The Zingaro Equestrian Theatre

The Zingaro Equestrian Theatre has been based in the Fort of Aubervilliers since 1989. At Bartabas’s request, with the support of Mr. Jack Lang, who was then the Minister of Culture of France and of Mr. Jack Ralite, then Mayor of Aubervilliers, this project was made a reality.

Bartabas wanted a place matching the identity of the artistic genre he created: the Equestrian Theatre; to provide the company with the minimum of installation needed in order to keep developing its art with its horses and artists.

The Zingaro Equestrian Theatre is now world renowned and welcomes more than 60.000 spectators a year for the shows created by Bartabas. It is the place of creation and performance of Zingaro’s shows but also a home for the artists of the troupe, as well as the administrative and logistical base of the company.

A philosophy

The theater, conceived by Patrick Bouchain, is a wooden building. One of the first desires on the construction was to give to the spectator the impression to enter there and to be already in the show.
So, the place is just like a cathedral, a market, a workshop, a barn, wooden clear, conceived at the same time according to the direction of the shows and the wanderings of the spectators.

About forty people and as many horses, all participating at Zingaro, took up residence around the theater.
Caravans, trucks, small houses and stables live by forming with the theater and the restaurant a harmonious whole which, although near Paris, give to our visitors the impression to have escaped a few hours… somewhere else.

A place for living

In the style of the farmers who lived out of necessity over cowsheds, this is the way, little by little around our wooden big top and around its stables, the daily landscape of Zingaro organized itself.

Without the help of an urbanistic architect, each organized its plot, its caravan, at his convenience, freely, but by the common love we carry in horses, by the rigorous requirement we share in the work, we find, in an unsaid way, to share the same sense of harmony.

Bartabas, extracted from the Manifeste pour la vie d’artiste

The restaurant

Built in 1997 by The Carpenters of Paris and fully decorated with costumes and accessories from our previous shows, the restaurant is a wooden, polygonal space, which can host up to 500 people.