Rites of the Republic: Citizens' Theatre and the Politics of Culture in Southern France 9781442693807

Table of contents :
Contents
List Of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Defining Culture: State Cultural Policy And Discourse On The Arts In France
2. “Culture” In Local Perspective: The Trac Of Beaumes De Venise
3. The Friche La Belle De Mai: Redefining State Cultural Policy In “Euro-Mediterranean” Marseille
4. “Unity In Diversity” In Eu And Municipal Cultural Policy: Avignon And Marseille As European Capitals Of Culture
5. Performing “Citizens’ Theatre”: Rites Of The Republic Between Europe And The Mediterranean
6. “Citizens’ Theatre” In Post-Colonial Europe: New Foundations For The Politics Of Culture?
Conclusion: The State, The Arts, And The Polis
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

RITES of the REPUBLIC CITIZENS’ THEATRE AND THE POLITICS OF CULTURE IN SOUTHERN FRANCE

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RITES of the REPUBLIC CITIZENS’ THEATRE AND THE POLITICS OF CULTURE IN SOUTHERN FRANCE MARK INGRAM

Teaching Culture: UTP Ethnographies for the Classroom

University of Toronto Press

Copyright © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2011 Higher Education Division www.utppublishing.com All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5—is an infringement of the copyright law. Previously published by Broadview Press in 2008 © John L. Steckley

Ingram, Mark, 1957– Rites of the Republic : citizens’ theatre and the politics of culture in Southern France / Mark Ingram. Includes bibliographical references and index. Also available in electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-4426-0176-5 1. Theatre and state—France. 2. Theatre and society—France. 3. Theatre—Political aspects—France. 4. France—Cultural policy. 5. Théâtre Rural d’Animation Culturelle (Beaumes de Venise, France). 6. La Friche la Belle de Mai (Marseille, France). I. Title. PN2044.F8I55 2011

792.0944

C2010-907764-4

We welcome comments and suggestions regarding any aspect of our publications— please feel free to contact us at [email protected] or visit our Internet site at www.utppublishing.com. North America 5201 Dufferin Street North York, Ontario, Canada, M3H 5T8 2250 Military Road Tonawanda, New York, USA, 14150

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of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund. Cover design and interior by Em Dash DesignC Printed in Canada

This book is dedicated to my parents, Van and Jo Ingram.

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction xiii 1 Defining culture: State cultural policy and discourse on the arts in France 1 2 “Culture” in local perspective: The TRAC of Beaumes de Venise 25 3 The Friche la Belle de Mai: Redefining state cultural policy in “Euro-Mediterranean” Marseille 62 4 “Unity in Diversity” in EU and municipal cultural policy: Avignon and Marseille as European capitals of culture 87 5 Performing “citizens’ theatre”: Rites of the Republic between Europe and the Mediterranean 120 6 “Citizens’ theatre” in post-colonial Europe: New foundations for the politics of culture? 157 Conclusion: The state, the arts, and the polis Bibliography 202 Index 223

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193

ILLUSTRATIONS

Chapter 2 1. Fracasse: The cast of Fracasse in front of the Foyer Cantonal of Beaumes de Venise in the spring of 1980. 26 2. Scapin in Robion: The set for Scapin in the outdoor amphitheatre of Robion, 1993. 34 3. Scapin in Beaumes de Venise: The set for Scapin on a street in Beaumes de Venise, 1993. 35 4. Malika Mazari, Avignon, 1993. 39 Chapter 3 5. Philippe Foulquié, 2009. 70 6. François Cervantès in the restaurant of La Friche, 2008. 77 7. Information centre for Marseille-Provence 2013 at the Friche, 2008. 80 Chapter 4 8. The Maison Blanche behind Jean-Pierre Rafaelli and students of the Marseille Theatre Conservatory rehearsing a scene from the town crier project. 109 9. Part of the audience for the town crier project, Place des ÉtatsUnis, in the Le Canet neighbourhood. 110 Chapter 5 10. Scene from Les Colporteurs with red, white, and blue banners echoing the colours of the French flag. 130 vii

viii Illustrations

11. Immigrants on a train in the first part of eXX iL s, “The Train and Bread.” 137 12. Hervé and Coco Bonzom in Mon Théâtre d’Ombres in Clamensane, 2008. 147 13. Musicians for Mon Théâtre d’Ombres. 148 14. Mon Théâtre d’Ombres in Clamensane. Actors are “backstage” behind the TRAC truck, where the make-up station is located. 149 15. Actor Hervé Bonzom at the make-up station. 150 16. Actor Gilbert Chiron just before curtain. 151 17. Make-up artist Cathy Chiron prepares Eliane Goudet. 152 Chapter 6 18. The European backdrop of La Fiorina performed in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary, 1992. 178 19. Poster of Entrelacs: Vigne et Olivier, 2008. 185 20. Poster for the “Berber and Mediterranean Resonances” festival, 2007. 187 MAPS Introduction A. Paris, Marseille, Avignon, Beaumes de Venise, Vaucluse department. xvii Chapter 2 B. Vaucluse TRAC performance sites, 1979–2000. 43 C. Map showing international touring printed on TRAC programs through the early 1990s. 48 Chapter 3 D. The original Euromed zone and location of the Friche within Marseille. 69

