a tribute to Charles Aznavour and a touching account of his life, Petit Frère is also a timely reflection on brotherly love, artistic creativity, a bohemian lifestyle, migration and integration.
Produced by Laure Roldàn’s company, La Compagnie Juana La Loca and Gaëtan Vassart’s company, Cie La ronde de nuit, as a co-production with the Bombyx collective, supported by Luxembourg City Theatres through the Capucins Libre residency to complete the project, Petit frère is an adaptation of a book with the same title by Charles Aznavour’s sister, Aïda Aznavour-Gavarentz. In her book, Aïda described the peregrinations of the Aznavourians, a family saga spanning the great history of the 20th Century with Charles as the main protagonist. Laure Roldàn and Gaëtan Vassart have made the text their own and brilliantly brought its themes to the stage: the Armenian genocide; the exile of the Aznavourian parents; poverty in Paris; Nazi occupation; and Charles’ key relationship with Edith Piaf before he conquered the music halls. Highlighting this unique story, the play looks back at a history of integration though language and by dint of talent and desire. If Charles Aznavour’s fate seems universal, it’s because it is the song of exile.
About La Compagnie Juana La Loca
La Compagnie Juana La Loca is a theatre company based in Luxembourg that creates and produces live theatre performing art. Founded in 2018 by Laure Roldàn, it explores the themes of exile and cultural appropriation through language. More specifically, the company adapts texts and material that were not initially written for theatre and is particularly interested in urban spaces and interactive productions. Petit frère – la grande histoire Aznavour (Little Brother – The Great Story of Aznavour) is the company’s first production. It was followed by Les bancs publics, un intinéraire urbain inventé (Public Benches, An Imaginary Urban Walk), a musical and poetry performance offering an intimate historical and musical portrait of the city of Luxembourg during a guided walk. The next production, Les murs parlent (Walls Talk) which explores urban graffiti, marks and scars, will be a co-production between Hammana Artists House (Lebanon), St Ouen sur scene (France) and KulturFabrik (Luxembourg), supported by the Commission Internationale du Théâtre Francophone and Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg.
About Laure Roldàn
A French, Spanish and Luxembourg national, Laure Roldàn studied at the Conservatoire national supérieur d’art dramatique in Paris. She has acted under various directors, including Muriel Mayette, Hélène Vincent, Arthur Nauzyciel, Christian Benedetti, Silviu Purcarete, Vincent Goethals, Carole Lorang, Laura Schroeder, Laurent Contamin, Matthew Lenton, Myriam Muller, Pascale Noé-Adam, Laurent Guttman, Fabio Godinho, Yann Colette, Jean Boillot and Frederic Maragnani. She has also acted for cinema for directors Jean-Michel Ribes, Jean-Paul Civeyrac, Artus de Penguern, Pascal Bonitzer, and Catherine Castel. In 2011, she directed Voilà donc le Monde !, based on Lost Illusions by Balzac, at Théâtre 13. She staged Dolce inferno, an adaptation inspired by Fellini’s Dolce Vita at the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg as part of TalentLAB and assisted Yves Beaunesne on Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo. She also assisted Calixto Bieito at the Repertory Theatre in Birmingham for the performance of The String Quartet’s Guide To Sex And Anxiety. She collaborated with Gaëtan Vassart on Anna Karenine – les bals où je m’amuse n’existent plus pour moi at the Théâtre de la Tempête with Golshifteh Farahni in the lead role. During a Capucins Libre residency, Roldàn created Petit frère, la grande histoire Aznavour, an adaptation of the book by Aïda Aznavour-Gavarentz. The play will go on tour to France and Armenia. She co-directed La rue des fleurs n’existe pas with Aude-Laurence Biver and Christine Muller for TalentLAB goes city at the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg in September 2020. In spring 2021, she designed, wrote and produced Les bancs publics, an itinerant musical and poetry performance at symbolic locations across the city, in collaboration with composer Camille Rocailleux. In 2021, with Gaëtan Vassart she wrote a short film, 1 heure 30, and a feature film, Love, which is currently in production. In October 2021, she participated in the project incubator run by the Commission Internationale du Théâtre Francophone in Hammana, Lebanon, where she met artists from French-speaking countries with whom she forged strong artistic bonds.
