Dance, competition, novel. to see and hear the highlights from the editorial this week.
Gisele during MeToo
Attending a show with Marie-Claude Pietragalla already means that the stars shine in the eyes of the audience, who often come with their families to take part in an exclusive show. This is the case Giselle(s), this new show from Théâtre du Corps, the company founded twenty years ago by Marie-Claude Pietragala and Julien Deroux with love and persistence and today based in Alfortville, near Paris. And it took energy to force this training that interweaves dance, theater, voice, song, imagination, inner strength, expression, thought, dreams… and the result was a total show. For Marie-Claude Pietragalla, the symbolic Giselle became almost a double, a sister, she danced a lot, in the Paris Opera, in Marseille… In the first part, she is Giselle, an androgynous creature, come on. Look at the world today, a world where couples of all backgrounds, with or without children, face extreme violence, male dominance. Adolph Adam’s score sometimes lends itself to Bronx Drums or electro. “Supergirl” trains her troops, which in the second part become a shadow army, zombie women, ferocious and devouring, come to the other side to settle their scores. The dance is telluric, often extremely repetitive, almost obsessive. The army becomes one, the bodies cry. The hands are waving endlessly. The lights hit the retinas. What if we made room for love? In front of a ready audience, over two long hours, Giselle(s) won his bet. BB:
Giselle(s), until March 17 at La Seine musicale, Boulogne-Billancourt (Eau de Seine) and on tour. laseinemusicale.com:
Chef factory
Denis ALLARD / Paris Philharmonic.
It took perseverance to break prejudices and become a conductor. It took women years to achieve this dream, but today they are living it to the fullest. “An orchestra led by a woman is the clarion call of a new era,” predicted American pianist Antonia Louise Brico, who first conducted the Berlin Symphony in 1930 and won international acclaim. Its lineage shines today with names such as Natalie Stutzmann (the second woman in history, after Marin Alsop, to become a director of a top American orchestra) and many others previously highlighted through initiatives such as the La Maestra competition, which was created in 2011 2019 by the Paris Philharmonic and the Paris Mozart Orchestra, a competition that has become an important event in the international music landscape. For the third edition, the organizers brought together a jury chaired by Natalie Stutzman, which selected fourteen candidates from around the world. The public can attend the concerts that will accompany the three stages of the competition (quarterfinals, semifinals and finals), which will be awarded by the jury with three prizes. The number of women leading permanent orchestras in France increased from 2.7% in 2019 to 10.8% in 2022, an impressive jump but still far from parity. PG:
La Maestra Competition, March 14, 16 and 17, at the Paris Philharmonic. lamaestra-paris.com/3e-edition/programme
Marilyn in Nevada
Press:
The myth of Marilyn Monroe inevitably crosses the MeToo era, drawing new colors from it. Of extreme vulnerability and, at the same time, strength, an absolute star and a woman abused by the patriarchy provokes more anxiety and fascination than ever. Here, that means a lot of hard shooting Axes, by John Huston, with Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift in the Nevada desert. The actress stayed at the famous Mapes Hotel in Reno with her husband, playwright Arthur Miller. The couple is in crisis, he only thinks about Yves Montand, with whom he had an affair a short time ago. Everyone’s drinking and arguing, it’s swelteringly hot, Merlin is filling himself with pills… The novel’s good idea is to make us discover all this through the eyes of Pauline, the original young chambermaid. The French woman to whom Marilyn will offer him company in the simplest possible way. Between the two women, one at the top of the social ladder, the other at the bottom (and an unwed mother pursuing a relationship imposed by the hotel’s assistant manager), there is, however, an essential common point: the feeling of being nothing more than a tool in the hands of men. Another great idea is that Pauline has learned to ride mustangs with her friend Billy-Pearl, wild horses that must be protected from hunters. As a way for the author to appropriate the western with more feminine codes… This is how Pauline’s life, the exciting meeting of the two women, and the fantasized story of the shooting are embedded. The excitement of everyday hotel life that vibrates within Merlin’s walls and the phenomenal disturbances in his room form a chronicle combined with a very successful comedy. A sweet tribute to a woman whose aura seems timeless. IP:
Blonde powderby Tatiana de Rosnay, Éditions Albin Michel, 320 p., €21.90.
Source: Le Figaro