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Every book that had a long gestation period (as this book unquestionably did) generates a great many debts along the way. Some of those debts are to people who have provided assistance at key moments along the way while others are to people who have been a constant presence—a source I’ve returned to for help and inspiration since the time of the doctoral research from which this book grew. Many years ago, I walked into the office of my PhD advisor with some trepidation. Before I’d left for the summer, we had hammered out a clear plan for my dissertation research. But the summer had changed my ideas completely, and it was not at all clear to me that my advisor would approve of a study that I now wished to centre on an amateur theatre troupe. To my great surprise, she was delighted. In our discussion, she spun out a string of fascinating directions I might explore and specific studies that might be of assistance. This was one of many conversations with her that I was to enjoy in the years ahead. Here I wish to express my deep gratitude to Susan Carol Rogers, who not only aided tremendously in shaping the project that helped me gain initial purchase on the politics of culture in France but also graciously provided sharp and insightful commentary on the scholarship leading up to this book whenever I have asked it of her, as well as on selected chapter drafts of the book itself. The subjects of this book have been generous far beyond expectations. I am especially grateful to the members of the TRAC and the Friche who often gave of their time in helping me throughout my research. Vincent Siano has unstintingly helped whenever asked, whether it was taking the time for yet another interview, providing me with documents from the TRAC archives, or putting me in contact with scholars, administrators, ix

x Acknowledgments

and other artists with whom the troupe has worked. Without the assistance of Aline Marquis in the earliest stages of my research, this book would never have been written. I thank her here for her probing (and sometimes sceptical!) questions, her insights on the politics of the arts in France over the years, and, most of all, her steady support and friendship. Gilbert and Cathy Chiron have also been extremely helpful, especially in the earliest years of my research. As actor and onetime president of the TRAC and actress and make-up artist, respectively, Gilbert and Cathy have provided two quite distinct (and sometimes opposed) perspectives. I am grateful to them for the abundant and extremely valuable information they have patiently conveyed to this (all-too-frequently) obtuse listener. For endless patience and at least the appearance of enthusiasm in answering my countless questions, I also thank Hervé and Coco Bonzom, Eliane Goudet, Daniel Giusiano, Mario Leccia, Marie-Madeleine Martinet, and Jean-Luc Violet. There are also many people in Marseille to whom I am indebted. At a TRAC rehearsal of a Molière play in Beaumes de Venise one summer, I met a specialist called in to coach the actors: Jean-Pierre Rafaelli of the Marseille Theatre Conservatory. I am most grateful to him for being a peerless guide to the world of theatre in Marseille, where his help was instrumental when the research for this book moved to that city. I am very fortunate to have been able to visit and experience the dynamic creative environment that is the Friche la Belle de Mai. I wish to thank especially Philippe Foulquié and François Cervantès for their thoughtful and incisive interviews. Thanks to the generous welcome of François Cervantès, I was able to be present during the Entreprise theatre troupe rehearsals for the production of Le Dernier Quatuor. I also wish to thank Jany Cianferani of the Théâtre Massalia who went far above and beyond the call of duty by always putting me in touch with just the right person for the interviews I conducted. It is through her intercession that I was able to meet with Bernard Huchon of the Conseil Général of the Bouches du Rhône, to whom I am grateful for sharing his wide-ranging insights on cultural policy in France, particularly with regard to Marseille and the department of the Bouches du Rhône. Others at the Friche who gave generously of their time include Christian Carrignon, Nicole Choukroun, Catherine Germain, Dilia Gavarrete-Lhardit, Xavier Brousse, and Pascale Marais, who tracked down video recordings and many other documents of the Entreprise theatre troupe for me. For help understanding Avignon’s European Capital of Culture campaign, I would like to thank Louis Bec, Sylvie Fraissard, Luis Armengol, and Bernadette Patras. For taking the time to discuss Marseille’s Capital

Acknowledgments xi

of Culture project with me, I would also like to thank Cyril Brunet of the Marseille-Provence 2013 management team and Frédérique Fuzibet of the Theatre of the Sea. I am very grateful to sociologist Eric Fassin for putting me in contact with Le Monde journalist Clarisse Fabre, whom I also thank for her careful and thorough attention to my questions, her insightful answers, and for helping me to understand better which cultural events get media coverage in France and why. Although I have done my best to contribute photographs to this book, there is really no substitute for the work of a skilled photographer, and I am very grateful to François Vachet for his wonderful photographs of the TRAC and to Francis Blaise for his fine photograph of Philippe Foulquié. For their extraordinary hospitality in hosting an itinerant American scholar, as well as their enlightening discussions about contemporary France and Provence in particular, I also wish to thank Florence Blanchard, Anne Malbec, Gérard and Marie Nocella, and Jean-Paul and Marie-Hélène Rabaud. I am deeply appreciative of the institutional funding for the research leading to this book. I draw here in part on dissertation research that was supported at various stages by the Council of European Studies, the National Science Foundation in the us , the French government’s Chateaubriand Fellowship program, the Société des Professeurs Français et Francophones d’Amérique, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. I am also grateful to Goucher College, which has supported more recent research through faculty summer research grants between 1999 and 2006 and in 2008 and 2010. For their encouragement and astute suggestions regarding early written work leading to this book, I thank anthropologists Marc Abélès, Fred Myers, and Susan Terrio, as well as political scientist Jane Bennett. I am also grateful for their close reading and helpful comments to the members of the faculty writing group at Goucher College, including Robert Beachy, Daniel Marcus, Flo Martin, Antje Rauwerda, and John Turner. My colleague Rebecca Free’s experience as theatre historian, director, and performer has helped me to understand staging issues in greater depth and, I hope, to do a better job of describing aspects of performance in my writing. Other scholars who have provided helpful comments on preliminary drafts include anthropologists Jeffrey Cole and Jelena Karanovic´. I would also like to express my appreciation for the tireless dedication of my editor Anne Brackenbury, who believed in the project early on and worked hard to make it happen. I am also extremely fortunate to have benefited from the extraordinarily attentive and writerly expertise of copy editor Karen Taylor, to whom I am also most grateful.