About Gaëtan Vassart
Born in Brussels in 1978, Gaëtan Vassart is an author, director, and actor who now lives between Paris and Bastogne. He studied directing at INSAS before joining the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique in Paris in 2001. He has acted on stage under the direction of Philippe Adrien, Bernard Sobel, Eric Ruf, Gérard Desarthe, Michel Didym, Joël Jouanneau, and Laura Shroeder and performed texts by Handke, Ostrovski, Shakespeare, Valetti, Olecha, Gombrowicz. He has acted for cinema and been directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, Laurent Herbiet, and Pierre Schoeller (L’Exercice de l’Etat). Gaëtan Vassart released several albums before becoming a playwright. He wrote and directed Toni M., a text that received a CNT creation grant and a residency at the Chartreuse and was presented at the Théâtre des Halles in Avignon; Peau d’Ourse, based on the Italian tale Pentamerone, at the Maison de Radio France with Anne Alvaro; and Danseuse (support from CNT) created at the Comédie de Picardie. In 2015, he adapted Anna Karénine – les bals où on s’amuse n’existent plus pour moi, the first stage adaptation in France of Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina which he directed at the Théâtre de la Tempête in 2016 with Golshifteh Farahani in the lead role. The same year, with Jean-Claude Carrière, Gaëtan Vassart wrote a stage adaptation of the novel Elle joue by Nahal Tajadod. In 2018, he directed Miss Julie by Strindberg at the Comédie de Picardie, a co-production with the Scène nationale d’ALBI. That year, he also directed Home, partie by Naghmeh Samini at the Théâtre Aftab Hall at Fajr International Festival Théâtre in Teheran in partnership with the Cultural Department of the French Embassy in Teheran. In 2019, he directed Bérénice by Jean Racine at the Manufacture des Oeillets, at the Théâtre des Quartiers d’Ivry, Centre Dramatique National du Val-de-Marne, in a co-production with the Théâtre du Jeu de Paume d’Aix- en-Provence, with Valérie Dréville in the lead role. In 2022, he adapted L’art de perdre, based on the novel by Alice Zeniter at the 11 Avignon.
Pursuing its efforts to connect the Luxembourg performing arts sector with those of neighbouring countries, Kultur | lx organised a programme of professional meetings in France with the main actors of the Strasbourg Euroregion.
This meeting was organised with the aim of allowing artists, independent collectives and production companies from Luxembourg to discover their peers in order to foster cross-border collaborations.
A delegation of eight professionals took advantage of this unique opportunity to discover the theatres of Strasbourg and its region, even beyond the German border. Le Maillon, TAPS, Théâtre Baden Alsace, CDCN Pôle-Sud and Schiltigheim culture all opened their doors to this delegation. In addition, the Agence Culturelle Grand Est and the production and support office Artenréel#1 gave advice on how to get Luxembourg productions circulating in France and develop collaborations between the two countries.
“The visit to the performing arts sector in and around Strasbourg was very interesting because it gave us the opportunity to meet various structures that were very different in size, mission and vision. This gave us a fairly representative spectrum of venues with which we could collaborate and also an understanding of the mechanisms of production and dissemination in the territory. The directors and representatives took the time to meet with us and we had a lively and interesting discussion, which gave some of us the opportunity to talk about projects in progress that had already been sent. I also found that the eclecticism of our group, which brought together several disciplines, made it possible to open up several enriching discussions during the presentations of our work. It’s a wonderful ‘laboratory’ for encounters“, commented Sophie Langevin of the company JUNCTIO.
As the Strasbourg area has become a neighbour of Luxembourg through its integration into the Grand Est region, and as it already shares great similarities with Luxembourg, notably in its French-German bilingual dimension, these first meetings will hopefully lead to many more.
To mark the beginning of the season and of a year of support and promotion, Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg invited the performing arts sector to meet and exchange ideas on 27 September 2022.
This sectoral meeting was an opportunity to present to about thirty professionals gathered at Rotondes the different support and accompaniment mechanisms offered by Kultur | lx, their evolution during this first year of existence and how they have been allocated.
At the same time, this preliminary assessment enabled the actions envisaged for the future to be outlined, while ensuring the involvement of the sector’s actors in their design and implementation.
Thus, two working groups were formed to reflect on how Kultur | lx’s mechanisms could respond to the needs of the performing arts sector and on the creation of events to promote the Luxembourg scene internationally.
It emerged that while Kultur | lx’s support mechanisms for internationalisation seem to be adapted (Support for mobility, research and career development; Tour support; Support for Participation in Fairs; Luxembourg focus programme, Promotion support), the sector’s needs involve aid and support at a national level for the development of artistic companies, the professionalisation of cultural professions (production, distribution, administration, mediation) as well as the mechanisms, between companies and artists, for the production and promotion of Luxembourg creations in international networks.
