© Emeric de Souancé
Concert
Embark on a musical journey through the verses of Ronsard, Verlaine and Victor Hugo with Les Fauristes. London French choir Les Fauristes, conducted by Blandine de Raulin and Maud Maestracci and accompanied on the piano by John Evanson, will take you through 500 years of courtly love and nature in chanson française with a programme including Renaissance madrigals, old folk songs, 19th century great poetry, pieces from Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Debussy and much more…
© David Prudhomme
Performance
Musician Mathieu Boogaerts will team up with illustrator François Olislaeger and graphic novelist David Prudhomme to offer a lively performance mixing music, songs and live drawing: a rhythmic and original concert combining the best of Chanson française with live graphic improvisation.
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© Stéphane Mahot & Eric Audebert
Drawing Session
In the run-up to their evening performance French graphic novelists François Olislaeger and David Prudhomme will lead a Drink and Draw session, during which they will guide their guests through the basis of drawing and composition, while simultaneously enjoying an informal chat about their outlook on art.
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Virtual Reality
What if VR was not a new tech gadget, but in fact a way to explore new narrative paths and a tool to experiment new genres and forms? How would it be to meet Frankenstein in person, or to revisit the story of the Little Match Girl floating in a dreamlike city in the clouds? And what about discovering new stories immersing yourself in brand new ways of writing, traveling in imaginary worlds from the Institut's sofas? Put a headset on and go beyond reality with us.
Free access in the Institut français’s foyer (15-minutes slots)
Staged Reading
© LSDM Meshri
Translated and directed by Keziah Serreau, Pauline Peyrade’s play takes us through five moments of an abusive relationship, from the first meeting to the break up. Each moment is an attempt to flee from obsession and dependence and to fight to reclaim one's self. To exhaust oneself in order to reawaken, to destroy to rebuild, to reinvent to understand and to distance in order to get closer to oneself. Each experience explores a heightened state that reveals the relentless strength of refusal and resistance that we carry deep within us, like an eye that never lowers its gaze, like a strongly clasped fist.
Starring Alex Austin, Akiya Henry and Kandaka Moore.
As part of the Institut français’s Cross-Channel Theatre programme
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Pauline Peyrade, Poings (Les Solitaires Intempestifs, 2017) |
© Laurent Geneix
Concert
Described as the embodiment of the Renaissance spirit, the multi-awarded Doulce Mémoire ensemble has been touring around the world for thirty years. They perform extracts from their new CD-book release: Leonardo Da Vinci, The Hidden Music, paying tribute to the 500th anniversary of the death of the Renaissance genius. The programme sets to uncover the secret music behind some of Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings.
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Doulce Mémoire, Léonard de Vinci, la musique secrète (Alpha Classic, 2019) |
Talk & Readings
Part 1 - Victor Hugo at Home
From The Hunchback of Notre-Dame to Les Misérables, Victor Hugo’s works are known, read, studied and loved all over the world. Over a century and a half later, his literary influence and his social and political commitments are as relevant as they were then. To mark the re-opening of Hauteville House, the residence of Victor Hugo during his exile in Guernsey, Gérard Audinet, Director of the Paris and Guernsey Maisons de Victor Hugo will be in conversation with Laura, Marie and Jean-Baptiste Hugo as they share knowledge of their ancestor's home and present their recently republished Hauteville House: Victor Hugo décorateur (Paris-Musées, 2016), in partnership with Benjamin Spademan Rare Books.
Part 2 - Victor Hugo's Legacy
Following this, French and British biographers of Victor Hugo Jean-Marc Hovasse and Bradley Stephens will reflect on how one of world literature’s largest bodies of work has come to enjoy global appeal and still influences French and British artists.
Original artwork by Marie and Jean-Baptiste Hugo published in the book will be exhibited from May 17th to 31st at the Benjamin Spademan Rare Books Gallery, 14 Masons’s Yard, SW1Y 6BU
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© Margaux Shore
Concert
Frànçois Atlas will perform songs from his album Les Fleurs du mal: a series of musical adaptations from poems by France’s great spleen-loving poet Charles Baudelaire, including classics such as À une Passante or Parfum exotique. Reuniting the sensuous rhymes of Baudelaire’s decadent poetry with oriental sonorities, Frànçois will recreate the doomed, romantic ambiance of the late 19th century.
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Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil (Alma Classics, 2016) |