xii Acknowledgments

Many years ago, when I was working on my dissertation, I arrived at my computer one day and found that it had been covered with yellow sticky notes, each of them with the word “NO” scrawled furiously across it. Five years old at the time, my son Emmett has since become much more supportive of my research and I thank him here for his fine work on the maps in this book. For their extraordinary patience, love, and support throughout the research and writing process, I thank my children, Emmett, Noble, and Isabel, and especially my wife, Lydia Mason. While I hope the influence of all those who have helped is evident in the pages that follow, I alone am responsible for any errors in the content. Chapter 1 includes material previously published in slightly different form in a review of Renouveau et décentralisation du théâtre 1945–1981, by Pascale Goetschel, in French Politics, Culture & Society 25, no. 2 (2007): 151–3. A slightly different version of Chapter 3 was published as “The Artist and the City in ‘Euro-Mediterranean’ Marseille: Redefining State Cultural Policy in an Era of Transnational Governance,” City and Society: Journal of the Society for Urban Anthropology 21, no. 2 (2009): 268–92. Chapter 4 draws in part on an article entitled “Promoting

Europe through ‘Unity in Diversity’: Avignon as European Capital of Culture in 2000,” Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe 10, no. 1 (2010): 14–25.

INTRODUCTION

This is a book about the value of culture, and the stakes underlying its definition, for two groups of artists. Through ethnographic study of each group’s engagement with its local social environment, this book examines the models of citizenship put forth in arts initiatives with an explicitly social agenda. It focuses in particular on the ways political and territorial frames—municipal, national, European, “Mediterranean”—shape such models. At heart, this is a book about the national politics of culture in an increasingly globalized world. I consider how civic-centred arts initiatives have helped actors interpret social change in the terms of national ideological traditions centred on art and politics, and I explore what happens when these traditions are transformed in an era of post-colonial pluralism, globalizing economic change, European Union integration, and Euro-Mediterranean partnerships. My subject is a specifically national repertoire of values associated with culture in France, but the ethnographic approach taken here centres on the ways these artists put their understandings of culture into play both within and beyond arts settings proper. As such, this book shows the ways culture is valued, promoted, and defined outside the institutional settings of state cultural policy or the intellectual milieux that dominate discourse on culture in France. By “culture,” I am referring to that peculiarly Western invention described by Raymond Williams (1983) as an arts-centred response to changes in capitalism and democratic politics.1 Based on a reading of key English writers between 1780 and 1950, Williams’s analysis underlines the paradoxes of culture as a moral project in European history. In theorizing “culture,” the authors he considers are trying to protect a separate and quasi-sacred realm whose features are defined in opposition to the xiii

xiv Introduction

alienation and aesthetic degradation brought on by the dramatic expansion of capitalism. At the same time, these figures attempt to redeem and transform the social body, to find ways of making this quasi-sacred realm operative and influential, in short, to define culture as a “mitigating and rallying alternative” to the harmful social effects of rapid economic change (Williams 1983:xviii). The people in the two theatre projects I consider here are not influential literary figures such as those discussed by Williams. The members of the first group are not even celebrated artists within a national context. Nor, for most of them, is theatre central to their livelihood. The people of the TRAC (Théâtre Rural d’Animation Culturelle) come from a broad range of backgrounds, with teachers and students well represented. They also include nurses, plumbers, and art framers. Many have worked in mid-level administrative positions in institutions of the French state, such as the National Office for Family Allocations, the Ministry of Agriculture, or the Ministry of Youth and Sports, where the troupe’s leader, Vincent Siano, worked for many years, organizing arts activities in the rural towns of the Vaucluse department. Since the troupe’s founding in 1979, Siano and the other members of this troupe have crafted an arts project uniquely suited to the small, rural towns of their local circuit while at the same time linked to national cultural policy initiatives. The key members of the second project considered here, the Friche, are professional artists and administrators, including Friche director Philippe Foulquié, former director of a marionette troupe in Lyon and Marseille who was named to direct the newly created Friche arts centre in 1992. Since then, Foulquié has tirelessly expressed the centre’s goals and skilfully defined a place for it within Marseille’s cultural policy landscape. Another important member of the Friche, François Cervantès, is the director of the professional theatre troupe L’Entreprise. This was an itinerant troupe prior to 2002, but, since its installation at the Friche, it has enthusiastically embraced the centre’s urban emphasis. L’Entreprise has sought to make its theatre particularly meaningful with respect to the urban population of France’s most culturally diverse city in accordance with the founding principle of the Friche: “the artist, the city, his [or her] city.” But if troupe members differ in celebrity and artistic influence from the writers Williams describes, they share a commitment to the value of culture, albeit in a very different national and historical context. In France, cultural policy has long been taken seriously as an affair of state: a crucial medium of nation building. The modern era of cultural policy in France began with the creation of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in 1959 (later simply the Ministry of Culture). As Pierre Rosanvallon has