As an anticipated response to this last point, Kultur | lx has proposed to Luxembourg production managers to set up an annual programme for foreign professionals to promote the Luxembourg scene. Entitled Focus, and initiated in December 2021 with a Focus on Dance and in February 2022 with a Focus on Theatre, this programme will consist in presenting Luxembourg’s performing arts venues and creators to international guests in order to create links that could eventually lead to collaborations.
The next Focus Performing Arts will be held from 23 to 25 March 2023 and will be repeated in the autumn from 2024.
In addition to the coordination of the Luxembourg selection in Avignon taken over by Kultur | lx and the national stand “Dance from Luxembourg” at the Tanzmesse presented in cooperation with Trois C-L, Kultur | lx is committed to develop new opportunities on similar platforms such as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the CINARS biennial, the Performing Arts Market Seoul and the Yokohama Performing Arts Market.
Furthermore, Kultur | lx proposes to continue exploring the territories of our neighbours with annual programmes of encounters with those who bring the performing arts to life in Germany, France, Belgium, but also in Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Finally, as part of its missions, Kultur | lx will contribute to reinforcing the professionalisation of the sector through a series of webinars and workshops.
It remains to be noted that all these projects could not exist without the important collective cooperation of all the actors of the sector at whose service Kultur | lx positions itself.
Establishing links with the Francophonies, Kultur | lx welcomed and met Hassane Kassi Kouyaté, Director of the Francophonies – Des écritures à la scène during the Focus Theatre last spring. On this occasion, we had the opportunity to talk with him about the festival that started on September 20th with a tribute to Monique Blin, founder of the Francophonies in 1984.
Kultur | lx: What does the Francophonies mean to you? What are the challenges?
Hassane Kassi Kouyaté: There are as many Francophonies as there are people. Language is a cultural object that expresses a combination of cultures, Francophonie is a cultural act. The accent, the way in which a sound is pressed, creates a word and also expresses different Francophonies.
What interests me is to hear authors who tell the world differently, who shed a different light. How, through these different francophonies, they tell the same world.
How do you see the programming and your relationship to plural Francophone writing?
We choose to focus on one region so that the audience can see the difference between the Francophonies from which political, academic or sociological discussions emerge (Editor’s note: the heart of the Festival will be at the Archipelago this year. Islands of words and songs, islands of music and dance, islands of terrestrial and literary nourishment. And above all, encounters, links, beyond borders to make an archipelago).
We are always on the lookout for other ways of conceiving, of saying. The different theatrical and written forms allow the artist to express his or her truth, which can be found in a universality.
We are in the craft business, every project is special and we take the time it takes to bring these projects to life.
What are your first relations with Luxembourg authors?
The meetings held during this focus have opened up perspectives and ideas for future collaboration. There is a real desire to support authors in this territory, a very positive dynamic.
Moreover, for the first time, we are welcoming a Luxembourg author in residence, Ian de Toffoli, for 6 weeks for his next project, Léa et la théorie des systèmes complexes, which will be the subject of a theatrical production, co-produced by the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg and Les Francophonies de Limoges at the beginning of the 2023/2024 season.
With the Festival des Zébrures d’automne des Francophonies de Limoges in full swing, Ian de Toffoli, who is currently in residence until 22 October, finds this festival inspiring: “Every day you can see music, concerts and, above all, plays by French-speaking authors from all over the world, from the Caribbean, Africa, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada and – soon – even Luxembourg. It’s a great place for exchange, for dialogue, a place that promotes cultural diversity and openness to the world, which we all need in these dark times. It is a festival like a breath of fresh air! I have the chance to attend performances there, to make rich and inspiring encounters, to feed myself artistically from what I see and experience.”
This year again, the Luxembourgish creation shines in Avignon with 4 plays presented.
An official delegation, composed of Sam Tanson, Minister of Culture, representatives of the Ministry of Culture and the Luxembourg Embassy in France as well as Claude Mangen, President of the THEATER FEDERATIOUN attended the dress rehearsal of Terres Arides by Ian De Toffoli with Luc Schiltz and Pitt Simon on Tuesday, July 5th at the Caserne des Pompiers. As a major venue for creation in the Grand Est region, the Caserne hosts a Luxembourg creation every year as part of the cultural cooperation between the Grand Est Region and the Luxembourg Ministry of Culture.
At the end of this performance, Luxembourgish artistic teams present in Avignon and institutional partners gathered for a convivial moment and launched the Avignon season.
