Le Printemps des Abers

Le Printemps des Abers: When the Street Becomes a Stage

Since 2009, Printemps des Abers has enlivened the towns of Pays des Abers, in northern Finistère, with inventive, poetic, and often hilarious street performances. This spring event, the result of an exemplary collaboration between the Communauté de communes du Pays des Abers and Le Fourneau, the National Centre for Street Arts and Public Space based in Brest, has become a must-see event in the region.

An Exceptional Cultural Partnership

The strength of Printemps des Abers lies in the unique partnership forged between a rural local authority and a national centre for artistic creation. Le Fourneau, a designated National Centre for Street Arts, brings its expertise in selecting and supporting leading street theatre companies, while the Community of Communes ensures local anchoring and logistics. This alliance makes it possible to program performances of remarkable artistic quality in rural towns that do not usually have such cultural programming.

A Travelling and Free Festival

Printemps des Abers is distinguished by its travelling format: instead of concentrating on a single location, the festival unfolds in several towns in Pays des Abers, with one date per village between April and June. Each event takes over a different public space—village square, school parking lot, town hall courtyard—transforming it into an open-air stage. In 2025, the towns of Lannilis, Coat-Méal, Plouguin, and Kersaint-Plabennec hosted the performances.

All events are free and open access, embodying a generous cultural policy that makes art a common good accessible to all.

Burlesque, Circus, and Urban Poetry

The programming of Printemps des Abers features a strong emphasis on burlesque, cutting-edge humour, and the unexpected. The invited companies offer street theatre, contemporary circus, dance, and artistic performance shows that play with public space and audience participation. In 2025, the festival notably hosted Gagarine is not dead, an anti-gravity street theatre performance featuring four zany astronauts on a low-tech odyssey of acrobatics, burlesque, and galactic poetry.

Art for All Audiences

Accessible to all ages and audiences, the performances at Printemps des Abers are designed to bring families, residents, and visitors together for a moment of sharing and discovery. The absence of ticketing and the open-air programming allow for spontaneous and natural encounters between art and spectators, in the very spirit of street theatre: a living, generous, and popular art form that meets people where they live.