Introduction xv

noted, the Ministry of Culture’s importance should not be understood merely in terms of the distribution of financial support to artists. Rather, it symbolizes a kind of relationship between the state and society. In this context, culture and education should not be understood merely as sectors of state administration. They are “the very raison d’être of this state. The specificity of the French state on this point is striking” (Rosanvallon 1990:110).2 Throughout the Fifth Republic (1958–) and in different economic contexts, the French state has been a key actor in both defining culture as a sacred realm distinct from the effects of capitalism and shaping cultural policy to act as a “mitigating and rallying alternative” to it. But in the last twenty years, the French state’s role in cultural policy has been strongly challenged. Books and articles by scholars and former administrators at the Ministry of Culture have proclaimed the end of an era: “the end of utopias” (Donnat 1994), “the end of a myth” (Djian 2005, Donnat 1991), “the end of the cultural exception” (Farchy 1999), and, in Marc Fumaroli’s more poetic phrasing, “the twilight of the cultural state” (2006). The concerns of artists prior to the election of President Nicolas Sarkozy in the spring of 2007 were evident in a May 16 editorial in France’s most influential daily, Le Monde. Signed by well-known film directors and screenwriters, it was titled simply “Do not eliminate the Ministry of Culture.” Thus far, neither President Sarkozy nor his ministers of culture, Christiane Albanel (2007–09) and Frédéric Mitterrand (2009–), have proposed dramatic changes. But the overall intellectual climate suggests a clear break with the civic ideals associated with the state’s administration of culture in the past, and perhaps a reworking of the special relationship between state and society that “culture” has represented. There is a significant literature addressing this national discourse on the arts focused on the changing priorities and policies of the Ministry of Culture since 1958.3 The approach taken here provides a novel perspective by examining how and why culture matters in the lived experience of civic-minded artists. Through analysis of the logic of practice guiding their work, this book shows how the arts provide a sense of belonging within understandings of political community framed as local, national, European, and Mediterranean. The two initiatives at the centre of this book have addressed state cultural policy on their own terms and adapted to changing political and economic contexts. Grounded in very different local settings, each, in recent years, has also extended its international touring and exchanges. This book tells the story of what they have discovered and what they have created as they have adapted

xvi Introduction

the ideals of a national discourse to a new, increasingly international context for their work.

Two local initiatives of “culture” The two groups of artists who are the subject of this book represent two strands of the greater story of how globalization and Europeanization are affecting the relationship between local cultural producers, national culture, and the state. Although these initiatives share a focus on their local environments and a commitment to international exchange, the comparative approach taken here highlights three key differences between the two projects. The first of these is the setting and its impact on the meaning of “local” for each project. The second concerns the relationship between art and the economy in their work. The third concerns their engagement with the European Union and an increasingly important “Euro-Mediterranean” discourse in the Provence–Alpes–Côtes d’Azur region. The TR AC of Beaumes de Venise: “From the terroir to the international” The TRAC is an amateur theatre troupe that, since its founding in 1979, has been explicitly committed to building a viable, dynamic local base for culture in the Vaucluse department. The TRAC is based in the tiny rural town of Beaumes de Venise and situates itself within the tradition of theatre “decentralization” that has been an important medium of post– World War II state cultural policy in France. It is a voluntary association and draws much of its support from a broad network of local mayors and municipal arts organizers, other civically minded associations such as the Fédération des Oeuvres Laiques, and local sympathizers spread across the Vaucluse department. It is these kinds of groups that have often provided grass-roots support to state policies through practices that translate the agendas of national cultural policy into locally meaningful projects. In the way that it has embedded a national cultural discourse in its local touring, the TRAC illustrates how the local and the national in France should not be understood as opposed but rather, as Susan Carol Rogers has argued, “dialectically related, fulfilling and preserving each other” (Rogers 1991:198). Maintaining amateur status has been important in two senses. First, it has been a means of promoting active participation in the arts locally rather than encouraging an interpretation of “decentralization” focused

Introduction xvii

on the broader diffusion of works created by arts specialists. Second, it has been a crucial way that the troupe has sought to maintain the purity of its cultural project outside the logic of the market. Although TRAC productions are paid for by the towns that host them, these performances are, in many ways, more like the currency of “the gift,” in which exchanges consecrate an ongoing social relationship. TRAC performances in small towns are often preceded by exchanges with the mayor and other members of the local community, especially during the near-obligatory round of toasts and drinks (the “aperitif”) before each show. Following the show, troupe members are frequently guests at an informal dinner shared with people from the town. In recent years, the TRAC ’s international touring has increased both within Europe and to North Africa. Generally, this touring has been shaped by the same goals and ideals present in its local practice. The troupe never goes where it has not been invited, and only rarely to festivals. The company prefers travelling to rural areas in other countries to visit arts groups that are, in turn, invited to the rural Vaucluse. Although the troupe has travelled extensively throughout Europe, to the United States, and to North Africa, it maintains a strong appreciation for the singularity of its rural base in the Vaucluse. Using the French term for a locally specific identity often used in culinary contexts (terroir), the heading for a report on the TRAC ’s 2007 trip to the Kabylie region in Algeria proclaimed “From the terroir to the international.”

Paris, Marseille, Avignon, Beaumes de Venise, Vaucluse department

xviii Introduction

La Friche la Belle de Mai: The artist and the polis The Friche arts project is similarly centred on its local setting—in this case, Marseille and the Belle de Mai neighbourhood. According to Friche publicity materials, the founding principle is “the artist, the city, his [or her] city.” The text goes on to state that this principle “can only be realized if one examines the relationship between the artist and economic growth (développement)” (Lextrait 2001). Recently, that relationship changed dramatically for the Friche. Since 1992, a public association had been responsible for its administration. In 2007, this association was transformed into an SCIC (Société Coopérative d’Intérêt Collectif). The SCIC is a new (since 2001) type of private, non-profit, general interest cooperative company. Created in 2001, the SCIC combines the structure of a business with certain aspects of cooperatives (such as impartible reserves) and the goal of the general interest in that the SCIC must be focused on its local socio-economic environment. At the Friche, it is hoped that the change to SCIC status will lead to more flexible administration, allowing, for example, the creation of business initiatives such as a new restaurant and an onsite bookstore. In some ways, this represents the privatization of a public enterprise, although the Friche remains non-profit and maintains the democratic organization of its administration common to associations created under the “law of 1901.” Still, the new status represents a shift away from the state as guarantor of the public nature of the project. In important ways, Friche artists have interpreted national ideals within the context of Marseille and its Euro-Mediterranean aspirations. A key move was linking the Friche to the Euroméditerranée renovation plan targeting the city’s port area and extending to the Belle de Mai district. In 1995, the Friche was incorporated within the Euromed project and named a “major cultural axis of development” (“pole culturel majeur de développement”). Euromed seeks to make Marseille a key metropolitan centre within the “zone of shared prosperity” decided on by the European Union and 12 Mediterranean countries.4 This was intended to lead, ultimately, to a Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area by the year 2010. Thus, like the TRAC , the Friche is both committed to a cultural project in its local environment and turned outward toward international exchanges. But its strategy has been fundamentally different. The Friche is a base for professional artists. It is devoted to encouraging collaboration and exchange among specialists whose livelihood depends on their artistic work. In contrast to the voluntary association and its links to a rural network of municipalities, the Friche has embraced cooperative