For Ian De Toffoli, whose play is part of the official selection of Luxembourg in Avignon, “this festival is a bit of a contradictory experience, but all in all, it’s absolutely brilliant. On the one hand, our play, which is rather radical in its form and content, sometimes struggles to attract an audience that is not specialised or particularly interested in questions of war or radicalisation. This can sometimes be discouraging. Political theatre in a gigantic festival like Avignon is not easy. On a physical and mental level too, the festival is an ordeal, especially for the actors, who find themselves in 38 degrees, on average, replaying the same text over and over again, which is difficult, to say the least. The conditions are therefore hard. But in the end, it’s a pretty great experience. It’s a nice way to put into perspective our theatre situation, which is sometimes a bit privileged in Luxembourg“.
He adds: “on the artistic side (and human side, if you like), the exchanges that take place are rich, the encounters multiple. The different round tables and readings I participated in allowed me to get to know very interesting artists.”
The festival is indeed also a place of encounters, and to greet the presence of two Luxembourgish contemporary authors staged this year, Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg organised a round table at La Manufacture on July 13th inviting to exchange with other French-speaking authors around the theme “Writing contemporary theatre”. With Jean Portante (author of Frontalier directed by Frank Hoffmann and presented at the Théâtre du Balcon until July 30) and Ian de Toffoli, Kultur | lx brought together Dominique Dolmieu, Sedef Ecer and Hassane Kouyaté; authors of various styles and those who surround them: residencies, directors and publishers.
Other meetings and readings were organised around the Luxembourg authors among which a reading of the text of Serge Basso de March ” Il fait beau, les oiseaux chantent, le soleil brille et il est tombé du troisième étage” by Christophe Alévêque, Salvatore Caltabiano and Sebatien Lanz or the debate Migrations and borders around Frontalier organised by the Licra.
For Léa Tirabasso, whose play Starving Dingoes was presented as part of the Official Selection of Luxembourg in Avignon, it was “a joy and an honour to share our work in such a prestigious place as the Hivernales in Avignon”. She adds, “the festival was for us the opportunity to see the play mature for 10 days, to extend our professional network and to exchange every evening with a touched and curious public.”
MIDAS, Laura Arend’s play for young audiences presented at the Golovine Theatre, was performed in front of an enthusiastic audience of children and can be seen until July 29.
Watch the presentations of the Luxembourg plays in Avignon below:
While Ian De Toffoli presents his play Terres Arides in the official selection of Luxembourg at the Festival OFF d’Avignon from July 7 to 26, the three texts of Trilogie du Luxembourg are published by l’Espace d’un instant.
Staged between 2018 and 2021 in Luxembourg, France and Italy, the three texts of Trilogie du Luxembourg draw the political portrait of a divided country, where polite appearances often hide darker workings.
Terres Arides, a documentary piece about a Luxembourg journalist’s trip to Syria, examines Luxembourg’s political and legal system, asking questions about citizenship, radicalisation and the country’s apparent social peace.
The monologue Tiamat makes the journey in the opposite direction, dissecting the business of blood antiquities from the Middle East, made possible by the opacity of Luxembourg’s financial and logistical structures.
Confins recounts, since the foundation of the European Union, and beyond, the peregrinations of generations of men and women who came from Italy to sink into the mines of the iron basin of the Greater Region.
This book is published with the support of Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg.
Ian De Toffoli is one guest of the round-table discussion organized by Kultur | lx “Ecrire le théâtre contemporain” during the Festival OFF d’Avignon, alongside Dominique Dolmieu, Sedef Ecer, Hassane Kouyaté and Jean Portante.
July 13, 2022 at 4:00 pm
La Manufacture – 2, rue des écoles, Avignon
Reception and registration: pro@lamanufacture.org
About Ian De Toffoli
Born in 1981 in Luxembourg to an Italian-Luxembourg family, Ian De Toffoli is a writer, playwright and academic, author of a doctoral thesis defended at the Sorbonne-Paris IV, essays and plays translated and published in several European countries. Since 2012, his plays have been created at the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, the Théâtre national du Luxembourg, the Théâtre du Centaure, but also in France, Belgium, Germany and Italy. Since 2022, he is an associate artist of the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg.
This year, 4 Luxembourg productions will be shown in various registers (dance, theater and young audience) at the Festival OFF Avignon which will be held from July 7 to 29 (France).
