Théâtre National de Bretagne
Direction Arthur Nauzyciel
Because it has been the great sacrifice to COVID-19 (through the closing of schools, colleges and universities), because it will have to pay tomorrow for the economic consequences of the quarantine and the situation we’re living through today, because it will inherit a planet that has been scarred on an ecological level, a society in upheaval, and the vital struggle against all forms of discrimination, ‘Generation Z’, which the media have, a little hastily, named ‘Generation COVID’, cannot be reduced to a simple denominator.
This ultra-connected age group has crossed the world with the #metoo and Black Lives Matter movements and the fight against climate crisis. It is mobilising to push boundaries.
After all that we’ve experienced, individually and collectively, over recent months, we wanted to give youth a special place during this festival.
At TNB Festival, children, teenagers and young adults will be invited to take to the stage and to speak out. Workshops, masterclasses, radio broadcasts – we want to read and listen to their stories. How have they experienced this crisis? How do they see the future? What are the desires that drive them? We want them to be seen and heard in all their vitality. So let’s come together for a volley of ‘youth’ events, conceived by the team at TNB with the help of Patrick Boucheron, Aurélie Charon, Caroline Gilet, Gala Vanson, Robin Robles, Joëlle Gayot, and Valérie Mréjen.
Today, every generation is going through the same planetary event, one that marks a sharp break from our former lives. From the centre of this transformation, we look for oxygen, for hope, for a chance to launch ourselves once again towards the future. To escape the everyday, to liberate ourselves from boxes, to free ourselves from norms, to dream of alternatives that would make our lives more beautiful, to run from preconceived ideas, to return the imagination to prominence, to nurse our wounds, to take care: these concerns, expressed with strength, laughter, gravity and inventiveness, run throughout TNB Festival.
But as we live together through this stressful period overshadowed by COVID-19, our artists affirm more than ever that they will concede nothing to a reality which separates and isolates us.
Just as every year, TNB Festival is a creative and artistic distillate, a reflection of our season and an extension of it, shared with numerous partners in Rennes and the greater metropolis. It’s also a time of encounters, exchanges and conviviality, taking us out of our standard rhythm to discover new creations and work by unique artists of all disciplines. The performances to which we invite you are all marked, in one way or another, by an overriding need for escape, by an energy that tears us from the ground and from ourselves and connects us to invisible or distant worlds.
Your presence is vital to the survival of our venues but also our companies, our workers, and our artists, who despite difficult and even dangerous working conditions have mobilised themselves so that their professions and the performing arts can, in these uncertain times, keep going, or even continue to exist.
Thank you and welcome.
— Arthur Nauzyciel