2026 Myth and Theatre Festival
June 29 to July 12 2026
Anarchy and Archetypes
in a
Choreographic Theatre
Last updated: 20 / 01 / 2026
Image : Festival image adapted from a collage painting by Enrique Pardo dating from 2010, entitled “The Treasures of Ukraine”
in reference to Jonathan Littell’s book Les Bienveillantes (The Kindly Ones), about the massacres and looting of Ukraine… by the Nazis.
Announcement Editorial 2026
Enrique Pardo
Dear friends of Panthéâtre, Linda and myself, and of Choreographic Theater, on this New Year, we would like to draw your attention to and, we hope, encourage your participation in the 2026 Myth and Theater Festival (June 30 to July 12), which will be an exceptional opportunity to take stock of… some forty years of… Choreographic Theater (CT below): bringing together and discussing ideas, performances, workshops, videos…
The theme of the 2026 Festival will be “ANARCHY and ARCHETYPES – in a Choreographic Theater.” These two concepts have their roots in ἀρχέ (arkhe). ARKHE-types constitute a (polytheistic) typography of primordial figures, particularly mythological ones. An-ARKHE, on the other hand, means “without arkhe”: without a figure of authority, and in particular, for us, in the dramaturgical sense: without an authoritarian author. For a CT, this is a crucial crossroads where an alchemical-type of conjunctio can occur, but just as easily an irascible and bitter ontological opposition, particularly in the Arts.
For this 2026 edition, the Festival wishes to summon current or historical collaborators of “our” CT: in particular those interested in the ideas of James Hillman, who named his work Archetypal Psychology after C.G. Jung, and who was the founding figure of the Festival as well as honorary president of Pantheatre. We are also inviting Xavier Papaïs, French ethno-historian, Lacanian psychoanalyst and philosopher, specialist in Anarchy, now a close friend and “scientific” advisor to Pantheatre. Roy Hart‘s utopian philosophy of singing will also be an intrinsic part of this mindscape; (there is a lot to say on his relationship to Utopia and maybe also to what could be called his « talmudic anarchistic » side.
The Festival is evolving towards ponencias (key practical and/or theoretical presentations) by artists and/or thinkers on ‘our’ Choreographic Theater (see draft definitions on CT WEB PAGE). Mornings will be devoted to lab-oratories, afternoons will include open laboratories, work presentations, seminars, master classes including voice performance and singing work (after Roy Hart) ; evenings to performances, lectures, and debates. EP
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
The festival offers multilayered voice and performance hands-on laboratories with parallel lectures and debates on Anarchy and Archetypes and their advent in Choreographic Theatre.
Last year’s Myth and Theatre Festival was part of a seemingly never-ending cycle on MAGIC. There was good reason, IF you consider, like we do, that Magic is the broadest, deepest and richest horizon of human agency and thought.
So, Magic will also be with us for 2026, as a background, or call it a foundational (arche ) theme. But we are changing formula, by concentrating on Enrique’s CHOREOGRAPHIC THEATRE, bringing together precisely two of the great arche themes : Archetypes and Anarchy.
(Quote form 2025 Festival : The festival will also welcome a late and surprise appearance in its mythical mindscape : ANARCHY. Is it not a foundational principle in contemporary art? Pablo Picasso, André Breton, John Cage, Nina Hagen, Romeo Castellucci and many others seem to think so…) EP
TWO MAIN WORKING APPROACHES
Choreographic Theatre
Direction : Enrique Pardo
with the members of his Paris Laboratory and guest artists
Choreographic Theatre : training in chorus disciplines that bring out personal genius… « Rules are made to confirm exceptions ».
“I understand choreography especially in terms of “making a move”: an esthetic AND ethical initiative, acted out.” My definition of IMPROVISATION: “Imps at work”. EP.
Voice & SINGING
Direction : Linda Wise
With a pianist (tbc)
Taking Roy Hart’s extended voice work into singing, performance and interpretation.
If you think of genius as intimate, personal and emotional, it will show up, maybe in the texture and timbre of your voice, or in the moves you make, vocal and physical. This is what ‘singing’ is all about.
