HISTORY COMES ALIVE
France celebrated the 19th annual “Heritage Days” festival over the weekend of September 20th. The weekend was dedicated to remembering France’s past by opening up historic sites and buildings in what was a rare opportunity for the public. Metro joined in the festivities for the first time, hosting performances of subway inspired songs at the Bastille station. Celebrations in the Loire region were focused around river transportation; and the importance of Lyon food and the table was highlighted in the Rhônes-Alpes region.
FREUD, DALI AND SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR COME ALIVE ON STAGE
Beginning October 1 the Théatre Marigny at the Palais des sports in Paris hosted two plays embracing the influence of Freud, Dali and Simone de Beauvoir. “La grande salle” of the theatre is showing “Hysteria” created by the British playwright Terry Johnson, in which Freud and Dali come face to face, creating a piece provoking a range of emotions: laughter and tears, intelligence and madness, reason and delusion, in a dream more lifelike than reality. “La petite salle” of the theater is hosting “Liaison transatlantique,” by Patrice Kerbrat, the love story of Simone de Beauvoir and the American existentialist writer Nelson Algren.
REMEMBERING APRIL 21, 2002
Olivier Duhamel and Guy Carcassonne have published the 10th edition of “L’histoire de la Vème République.” This is a continuation of Jean-Jacques Chevallier’s “classic” on the history of France from 1958-1974. The latest edition will highlight the historic events of April’s presidential elections, where the prime minister, Lionel Jospin, was defeated in the first round by the far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. Additionally, the book will focus on the government during Jospin’s last year in office and the first weeks of his successor, Jean-Pierre Raffarin.
tHE NATIONAL CENTER OF SONG
Created in 1986, the Support Fund of Rock and Variety Music was officially transformed on October 1st, into the National Center of Song, Variety, and Jazz (CNV). Funded by the Ministry of Culture and presided over by Jean-Claude Camus, the CNV’s primary tasks will include supporting and subsidizing cultural events centered around music, offering services to artists, and opening a much needed music industry resource center.
Bob Wilson presents Noguchi’s sculpture in Paris
Internationally acclaimed American avant-garde director and performance artist Bob Wilson collaborated this fall with France’s Maison de la Culture du Japon (House of Japanese Culture), bringing to Paris the otherworldly and theatrical sculptures of Isamu Noguchi. The exhibit will run until December 14.
Noguchi, a Japanese sculptor who died in 1988, was known for integrating elements of industrial design and traditional Chinese and Japanese craftsmanship-pottery, ceramics, painting, paper, metal- and woodwork-to create an astonishing body of work. It seems he was also influenced, early on in his career, by the six months he spent in Paris in 1927 with the Romanian sculptor Brancusi. Noguchi went on, however, to brush aside typical Western preconceptions of the separable “categories” of art, fine art and design: besides his sculptures and installations, he conceived furniture, light fixtures, parks and other public spaces, and ventured into stage design, creating sets for the shows of legendary dancer-choreographer Martha Graham.
Wilson’s installation comprises some 80 pieces of Noguchi’s in an alternating sequence of light and dark rooms. The larger sculptures and design pieces, including a model of Play Mountain, a play area the artist created for a New York City neighborhood, are arranged so that visitors can walk through them as though in a garden.
Elsewhere in Paris, a definite Asian trend can be identified: the city’s Festival de l’automne will focus on Korea, with dance and theater performances; the Jardin des Tuileries featured the Biennial of Asian Arts, selling pieces from across the continent; and Vietnamese designer Dang Thi Minh Hanh will present her first fashion collection in October on the grounds of Paris’s Palais Royal.
Paris honors the arts with October “All-nighter”
In spite of the attack on the mayor of Paris Betrand Delanoë, the all-night arts festival, “Nuit Blanche” went on as planned on the night of October 5. Delanoë was stabbed as he returned to the Hôtel de Ville, where an audience of 2,000 was listening to an electric lounge music concert. His attacker, a 39 year-old man, was described as having a history of mental problems. As Delanoë was carried out, he requested that the “Nuit Blanche” go on. He is currently recovering from the attack.
“Nuit Blanche,” the French equivalent of an “all-nighter” showcased thirty different performances, concert and other cultural events. The artistic director of “Nuit
Blanche,” Jean Blaise, took advantage of the liberties granted to him by the local administration to invite well-known, yet unexpected artists such as Canadian cook Raoul Marek and the Korean artist Nam June Park, famous for his innovative work in the field of video art. This overnight display of avant-garde art in France’s capital hopes to bring the people of Paris together while showing them a more original side of their own city. Delanoë’s assistant of cultural affairs, Christophe Girard, mentioned the need for Parisians to overcome their reluctance to experience alternative types of culture as one of the main incentives in creating “Nuit Blanche.”