The Legend of Europa

ph. Michèle Laurent Ariane Mnouchkine is the director of theatre company, the Théâtre du Soleil, which she founded in 1964 with her fellows of the ATEP (The Theatre Association of the Students of Paris). In 1970, the Théâtre du Soleil created 1789 at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, where Giorgio Strehler warmly welcomed the young company and gave them his support. The company then went on to choose its home at the Cartoucherie, a former bullet-making factory, in the Bois de Vincennes on the outskirts of Paris. The Cartoucherie enabled the troupe to expand on the notion of the theatre simply as architectural institution and allowed them to focus on the concept of the theatre being a place of haven rather than just complying with the traditional architectural notions of a theatre building, and all this at a time when urban change and development in France was transforming the place of man in the city and the place of theatre in the city. In the Cartoucherie, the Théâtre du Soleil foun...

ph. John Cobb Wednesday, 24 February 2021 Dear theatre-makers, dear Europeans, dear friends, I write to you today from my computer, in my study, where I have been, solitary, isolated, for almost a year. Our daily existence - work, relaxation, interaction, education, shopping, entertainment, even politics and protest - is currently conducted from the confinement of our private spaces. And so we long for theatre. Theatre is the essence of everything that we have lost and longed for during the time of the virus. A public space, a shared space, an art form created and performed socially, through the physical, fleshly interaction of living human bodies. Human beings playing, laughing, breathing, singing, dancing and dreaming together - a pure and beautiful image of our potential. To long for theatre is also to long for intercultural exchange. The social spaces of 21st century Europe, the spaces in which we gather, are kaleidoscopic in their multi-coloured, multi-faceted, shimmering luminosi...