Introduction xix

status as a way of charting its own economic course. It has also carved out an important role for its cultural project with regard to the region’s and Marseille’s aspirations to Euro-Mediterranean leadership. The comparative focus in this book highlights the distinctively local and national aspects of each project while also considering two different economic strategies for projects of “culture.” Ethnographic analysis of these initiatives shows how they build on and extend social networks that both reproduce a national discourse on culture and contribute to significant changes to that discourse in a new international context.

An ethnographic approach to “culture” The material drawn from in this book comes from several sources, and is based on the author’s long experience with the people and places considered. This experience includes living and studying (1977–81) in the area around Avignon, the largest city of the Vaucluse department. Return visits to Avignon between 1981 and 1990 were followed by pre-dissertation research in 1990 and 1991 and thirteen months of dissertation fieldwork in 1992–93. Further extended research in the Vaucluse was conducted in the summers of 1997, 2000, and 2003. More recent trips in 2005, 2006, and 2008 included research in Marseille as well. In 2004, I travelled with the TRAC on a return trip to the small town of Botfa in Hungary, where we had toured in 1993. During that trip, in addition to observing the performances of the troupe and conducting interviews with them, I also interviewed our Hungarian hosts, a local zither group. The interviews helped me to understand their changing perspectives on European integration (Hungary became a member of the European Union in 2004) and the role of exchanges with groups like the TRAC in shaping these views. Finally, I returned to the Vaucluse and to Marseille in the summer of 2010, when my visit happily coincided with a tour of the Hungarian zither group to southern France. These periods of research have been supplemented by ongoing telephone and email contact, and my collaboration in bringing troupes from the Provence area four times between 1996 and 2009 for one-week stays and performances in the United States. The approach here represents a particular kind of “multi-sited” research in which extensive knowledge of one case is supplemented by close comparison with a second. My experience with the Friche is of shorter duration but has served to illuminate the distinctively local and national aspects of the TRAC ’s initiative. This methodology has been

xx Introduction

especially fruitful in two important ways. First, my prior understanding of the national and regional contexts for culture allowed me to grasp the perspective of the Friche quickly and the stakes underlying its initiative. Second, long study of arts initiatives in the area has made it easier to trace changes and continuities. With each group, I met with individual members in order to conduct a series of informal, semi-directed interviews. Meetings with people outside each group who worked with them helped me to understand how each project’s institutional affiliations translated into social networks and patterns of practice at the ground level. In order to better understand the sources of support for the TRAC , I interviewed administrators in non-profit associations that have worked closely with and funded amateur theatre initiatives, including the Fédération des Oeuvres Laïques de Vaucluse (Federation of Secular Works of the Vaucluse) and the Fédération des Foyers Ruraux (Federation of Rural Centres). I also interviewed selected mayors and cultural affairs organizers in towns where the TRAC performs. In addition to participation-observation in the more “official” TRAC settings of rehearsals and administrative meetings, I was present at the actual performances of productions, where troupe members’ ideas about art and society were most explicitly enacted. I participated in a number of capacities, including as an actor, audience member, photographer, and backstage technician. For the Friche, I draw primarily here on interviews and participantobservation (including the observation of rehearsals and performances) conducted between 2006 and 2008, as well as on publicity and other Friche texts produced during that period. I draw extensively from interviews with two key interlocutors: Friche director Philippe Foulquié and director of the Entreprise theatre troupe François Cervantès. Other key interview subjects include actors of the Enterprise and other Friche troupes, journalists who have followed the evolution of the Friche since its creation and people in Marseille, such as schoolteachers and municipal arts organizers, who have worked with the Friche on projects targeting the Belle de Mai neighbourhood. In drawing on ethnographic data from interviews, participant-observation, and both photographic and videographic documentation, I have focused on the ways a national discourse on culture is operative and meaningful in local contexts. This approach highlights the perspectives and contributions of people who are putting the key concepts of “culture” into play in their arts practice. It also shows how these are concepts meaningful in their lives more generally outside the domain of the arts proper.

Introduction xxi

Public theatre as medium of national culture Marseillais playwright and director François Cervantès works at the Friche. In the summer of 2006, Cervantès spoke to me of a theatrical production he created with middle-school students at their school in the local Belle de Mai neighbourhood. His goal was to help the students gain a new perspective on their surroundings that would give them ownership of their school experience—making them creative, dynamic actors rather than passive recipients of instruction, prey to social alienation and isolation. Asked about the main obstacles he faced in the most culturally diverse city of France, he replied The problem to be avoided is the withdrawal into communities (le repli communautaire). Many people stay within their own groups, and those are the ones that we don’t end up seeing. It’s an important question in Marseille with so many different cultures. But this last year with all the burned cars in France?5 We didn’t have them here. There are people who say it is because of the harmony between groups here. Maybe. . . . And maybe it’s that the mafia won’t allow it. . . .

