Project and History
Vidy-Lausanne Theatre is open to all and dedicated to contemporary creation, defining itself as a site of encounters between today’s art and the widest possible audience. Installed within a building built by the Zurich artist and architect Max Bill for the Swiss national exposition of 1964 (Expo64), it now contains four auditoriums and a vast foyer-bar opening onto the beach of Vidy, with a view over Lake Geneva and the Alps. For artists, it provides an exceptional workspace coupled with a solid production facility and a technical team with a broad range of expertise. For audiences, it provides the opportunity to share powerful artistic experiences, along with numerous events relating the works to major issues our society is currently undergoing.
A CREATIVE THEATRE AND A EUROPEAN CROSSROADS
A creative centre for French-speaking theatre in the heart of Romandy, the Vidy-Lausanne Theatre reaps the benefits of the favourable position of the Vaud capital, located at the crossroads of Europe and establishing itself as a venue that is open to the world, where Latin and Germanic theatre and artistic cultures in particular enter into dialogue.
In Romandy, as in German-speaking Switzerland, many co-productions have developed with other theatres and cultural institutions. Vidy thus, for example, initiated an event in association with L’Arsenic and other Lausanne partner establishments in 2015: “Programme Commun”, a 15-day festival held in early spring.
The Vidy-Lausanne Theatre programme has been under the helm of Vincent Baudriller since September 2013 and associates strong artistic loyalties with renowned international artists and a revival in interest for the youngest generations of artists, thus making Vidy a reference institution as well as a forward-thinking place of discovery.
The Vidy-Lausanne Theatre is thus resolutely committed to forms of art that find value in contrasts and differences and that confront the realities of our age. It also provides multiple inroads for access to theatre arts by varying the art forms presented – theatre, dance, cinema, music, fine arts – as well as their formats and the support and mediation arrangements associated with the works.
A theatre open to all
At the centre of the cross formed by the building and its four auditoriums, a spacious hall (now redesigned in the spirit of Max Bill) contains the ticket office, the bar-restaurant La Kantina, a bookshop, and an exhibition space: overlooking the lake, this is the ideal place to discuss the shows, with friends or during “meet the artists” sessions or debates with personalities from the cultural or scientific world.
Since theatre is an inherently contemporary art that belongs to the here and now, since it is a way of questioning the world and society through a sensitive aesthetic experience, Vidy forms a point of intersection between individual experiences and collective problematics, providing an echo chamber where the challenges of today’s world can be shared, questioned, and discussed. Many events are therefore organised in relation to the shows, serving in various ways to prolong the experience of them, appropriate them and explore their relevance to political or cultural news. These events take the form of exhibitions, artist talks, thematic debates, classes on the history of stage directing, introductions to the shows, and so on. They provide occasions (among others) for collaborations with the many institutions of the city and the canton, inviting spectators to maintain their openness and curiosity about the world and to discuss its diversity and current events. Vidy is thus a major player within Lausanne and the region’s dense network of culture and research, a network characterised by its international dimension and the priorities given to culture, teaching, and high-level research. Among our recent partners, we can notably cite the Cinémathèque Suisse, the Musée de l’Elysée (photography), the Collection de l’Art Brut, L’Arsenic (contemporary theatre arts), the Théâtre Kléber-Méleau, La Bâtie-Festival de Genève, the Comédie de Genève, L’EPFL, L’UNIL, La Manufacture (Haute Ecole de Théâtre de Suisse Romande), Les Teintureries (theatre school)…
These partnerships present a diverse array of incentives for audiences, fostering the discovery of works and circulation among the institutions. They complement and complete our specific mediation work designed for schools and gymnasiums, community centres, universities, teachers, and other associations and communities in Lausanne and the Vaud canton.
50 YEARS OF HISTORY
FROM EXPO64 TO AN INTERNATIONAL CREATIVE CENTRE
Designed by Zurich artist and architect Max Bill – trained at the Bauhaus – for the section “Educate and Create” of the Swiss national exposition of 1964 held in Lausanne, the Vidy-Lausanne Theatre is located between the beach and the port of Vidy, in a wooded park just several metres from Lake Geneva, facing the Alps and near a Gallo-Roman site featuring an ancient theatre.
A great success in terms of dimensions and balance, it is organised in such a way as to facilitate the circulation between its various spaces within an environment on a human scale. This exemplary construction, which was far more spacious at the time, was meant to be dismantled after the six-month Expo. Charles Apothéloz, a theatre director and a central figure in the history of Romande theatre, nonetheless managed to have the municipality buy back the auditorium and adjoining offices for the use of the new Centre Dramatique Romand that definitively took up residence there in 1972. Apothéloz, through his talents as a go-between and artist, as much as through his strong commitment to the notion of theatre for all, soon made Vidy the decisive epicentre of the development of Romandy and Swiss theatre, a venue firmly armed with its diversity and influences.
The journalist and author Franck Jotterand succeeded Charles Apothéloz after his departure in 1975. Jotterand pursued Apothéloz’s founding impetus by developing both creations from Lausanne and international productions. He opened the small theatre known as “La Passerelle”, designed for debates and more up-close and personal theatrical forms. He hosted major works by contemporary German, English, or Italian repertoires, and some of the most illustrious directors of the time (Antoine Vitez, Claude Régy, Marcel Maréchal, Living Theatre, Bread and Puppet Theater, and so on). Following a serious road accident, his associates Pierre Bauer and Jacques Bert took over in 1981 and refocused Vidy on the Romandy scene while restructuring the administrative foundations of the theatre, which became a private foundation.
A new era began with the nomination of Matthias Langhoff in 1989. The famous German director opened up the “theatre on the water’s edge” to Europe extensively, while transforming it into an ambitious instrument of creation, borne by his iconoclastic energy. He gave decisive impetus to Vidy, quickly transforming it into a stronghold of international theatre creation, as well as an active, vibrant venue, reconciling the spirit of revolt with powerful ideas within the surrounding suburbs.
Langhoff called on René Gonzalez in 1990, the former director of the TGP in Saint Denis and the MC93 in Bobigny, to support him in directing the theatre. Gonzalez would later succeed him, following the departure of the German director the following year. René Gonzalez, at the helm of Vidy until his death in 2012, reinforced the movement begun by his predecessor. He multiplied both creations and hosting of troupes, and strongly developed the touring programmes of the theatre’s productions. He presented a wealth of international creation to Lausanne, notably by inviting Bob Wilson, Luc Bondy, Peter Brook, or Heiner Goebbels, whose performances were staged worldwide, while also encouraging Swiss artists such as Omar Porras, Zimmerman and De Perrot, or Dorian Rossel, and the emergence of new circus forms, from Volière Dromesko to James Thierrée. During this period, the theatre built two new small theatres: the one built by the architect Luscher, above the parking lot, and a big top.
In December 2012, several months after the death of René Gonzalez, Vincent Baudriller was elected to succeed him, following his 10-year mandate as the director of the Festival d’Avignon. Under Baudriller’s leadership, the Vidy-Lausanne Theatre continues to be a creative theatre on a European scale: it is opening up to dance and performance, exchanging and collaborating with the other cultural stakeholders of the region and striving to broaden its audience, so that the loyal members of the theatre will be joined by a new generation of spectators, fostering an art space for lively, inter-generational debates. The theatre’s programmes are designed to resonate with social, intellectual, scientific or political news, creating a theatre that is attuned to its era, highly attentive to its artists, and open to each and every spectator.
