Avignon Festival: Arabic makes a tentative entrance on stage
The 79 th edition of the festival features many choreographers and poets, but very few playwrights. Tamara Al Saadi, who is French-Iraqi, Essia Jaïbi, Tunisian, Bashar Murkus, Palestinian, and Wael Kadour, Syrian: The number of playwrights can be counted on one hand. Their rarity makes their presence in Avignon all the more valuable.
"What does it mean, today, to invite the Arabic language to a festival like Avignon? Which kind of Arabic is being invited? Do we want to listen to and read this language, or do we want to see bodies moving around it? Why is there more dance than performances with text? What does it mean for an Arab body to dance to the Arabic language in a European festival?" said Jaïbi, a playwright, who admitted she did not have the answers to her own questions. However, when dancer Mohamed Toukabri asked her to write a piece to support his choreography, she did not hesitate: "I entered this project with the questions that run through me."
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After English in 2023 and Spanish in 2024, Arabic – the fifth most spoken language in the world – is taking its turn as the guest language of the Avignon Festival in southeastern France. This is a strong statement by Tiago Rodrigues, the festival director, made against a tense geopolitical backdrop. In such a polarized context, Arabic finds itself, as he writes in his editorial, "held hostage by merchants of violence and hatred who assign it associations of insularity, fundamentalism, and a so-called clash of civilizations." The 79 th edition of the festival features many choreographers and poets, but very few playwrights. Tamara Al Saadi, who is French-Iraqi, Essia Jaïbi, Tunisian, Bashar Murkus, Palestinian, and Wael Kadour, Syrian: The number of playwrights can be counted on one hand. Their rarity makes their presence in Avignon all the more valuable. "What does it mean, today, to invite the Arabic language to a festival like Avignon? Which kind of Arabic is being invited? Do we want to listen to and read this language, or do we want to see bodies moving around it? Why is there more dance than performances with text? What does it mean for an Arab body to dance to the Arabic language in a European festival?" said Jaïbi, a playwright, who admitted she did not have the answers to her own questions. However, when dancer Mohamed Toukabri asked her to write a piece to support his choreography, she did not hesitate: "I entered this project with the questions that run through me."
