The story
Chassepierre International Street Arts Festival in Chassepierre
Chassepierre is a small Ardennes village that turns its streets, gardens and riverbanks into stages for one weekend each August, hosting around 50 professional street-arts and circus companies since 2008. Founded in 1974 out of a local poetry initiative, it ranks among Europe's oldest street-arts festivals. There is no fixed main stage: visitors walk between simultaneous performances scattered through the village itself.
Chassepierre's festival began in 1974, when a local poet organized an event called Poetry = Village, itself an offshoot of a village campaign against a dam project that would have submerged Chassepierre under the Semois river.