Supported by Les Nouveaux Nez and Les Colporteurs, and with a clown (Alain Reynaud) for an artistic director, Le Nouveau Festival d’Alba-la-Romaine centres on Alba's remarkable Roman amphitheatre, the Carbunica, where there are dusk performances and giant rigs for outdoor flying (the best kind). The venue La Cascade work on the festival and it's a part of their wider project to create a European network of partners interested in putting live performance into historic sites.
Among the 2011 programme there's the grand old Centre National des Arts du Cirque, showing its latest end-of-year student show, Âm; close-up magic and mentalism from Raoul Lambert that puts the audience and performer inside a caravan; a performance of tiny marvels in the form of Circo Aereo's Une séance peu ordinaire; and Compagnie XY's pitching, flying spectacle Le Grand C. There's also a lot of clowning and short performance dotted around the village and a series of workshops for beginners and young aspiring circus artists.