Referring to a withdrawal into an identity based on ethnicity or religion (le repli communautaire), Cervantès described a stance incompatible with the universalist ideals of the Republic.6 French “republican universalism” is the idea that the preservation of the Republic depends on its being composed not of distinct communities and diverse cultural identities but on individual citizens equal under law and linked directly to the state without intermediary representation. In France, this idea is central to debates about the “integration” of immigrants and the alienated youth in poor neighbourhoods. In the past, the state’s role has been central in ensuring a “pure” domain of culture based on universalist ideals. This role includes the assessment of art according to aesthetic standards that transcend parochial tastes. But the state has also been an important voice promoting “republican universalism” by treating culture as a medium for transcending the particular interests of specific groups. Especially in the years since the founding of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs (1959) at the outset of the Fifth Republic, debates about culture in France have hidden larger concerns about national belonging and political subjectivity. For artists such as Cervantès, the theatre is a vital medium for the individual’s engagement with society, expressed here not only in the context of the distinctive Marseillais environment of today but also in the terms

xxii Introduction

of a long-standing national discourse on culture linking arts practice and understandings of citizenship.

Defining and performing culture The civic concepts underlying the arts for artists such as Cervantès are not mere abstractions; they are also enacted and recast—performed—in their creative work and social exchanges. These performances are a dynamic site of cultural innovation, where an artistic heritage of “citizens’ theatre” (théâtre citoyen)7 is retooled and brought to bear on the cultural diversity of French society. As in Alaina Lemon’s remarkable study of Gypsy performance and Romani memory in Russia (2000), analysis of the performances of citizens’ theatre shows how their meanings are embedded in “social relations, places, and practices” and “circulated through and channelled by cultural and political institutions” (27). These performances underscore the presence of the past in authoritative ideologies concerning art and politics in contemporary France. This book addresses the state-mediated field of artistic production in France. In contrast to the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 1993), however, it is not primarily concerned with the processes by which the arts are recognized as legitimate and serve to reinforce broader patterns of social legitimacy. Here, I focus on the meaning-making function of the cultural field in France. This book’s title echoes James Peacock’s (1968) exemplary study of Indonesian ludruk theatre (Rites of Modernization). Peacock examines ludruk as a medium for translating social, political, and economic change through performance.8 Although centred on social change, my study is not, however, guided by the paradigm of modernization. As with more recent anthropological studies (Ferguson 1999, Rogers 1991), I especially wish to avoid two assumptions that often accompany treatments of modernization: the idea that social change implies a unidirectional model of progress and the expectation that this results in a definitively “modern” outcome. Here, I consider the creative work of my subjects to be a dynamic process for finding meaning by confronting the culturally threatening aspects of contemporary life with the universalist ideals of the Republic. Their performances are rites through which individuals translate contemporary ambiguity in the terms of national political and artistic traditions. Considering the impact of globalization on the cultural integrity of the nation state, some analysts have argued that we have entered a postnational world in which the state is no longer the primary actor shaping

Introduction xxiii

the interpretation of modernity for its citizens (Appadurai 1996; Hedetoft and Hjort 2002). But, as Jennifer Cash has noted, in spite of the growing importance of transnational and global economies and the proliferation of NGO s, “the new world without boundaries promised by marketing and slogans does not exist” (2007:1). Study of the “uses” of culture for the subjects of this book allows us to understand better the processes serving to reproduce a specifically national frame for culture in an era when the state’s role is rapidly changing.9

Early fieldwork I was introduced to the TRAC through a friend, Aline Marquis, who has occasionally performed with them. This is important partly because I seemed to gain a certain trustworthiness immediately by virtue of the respect people held for her but also because it helps to explain some of my reasons for being interested in amateur theatre in the first place. When I came to Avignon to begin a year of participant-observation with the troupe in 1992–93, I already had considerable experience in the area. As an undergraduate student, I studied for a year (1976–77) in Avignon and Aix-en-Provence, and I lived and worked in a hotel in Avignon between 1979 and 1981. While there, I was able to follow the Avignon Theatre Festival in the summer. I had always been struck by the importance of the festival, which, from the perspective of the Avignonnais, seemed to take over the city of approximately 100,000 people every summer. Created by theatre director Jean Vilar in 1947 when he presented plays in the Court of Honour at the Palace of the Popes, the Avignon Theatre Festival was an early and influential example of postwar “decentralization.” Motivated by “a certain idea of the theatre and territory in France,”10 theatre decentralization has, since the nineteenth century, sought to provide greater access to the theatre arts to those outside Paris. Common to the leftist Popular Front’s support of decentralization in the 1930s and to the Vichy government’s support for it during World War II was the assumption that it was not just provincials who would gain: modern theatre, too (viewed as bourgeois, decadent, or sterile), would benefit from the vitality of “popular” inspiration. In the divided years following World War II , decentralization offered the promise of national unity as well: a renewal of both the theatre and the Republic. The Avignon Festival has grown to become an enormous enterprise— the largest theatre festival in France and one of the largest in Europe.

