Les P'tits Géants Festival

Les P'tits Géants: The Puppet Festival That Charms Pont-de-Claix

Since 2016, the Les P'tits Géants festival has transformed L'Amphi in Pont-de-Claix into a true kingdom of puppetry every autumn. Born from the collaboration between the team at L'Amphi, a municipal performance venue, and the Compagnie Les Décintrés, specializing in visual theatre and contemporary puppetry, this festival has become over a decade a major event for young audiences in the Grenoble area and beyond.

A Poetic Universe Dedicated to the Art of Puppetry

For a week, during the Toussaint holidays, the festival offers children and their families excursions into surprising and poetic universes that explore the sensitive world of puppetry in all its forms. String puppets, glove puppets, bunraku, shadow theatre, object theatre, giant puppets: each edition highlights the diversity of puppetry techniques and writing.

A Rich and Demanding Program

Each year, six professional companies from all over France present their creations in about a dozen performances. The shows are aimed at all ages, from 6 months old, and offer various artistic forms:

• Puppets and Object Theatre: creations where paper, wood, fabric, and everyday objects come to life under the puppeteers' fingers
• Shadow and Silhouette Theatre: visual shows that play with light and darkness
• Visual Theatre: hybrid forms combining visual arts, live music, and manipulation
• Storytelling and Puppet Narration: stories carried by characters made of wood, foam, or paper

Free Workshops and Exhibition

In addition to the shows, Les P'tits Géants offers free parent-child workshops throughout the week, led by professional artists. Puppet making, introduction to shadow theatre, bunraku manipulation, object theatre, or hardware puppet construction: each workshop is an invitation to discover the secrets of puppetry as a family.

The festival also includes an exhibition with free access, designed by a collective of puppeteers from the region, which extends the artistic experience and invites contemplation and discovery.

The Compagnie Les Décintrés, Soul of the Festival

A loyal partner of L'Amphi since the festival's origins, the Compagnie Les Décintrés creates a colorful, playful, and poetic journey each year in the hall and spaces of the venue. In costume and mischievous, the company members welcome the public with deliberately contemporary puppet characters, inspired by the arts of clowning, visual arts, and image theatre, for total immersion in the festival's universe.

A Festival That Grows with Its Audience

Since its creation, Les P'tits Géants has continued to grow, building a loyal and ever-increasing family audience. The festival affirms its mission: to introduce young audiences to the richness and diversity of puppet arts, in a warm and accessible setting, where the puppetry tradition serves as a mirror to the world, between laughter, emotions, and questions.