Official selection of Luxembourg in Avignon
Since 2019, Luxembourg collaborates with the Grand Est region, which hosts a Luxembourg creation at the Caserne des Pompiers. Terres Arides, a play produced from a collective staging of a text by the Luxembourg author Ian de Toffoli with Pitt Simon and Luc Schiltz was chosen by a jury set up this year by the THEATER FEDERATIOUN to officially represent the Grand Ducal French-speaking theater creation. Mixing theatrical conference, storytelling and documentary theater, the play is performed until July 26 at 3:50 pm (Wednesdays off).
Les Hivernales – CDCN d’Avignon will host Starving Dingoes by Léa Tirabasso, which explores the notion of absolute tension in humans by contrasting bodily needs and spiritual life.
A rich and varied program
Frontalier by Jean Portante, directed by Frank Hoffman, performed at the Théâtre du Balcon, and MIDAS by Laura Aren, a show for young audiences performed at the Théâtre Golovine, will also represent Luxembourg at the Festival OFF in Avignon.
To greet the presence of two Luxembourgish contemporary authors staged this year, Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg organizes a meeting on July 13th at the Manufacture inviting to exchange with other French-speaking authors around the theme “Writing contemporary theater”.
Finally, as a proof of the quality and dynamism of the Grand-Ducal sector of the performing arts, there are, beyond this presence in the “Off”, 2 Luxembourgish co-productions in the “In”.
Detailed program HERE
On the occasion of the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, one of the most important events for the performing arts in Europe, Kultur | lx organised a programme of professional meetings with the main actors of the Brussels scene.
This meeting was organised with the aim of allowing artists, independent collectives and production companies from Luxembourg to discover their neighbours with a view to fostering cross-border collaborations. A dozen professionals met and exchanged ideas over three days of programming.
The participants were able to get to know historical companies such as Need Company, Ultima Vez and Crew, but also Kunstenwerkplaats, the residency programme of the Pianofabriek cultural centre and the new directions of the Varia, Tanneurs and Balsamine theatres as well as Kunstenfestivaldesarts and Les Brigittines. In addition to their respective artistic backgrounds and lines, each of them was able to express their commitment to international cooperation and their interest in Luxembourg. For the Luxembourg participants, it was also an opportunity to get to know the production, distribution and public support system in Belgium.
“Three rich and wonderful days in one of my favourite cities […]. We were meeting Théâtre and festival directors as well as professionals who generously shared their cultural philosophies, practices and politics. We learned a lot about the particularity of the Belgian performing arts sector, about the complex nature of the different communities and governments, the particular dual situation of Brussels, the difficulties, opportunities and richness this creates, and the intentions and attempts to bridge them,” commented Tania Soubry on her Instagram account about the trip.
At the end of a crisis that has disrupted the means of creation and dissemination, Belgium’s close example offers great potential for the Luxembourg scene.
During the “Theatertage Rheinland Pfalz 2022”, the international meeting “Crossing Borders” was organised on the initiative of the Staatstheater Mainz with the support of the Institut Français, the Flanders Arts Institute and Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg.
This two-days event was organised in order to allow 50 professionals, artists, independent collectives and production companies from the Grande Region, which includes Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Greater East, to get to know each other, to exchange ideas and to develop cross-border synergies.
During the first day, the participants have been invited to discuss the new modalities of cross-border work in the era of covid, to discover the financial support for culture existing in Rhineland-Palatinate, to be informed about the administrative procedures necessary for the creation and dissemination of foreign artists in Germany and finally to learn from an example of cross-border cooperation with the NEXT festival.
The second day was an opportunity for 8 Luxembourgish artists to present their projects for which they are looking for distribution or partners, to a group of professionals and programmers from Germany, Belgium, France and Luxembourg: Ian de Toffoli / Projet des Théâtres de la Ville; Saeed Hani / Hani Dance; Anne-Mareike Hess / Utopic Productions; Hannah Ma / The People United; Pascale Noé Adam / Bombyx; Tammy Reichling /Maskenada; Anne Simon / Volleksbühne; Dagmar Weitze / Kopla Bunz
Tiamat by Ian de Toffoli – translate in German – has been read by Luc Schiltz on 14 March to replace AppHuman by Ian de Toffoli, directed by Sophie Langevin, which was unfortunately cancelled due to Covid.
Finally, as part of the Theatertage, author Elise Schmitz joined a week-long writing workshop led by Chris Thorpe, bringing together authors from the Grande Region to discuss their work and address the issues of writing for the stage in a multilingual context, thus opening up the borders to contemporary dramaturgies.