xxiv Introduction

Although local residents often grumble about the “Parisians” descending upon the city every summer, the economic benefits are clear. Many Avignonnais do escape the hordes in the summer. But they rent their apartments out at exorbitant prices while they are gone. Beyond the exclusive performances of the official “In” festival and the “Off” troupes clamouring to advertise their shows in the streets, the festival fascinated me because of the way Vilar’s legacy lived on in the intense discussions about the civic dimension of art, especially concerning decentralization. One important stated goal of post–World War II decentralizing initiatives such as the Avignon Festival and regional national theatres (the Centres Dramatiques Nationaux) was to diminish condescension from the capital: “We must do away with that hideous word ‘the province’” proclaimed the first minister of cultural affairs, André Malraux, in 1959. Whether one views Malraux’s signature creation (the Maisons de la Culture established in regional cities) as providing broader access to the arts or as the assertion of wider territorial claims of a new ministry, one thing is clear. As the directors of theatrical decentralization acted as emissaries of the state and presented policy objectives to local elected officials, they helped to define “culture” as a new administrative domain and as a public field of discourse in which arts issues received broader legitimacy as affairs of state. Arts decentralization in France helped to introduce new actors and terms of debate to French politics. In the latter half of the twentieth century, “culture” became an important arena for the cultivation and expression of alternative political models. State policies were not simply imposed on a passive citizenry. Rather, they have been seized on and acted on by artists and administrators throughout France. A key moment in the development of culture as a political discourse in France was May 1968, when strikes by students and workers paralyzed the country and intellectuals sought to articulate broad concerns about the relations between state and society. An influential statement of political goals and demands emerged from a meeting of theatre directors at Villeurbanne that May. Many of the demands of this “Manifesto” had been part of ongoing negotiations between local directors and centralized administrators. As Pascale Goetschel notes, “May ’68 did not spring from barren soil” (Goetschel 2004:378). Avignon figured large as one of the first projects of decentralization, and has been closely associated with Jean Vilar’s project of “citizens’ theatre.” Every year for a month, the city, closely followed in the national press, becomes the centre of a national debate about the political importance of the arts and the proper role for the state.

Introduction xxv

The festival has also had a strong influence locally. In the 1970s, I discovered a thriving amateur theatre scene. What I found especially interesting was that many of the troupes seemed to have a political perspective that was reflected in their theatre practice. For example, I had gone to see a friend perform in a play, and she had told me that the director was a communist. Influenced by the work of directors such as Ariane Mnouchkine, he had drawn the audience into the show. By recasting the “passive” role of the spectators, this director was proposing a more participatory model of citizenship. I remembered the big informal dinner for all the performers and their friends before the show, and their wild performance inside a gymnasium. Much as Jean Vilar in 1947 had signalled a desire to take the theatre to new audiences in Avignon by performing in the open air—outside the staid and exclusive setting of established theatres—this troupe staged its production in a wide-open setting, with the audience seated on “egalitarian” bleachers. My friend Aline had herself performed in an Occitan-language theatre troupe along with her brother. They had been committed to keeping the language alive and to protecting a certain way of life they felt it represented. Later, she created and performed street theatre protesting the construction of the high-speed train, the TGV, which eventually ended up cutting through her parents’ farm (they were reimbursed by the government and moved away). I wanted to understand the ways that the civic and political dimension of the arts was a matter of interest for so many people—not just professional artists—and in ways that extended into many aspects of their daily lives. Framing their creative work in the terms of a nationally shared language of culture, these people were expressing political concerns and ideals. These were local and, sometimes, very personal responses to the same macro-level currents of socio-economic change addressed by state cultural policy. In the summer of 1990, I returned to the area as a graduate student in anthropology and French studies, intent on studying the local engagement with national cultural policy in an area where “decentralization” had had such a powerful impact. Initially, I intended to focus on one of the area’s smaller theatre festivals, such as the one at Valréas in the northern “enclave” of the Vaucluse department. I travelled to the area with my friend Aline, who introduced me to the administrators of the festival. One night, she told me that she’d be away that night as she had to go to a rehearsal with an amateur theatre group that turned out to be the TRAC . That summer of 1990, I started to meet people active in amateur theatre in the area and discovered that the most important institution in the Vaucluse was an umbrella organization of amateur troupes, the

xxvi Introduction

ATV (Action du Théâtre Vauclusien), based in Valréas. With pre-dissertation funding from the Council of European Studies, I returned in May 1991 to study the range of theatre activity in the area and choose one of the troupes for a case study. I wanted a troupe with a strong commitment to a specifically local audience and a successful, long-term existence that would permit me to study its evolution over time. I learned that the TRAC had once been an important member of the ATV (and still occasionally participated in its activities) but had broken away to become an important institution in and of itself. The TRAC was the largest association of amateur theatre in the Vaucluse. I met the troupe’s leader, Vincent Siano, and the president of the troupe’s association at the time, Sylvie Quoirin. Siano agreed to my request to study the troupe and later wrote a letter expressing the troupe’s interest in “the objective perspective of a student conducting research into our cultural initiative and our means of expression.” In June of 1992, I arrived in Avignon with fellowship support and began 13 months of fieldwork during which I studied the TRAC over an annual cycle of production. My wife and 3-year-old son and I moved into a house just across the Rhone River from Avignon. We bought a used car, allowing me to drive myself and troupe members from Avignon (where roughly a third of the most active members either lived or worked) to Beaumes de Venise, where the troupe rehearsed and held administrative meetings in the evenings and on weekends. Over the course of a year, I conducted informal interviews with a broad range of people involved in their project. This included 35 current and former troupe members and others in the community, such as the mayors and municipal arts organizers who often hired them. In addition to rehearsals and administrative meetings, I also attended TRAC workshops and performances in their local circuit in the Vaucluse department, their tour to an amateur theatre festival in Chateauroux in the Indres department, their trip to the small town of Bobbio Pollice in Italy, and a week-long trip to the small rural town of Botfa in Hungary.

“Culture” and social solidarity: The story of Aline and her brother Culture appears to be the response to the sense of loss of identity in modern man. . . . It is necessary to invent a new form of civilization in which culture and economic growth must be reconciled. Jacques Duhamel, Minister of Culture (1971–73), L’Ère de la Culture, 1993.

