Nature raises the curtain this summer on new stagings. In addition to the thousand sounds, rustles and songs of the living, human melodies are added in unusual places. Troupes of actors, orchestras, visual artists but also circus artists and acrobats, invest fields, pine forests, mountains, cliffs, valleys and other reliefs of our French landscapes to deploy their practices in the open air. Arts no longer of the street but of rurality... For these budding naturalists, summer tours no longer go from theaters to concert halls, but from meadows after mowing to late-season foreshores. For some, the opportunity for a simple getaway. But most of the time this rural relocation also arises from a desire to shake up the lines of live performance, with a reflection on the links between art and nature, motivated by the broader desire to reinvent our relationship with the living. Covid has served as an accelerator for this desire to get outside, a trend that recalls the early days of ancient theater where dramaturgies were played out under the celestial vault. New alliances are emerging, creations specially designed for these extraordinary settings are being set up. We have seen farms open their barns to companies of artists, back roads welcome climbing guitarists, lakes transform into ephemeral stages, cows watch herds of spectators parade through the tall grass. These literally off-site creations are all the rage. The public is there, asking for more, and equipping themselves... Backpack, walking shoes, water bottles, blankets, rain ponchos... and why not tick tweezers! For an extra pinch of thrills, and unique experiences to live. The performing Arts has never lived up to its name so well.

Across the fields…

The show we're talking about:
It is the theatrical experience that has wildened the 2023 edition of the Avignon festival, and which has since been moving from one region to another in France. Founder of the collective 49 701, Clara Hédouin imagined her first "theater-hike" based on Jean Giono's story "Que ma joie demeure", a rural novel full of poetry published in 1935 in which the writer announces before its time the loss of meaning in the farmer's job. Lasting seven hours (yes!), with a departure at dawn, the pilgrimage was organized for the first time on the heights of the village of Barbentane, about twenty kilometers from the City of the Popes, in the deafening song of the cicadas, guided by ten actors leading the audience through meadows, clearings and forest. A group of peasants struck by a mysterious sadness meet a stranger on the edge of the forest who will transform their relationship with the land. Beaujolais, Ariège, Île de France, Charente, etc. a nomadic performance that adapts to the relief, the vegetation, and of course the weather of the day, sometimes even cancelling at the last minute in the face of a threatening storm. Hay fever please refrain.

Next date:
September 21, for the Avant-scène festival, in Cognac, in a still secret location. www.avantscene.com

Clara Hédouin ©Quentin Chevrier

Clara Hédouin ©Quentin Chevrier

Clara Hédouin ©Quentin Chevrier

Clara Hédouin ©Quentin Chevrier

In the forest…

The artist we are talking about:
Since Olivia Gay imagined this immersive concert format, an hour and a half of concert in the middle of the forest by a cello-piano duo, her name has become inseparable from trees. The show, entitled "The Silence of the Forest" in echo to the work of Antonín Dvořák, is also a reference to the disaster of the mega-fires that France has recently experienced. Now performed all over France, the show was born from a deep desire to raise public awareness of the challenges of the forest. The cellist is accompanied alternately by pianists Célia Oneto Bensaid and Aurélien Pontier. They perform works by Edward Elgar, Antonín Dvořák, Gabriel Fauré, etc. Olivia Gay, who has since become an ambassador for the ONF-Agir pour la forêt endowment fund, has launched a series of concerts open free of charge to the public in seven “exceptional forests,” an ONF label. Each concert is preceded by a guided tour by a forester and a conference on violin-making woods.

next Date :

On August 1, “Silence of the Forest” concert in the Parc du Pian in Menton, followed by a twilight walk. In the Alpes Maritimes. While eight other performances, from the Vosges to the Indre, are planned until the end of the summer. Reservations and meeting points on olivia-gay.com

Olivia Gay (c) Patrick Fouque

Concert in the forest by Olivia Gay 2024 (c) Elsa Laurent

On the water…

The show we're talking about:
It all started with the love of a musician from the North, Cécile Wouters, for the "betchète", a traditional flat-bottomed river boat allowing freshwater sailors to navigate almost anywhere. It is now the musicians of PianO du Lac who crisscross France with their proud boats. Around sixty concerts have been given since the creation of PianO du Lac. The principle? A pianist (Robin Rivoire) and a violinist (Anouk Morel) play a whole repertoire on a raft, ranging from jazz to world music, such as Brazilian forro, while the audience sitting on the grass on the bank enjoys the show. Beware of the tide and the splashes on the beautiful piano when the orchestra sometimes ventures to the seaside... After several dates at the beginning of the summer, a new show "Marinero" takes over in July, with Nathalie Morazin on the piano and Samuel Arnoux on vocals and accordion.

Next date:

On July 20 and 21, “Marinero” will be played on Lake Kir in Dijon, then will cast off on the 23rd on the Etang de Breuil in Bourbon-Lancy, in Saône-et-Loire, before leaving to end the month towards the lake. Saint-Clément (Allier), Lake Chambon (Puy-de-Dôme) and Lake Cisba (Aveyron). polpoproductions.com et pianodulac.eu

PianO du Lac_Festival des PianOs_2022_©etienne renzo

Piano du lac 2020_Melting Flotte show 2020© Loïc Mollet copy

In the mountains…

The festival we are talking about:
The high Corsican mountains as a backdrop, who can do better? Arti Muntagnera was born from the desire to create, on the Isle of Beauty, encounters between the show, the visual arts and the public. In the open air, with their feet in the sand, the grass or on the rock, spectators are invited to follow this "transhumance of the arts" from the coast to the high plateaus. The artists themselves use whatever means they have to arrive, on foot, by canoe, by boat, at the show venues... Sites steeped in history, between the sea and the scrubland, such as the Radule waterfall, the Col de Vergio, this border between Haute Corse and South Corsica, or the Senetosa lighthouse, one of the last inhabited in France... The four-day event in an intimate format will complete its ninth edition at the end of August. "A turnkey festival that adapts to the environment", explains the organizer. And not the other way around, that says it all. The quota of participants allows confidentiality to be preserved. On the other hand, the programming is as long as possible: circus, music, dance, experimental cinema, polyphonic songs like Corsica knows how to offer.

The next date:

From August 23 to 26, Arti Muntagnera heads back to the high mountains with a multidisciplinary program in enchanting places. Particularly on Sunday 25 when, after an appointment at the spectacular Col de Vergio, the highest pass in Corsica, there will be another 30 minutes of walking to arrive at a secret location. To know what happens next, you'll have to be there. Artimuntagnera.com