- 30
- Aug.
- 2025
Diving into La Fontaine’s fables is like stepping into a waking dream: Fables Immersives offers a sensory, poetic, and spectacular journey. The new immersive experience by Cités Immersives opens in Paris on September 6, 2025.
As immersive exhibitions continue to captivate ever-growing audiences, Cités Immersives is set to make a major splash this cultural season. Following its success in Rouen with Viking, the company presents a new experience in a 1,000-square-meter venue just steps from the Champs-Élysées, dedicated to the world of Jean de La Fontaine. Living sets, actors, 360-degree projections, special effects, music, and even a scent trail promise a fully immersive journey, somewhere between Versailles and Tim Burton.
Founded in 2023 by Jean Vergès and Anthony Samama, Cités Immersives aims to reinvent cultural mediation through immersion. The experience begins in Jean de La Fontaine’s study, where the poet—portrayed by Laurent Stocker of the Comédie-Française—invites visitors to rediscover the deeper meaning of his fables. What follows is a 90-minute journey filled with encounters with the allegorical animals of his work: the cunning fox, the menacing wolf, the mighty lion, and the vain frog.
Cités Immersives does more than bring literary figures to life. It gives them flesh and voice by anchoring them in a contemporary world. Arielle Dombasle embodies a dandy wolf, while comedian Marie portrays a self-obsessed frog, glued to her smartphone. The texts are revisited without losing their irony: the allegories resonate with today’s world, blending social satire with playful digital references.
Between Baroque Fairy-Tale and Pop Culture
The experience is designed as a series of living tableaux, each set within a spectacular themed space. The sets, inspired in part by the dreamlike work of artist Henrique Oliveira, envelop visitors in sculpted wood, lush vegetation, and organic materials. Costumes and makeup, worthy of a fairy-tale theater, give every encounter a striking intensity.
Technology, ever-present yet subtle, fuels the illusion: 360-degree projections, dynamic lighting, special effects, and 3D spatialized soundscapes immerse visitors in a fable unfolding around them. To complete the experience, fragrances evoking the forest, earth, and foliage accompany the journey, adding an olfactory dimension rarely explored in exhibitions.
The visit culminates in a spectacular finale: a 25-minute video-mapping show. Images and animations unfold across entire walls, accompanied by a contemporary reinterpretation of the fables. The recitation is set to a hybrid musical creation blending rap and electronic music, produced by the collective Bon Entendeur, delivering an experience designed to surprise and captivate audiences across generations.
While the project embraces this artistic boldness, it does not lose sight of its scholarly rigor. To ensure the authenticity of the content, a committee of specialists guided its development. Leading the team is Tiphaine Rolland, a senior lecturer in 17th-century French literature at the Sorbonne, supported by historian Didier Foucault and critic Patrick Dandrey. Together, they worked to situate La Fontaine’s work in its historical context while highlighting its universal relevance.
To keep the exhibition accessible to a wide audience, the mediation has been entrusted to a familiar public figure: Nota Bene, the historian and YouTuber followed by over 4 million subscribers. He guides visitors through specially produced video capsules, combining academic rigor with playful popularization.
Beyond the “wow” factor, Fables Immersives embraces both a pedagogical and universal purpose. “We want to remind people that La Fontaine, often reduced to school readings, is first and foremost a master storyteller who still speaks to us today,” explained the founders. While the exhibition is especially aimed at schools, it has been designed to captivate a wide audience: families, theater enthusiasts, technology fans, or simply lovers of poetry.
The aesthetic and scenography choices are designed precisely to engage this diverse audience. Children will encounter animal characters that seem astonishingly lifelike, while adults will recognize the social critique, the taste for satire, and the resonance with contemporary debates. Subtly, the exhibition shows that the fable remains a mirror held up to our time, reflecting everything from abuses of power to the worship of appearances.
After Paris, Fables Immersives is set to travel to several major cities across France and Europe.
Fables Immersives
5 Rue de Berri – 75008 Paris
Opening Saturday, September 6, 2025
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