Festival d'Avignon

is the co-founder of Mundo Perfetto and has led two major European theatre institutions.

the Théâtre National Donna Maria in Lisbon, and the Festival d'Avignon in France, where he became the first foreign artist to serve as artistic director in 2022.

As an artist, he is known for works such as By Heart, Sopro, Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists, Antoine et Cleopatre, and Le Coeur des Amants, works that explore memory, language, politics, love, and the very act of storytelling.

Thiago, welcome to West Hub Studio Podcast.

That's why Piccolo di Milano, it's a Teatro d'Europa.

But Odeon in Paris, it's also a Teatro d'Europa.

And I think it's interesting to notice, especially in this year, we're almost celebrating the 80 years of Piccolo di Milano, but also the 80 years of Festival d'Avignon, for instance, that that period of 47, 48, 49 was extremely important on one hand for the beginning of adventures, but also for a perception of cultural policy in several countries that was an idea of cultural policy for the country and for the European project.

And I think somehow in several countries we lost this concept of public service attached to culture, but also in the continent, we lost this notion that one of the pillars, fundamental keys of the European project, it's cultural diversity and the ability to work not only across borders, but also in the border of being polyglots, of being multilingual, of being transnational, of being bilingual, trilingual, of being a continent of crossroads where cultures mix and where the great spaces of national culture are spaces of meeting of many nations.

Yeah.

I mean, you worked for the, we mentioned it before, Festival d'Avignon and managed projects for the Lambert, is it Lambert, private art collection?

It was the Collection Lambert, which was a private collection that was managed in a hotel.

Tell me about that.

But Yeah, you know, maybe my favorite, favorite, favorite one.

I got the opportunity years ago to go to the Avignon Theatre Festival, which is in the south of France.

And it is an incredible theatre festival full of some of the most amazing directors, choreographers, actors, designers that are working in Europe.

And you know, in America, we don't get to see a lot of European theater.