In July 2025, a group of students from the Department of Romance Studies travelled to the south of France for the second time to visit the world-famous theatre festival in Avignon. Every summer since 1947, the Provençal city has become a universe of spectacle, where every place can be transformed into a theatre stage and impressive plays take place on every street corner. Here, a traditional French cultural event literally meets the world, becomes one with it and delights audiences and actors alike.
It was no coincidence that this year's trip to Avignon was all about intercultural encounters: it took place within the special framework of an Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), which was organised with the partner universities from Leipzig (lead) and Avignon (host institution) and brought together French students from three different institutes, three different countries and three different academic cultures. The shared fascination for the stage overcame all differences and borders and enabled an extremely exciting exchange about historical developments of the festival and current trends in international theatre.
To this end, the French, German and Austrian students presented their excellent contributions at the Université d'Avignon, which were prepared jointly and stimulated lively discussions. In addition to relevant exhibitions (including in the Maison Jean Vilar, the museum in honour of the famous festival founder), the focus of the stay was of course on attending numerous performances from the official festival programme, but also the multifaceted off-festival. In the monumental Palais des Papes, the Boulbon quarry and other spectacular venues, the students attended impressive and often challenging productions of this 79th edition of the Festival d'Avignon. Performance and dance, traditional illusion theatre and experimental meta-theatre, documentary and musical theatre, tragedy and comedy, politically explosive and completely off-the-wall alternated in a fast-paced manner - theatre worlds that the trinational student group was able to explore with great enthusiasm. À la prochaine, sur scène, à Avignon...
You can also read the wonderful report by students from the partner university in Leipzig: Universität Leipzig: Eine Woche BIP in Avignon - es war uns ein Fest(ival)