2020 Edition: digital sparks

The 2020 edition of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence has not been cancelled: it has simply been suspended. The productions have been postponed, but the sets have already come to life in the workshops at Venelles, and certain teams have been rehearsing as of this summer, in compliance with national health regulations. Most of the Académie’s residencies and the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra sessions have been maintained, with the support of new technologies. Passerelles, the Festival’s socio-artistic and educational department, has continued its mission. The focus this year has been once again on rehearsals, artistic creation, performances, and the transmission of culture—the four pillars of the performing arts—in a vast artistic fabric with Aix-en-Provence at its centre. The energy of guest artists has remained intact, as has their commitment to bringing their works to life for audiences. We thus needed to adapt our programme, in collaboration with the artists; to make the staging lighter without sacrificing the ambition or the diversity of the content; and to play with various constraints in order to invent a different relationship with the audience. Thus, with over 100 major figures involved (excluding members of the orchestras), this edition has been proceeding its own way. Elsewhere, and differently. With this scène numérique—this digital stage—we wanted to offer you a glimpse of this edition, and to rethink the meaning and the purpose of the Festival so that we may better prepare its future.