The workshop-festival takes place at Malerargues, a pastoral paradise in the Cevennes foothills, Southern France, near Nimes, Montpellier and Marseille – in collaboration with the ROY HART CENTRE, with its theatre spaces (the large building on the photo, a magnificent old silk-worms ‘factory’ called a ‘magnanerie’), six working studios, some 12 pianos, in a domain of 30 hectares of Mediterranian forests –surrounding the hamlet and including a sturdy huguenot château ! (See below.) Pantheatre’s Library is installed in the chateau’s chapel, at the back of the image behind the tall cypresses.
Malerargues & Roy Hart Centre (a drone overview!)
The Festival?
The Myth and Theatre Festival was created in 1986 under de auspices and presidency of American writer and psychologist James Hillman
It is Pantheatre’s yearly key event, intertwining performance practice with cultural studies, especially in mythology and anthropology.
2022 23 Seminars
2022 Fall Cycle
2022 Summer Program
2022 Spring Cycle
2020 Festival
2021 Festival
2022 Festival
2023 Festival
2024 Festival
2025 Festival
Enrique’s BLOG
Direction Enrique Pardo with Linda Wise
Scientific Advisor, Xavier Papaïs
Assistant Director, Daniela Garcia
Media Organisation Debora Ballardini
with Eloïse DeNayer
in collaboration with
Roy Hart Centre
La Compagnie des Chimistes
Pantheatre Active Members
Paris Laboratory Members
Mairie of Lasalle & Mairie of Thoiras
Pantheatre’s training is both advanced AND open to all: much more a question of attitude, personality and willingness to take risks, than of technical, musical or theatre skills – which, of course, are more than welcome.
Most participants have an interest in performance: physical or text-based theatre, danse or singing. Pantheatre’s training is a SYNTHESIS of these, applied to voice performance, singing and choreographic theatre.
Collaborators
Assistant Teachers and Performers
Daniela Garcia, Eloïse DeNayer, Axel Chia, (Cie. Chimistes.)
Alice Bellefroid, Maya Lewandowski, Pauline Nozière
Social Media
(English & Spanish) : Debora Balardini, Querena Garcia, Adriana Medina
Chile Associate Companies
Pantheatre Chile / Universidad de Chile / UCCLAN Chile
Direction Annie Murath
The Directors
My ‘cutting-edge’ work happens, unquestionably, in LABORATORIES, from where a whole series of performances, magnificent collaborations, have emerged. I call these Folies à Deux: intertwined transfers towards what is perhaps my main goal: psychological creativity. My role: laboratory director, the one Alchemy called ARTIFEX: artificer, catalyst and, why not, shaman: « You are a shaman as long as your luck lasts » (Roberte Hamayon). With age I seem to be getting luckier. This is beautifully described by Florence Derail in an email that ends like this:
« This workshop-Laboratory:
– is not a therapeutic place – despite the benevolence that prevails in them,
– it is a place where each participant, whatever his or her possible initial blockings, is placed in a state of hyper-creativity and hyper-receptivity, where intuition grows at a very fast pace.
– It’s a laboratory in the strongest sense, a place of experimentation [for whom? For everyone, including Enrique Pardo.] »
And THE VOICE in all this? I like an (indirect) definition by Giorgio Agamben: « Listening to the voice in speech, is what thinking is all about ». I also go along with Roy Hart’s favorite quote: « The voice is the muscle of the soul », after H. W. Longfellow. I say that I could be one of Roy Hart’s top lawyers, of his life, work and philosophy – while not necessarily agreeing with everything he did or said, especially fifty years later. EP 2022
Enrique Pardo
© photo : Javier Riano de Echanove
Linda Wise
© photo : Javier Riano de Echanove
Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one. Socrates
I climbed through the looking glass at 10, as Alice, into the magic world of theatre: the joy of dancing with words, the elation of singing – and, no nerves! At 13 I knew Hamlet inside/out, (I was every night in the prompt box!): all I wanted to do was theatre. With friends, we created our first companyThe Young Players. I did stumble on some opposition, and some depressions, but at 18, I made it to the Royal Scottish Academy, and, at 19, I met Roy Hart’s group in London. A turning point. I became “passionately engaged with a vision of the voice that found its embodied roots with Roy Hart”. LW. read more