UT Students and Faculty Get Exclusive Virtual Access to World-Renowned Performing Arts Festival

Sep 16, 2020

The Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States and Festival Experiences are offering an exclusive opportunity to UT Austin and other institutions of higher education to access synchronous Live Talks with world-renowned artists, playwrights, musicians and influencers from the Festival d’Avignon, one of the most important international performing arts festivals in the world.

The Cultural Services of the French Embassy brings artists, authors, intellectuals and innovators to cities nationwide and builds partnerships between French and American artists, institutions and universities on both sides of the Atlantic.

Beginning Sept. 23, the Live Talks will showcase artists and their creative approach to the shows they produced at the Festival d’Avignon. The virtual event series comes after the festival’s subsidiary Festival Experiences dedicated three years to digitizing the festival’s archives and productions from the past 20 years, further enriching the festival’s exceptional and unique heritage within the world of the performing arts.

With the cancelation of the Festival d’Avignon due to COVID-19, the online events make the rich cultural experience accessible to audiences around the world.

The Live Talks feature artists including French stage director, actor and writer Olivier Py, French-Vietnamese playwright and director Caroline Guiela Nguyen, Beninese singer-songwriter and African music icon Angelique Kidjo and renowned dancer and performer-choreographer François Chaignaud.

The talks will be conducted in English and offered via Zoom throughout the fall. Questions may be submitted in advance and participants must register online to attend.