Introduction xxvii

That is the basic story of how I came to do my initial fieldwork with the TRAC , but there is another story here concerning my friendship with Aline and her brother. Although few of the TRAC members shared her anti-TGV or pro-Occitan opinions, most respected the strength of her convictions. When I met the troupe’s leaders in 1990, the Occitan theatre troupe had long since disintegrated, and regionalist activism was much less important than it had been in the 1970s in France. Since the 90s, support for regional languages in France has come from both the state and European levels, but, at the time, it seemed to Aline that a whole way of life was disappearing. As she liked to point out to me, the construction of the TGV was not just about getting passengers from Paris to Avignon faster. It also meant the elimination of train service to many small towns in the area. It was part of the rural flight that was turning small towns in the area into “museum villages” without any control over their future. Promoting Occitan and opposing the TGV was her way of fighting the changes that had left many small towns with aging populations and closing schools. Aline’s brother, who was also a good friend of mine, grew even more dissatisfied with contemporary French society. He too had acted in the Occitan group, and it had seemed to serve a much greater purpose than just linguistic diversity. In the 1980s, he became deeply spiritual. He turned first to his Catholic roots but ultimately decided to convert to Islam because he believed that Christianity had become too tainted in its compromise with the consumerism and hypocrisies of modern life. About that time, I was looking for an apartment and I moved into his HLM 11 apartment outside the walls of Avignon, where I lived with him for almost a year. At night, while I was studying, I could hear him chanting prayers in the next room. On the surface it may seem that his conversion was a radical change from his earlier Occitan activism. But, in both cases, his interest was in keeping a tradition alive and protected from corrupting contemporary changes. In his view, it was still possible to find teachers maintaining a pure spiritual tradition in Islam, free from the naked selfinterest he saw rampant in the economy of “modern” society. In efforts to gain state recognition for Occitan appeals, Aline’s brother had been deeply involved in a national discourse about culture and society guided by the state. His conversion accompanied a loss of faith in the state-directed modernist social project so important in France since the beginning of the Third Republic in 1870. Douglas Holmes’s study of European “integralism” situates this loss of faith in broader terms and describes some of its roots and results. Holmes (2000) argues that the profoundly unsettling effects of “fast capitalism,” coupled with European

xxviii Introduction

Union efforts to weaken the political and economic sovereignty of European states, have created a civic vacuum. While European states no longer have the power to govern national societies, the European Union has not (yet) taken its place. At risk is the modernist project of building national social solidarity based on universalist principles and achieved through the institutions of the state (Durkheim’s organic solidarity). The danger to this model is evident in the rise in support for narrowly exclusionist groups such as the National Front (Front National) in France or the Northern League (Lega Nord) in Italy. Based on “mechanical solidarity” through bonds of blood and territory, these groups thrive in a newly pluralist European context. The xenophobic groups on the extreme right, as well as pro-immigrant groups asserting the inassimilable nature of new ethnic identities, argue that there is something essentially irreconcilable between European and non-European identities. This pluralism emphasizes the primacy of national, regional, ethnic, or religious identity rather than the cosmopolitan integration of all citizens within a single civic body directed by the institutions of the state. Both Aline and her brother made their peace with contemporary French society. Her brother maintained his faith, became a teacher, and moved with his wife and children to a small farm that has been in his family’s hands for several generations. Later in the 1990s, with help from her family, Aline would buy a ramshackle former silk-worm factory in the small town of Taulignan and renovate it, turning it into an attractive gîte rural (a rural bed and breakfast). But in 1990, Aline had worked in a series of temporary jobs and was beginning to despair of ever finding a permanent position. While her brother quit the theatre entirely and criticized its lack of moral purpose, Aline maintained her participation in the TRAC , both acting with and, for a time, working for the association. Aline’s story helps explain some of the reasons the TRAC ’s project has appealed to people living in rural areas. Although most TRAC members did not share her views on the TGV , they did share her desire for a dynamic locally based arts project both for economic reasons, to promote the vibrancy and “culturedness” of local towns in the steadily growing market for tourism, and for cultural ones, to engage the arts on their own terms, warts (and southern accents) and all. But her story also underlines another key dimension of the TRAC ’s practice. Part of what impressed me about the troupe, as I got to know its members better, was the way it was able to bring together people with widely divergent perspectives. And what I liked, from a friend’s perspective, was that the troupe provided a social and ideological anchor to Aline’s life in the same way that Islam seemed to have done for her brother. For many, it seemed, not just

Introduction xxix

for Aline, the theatre provided a voice that worked against a sense of cultural alienation. In addition, it linked the same kinds of small towns and communities that Aline felt were further isolated by the TGV . The TRAC was intensely social and grounded in a wide-ranging network of troupe “sympathizers” in small rural towns throughout the Vaucluse. For Aline, participation in the troupe was one way of finding a place in society, while, at the same time, defining the kind of society in which she wanted to live. It was because of the way the TRAC was valuable to Aline that my interest in the troupe deepened. Other members of the troupe had quite different reasons for participating. For some, what counted most was artistic quality—the ability of artistic works to take them away from the banalities of daily life, so they could achieve some measure of inspiration and transcendence. For others, the social bonds were primary: “To tell you the truth,” musician Cris Carron once told me, “the theatre is a pretext for me. It’s the people.” Others believed that both goals were important but had profound disagreements about how they should be pursued. As an official outside observer, and someone who became friends with many in the troupe, I have heard many of these disagreements over the years. But what has been more important to me than the varied quarrels between individuals has been the shared mode of dealing with disagreements in more general, universalist terms. In decision-making processes in administrative meetings, rehearsals, and other less formal settings, the collective, social value of the voluntary association was affirmed beyond the value of any one individual. It was through these processes that individual positions were situated with respect to a shared heritage and vision for the troupe. I came to see that this theatre practice, far from lacking moral purpose, was a medium for the expression of values central to the cosmopolitan state-driven social project in France in which the administration of culture has played such an important part. In its theatre practice, the troupe engages a national discourse on culture and draws on the local, territorially rooted social networks, especially in the Vaucluse department but also outside France (notably in Europe and North Africa). The troupe promotes an ideology of social inclusion grounded in the state-supported tradition of éducation populaire. It does this in the aesthetic choices behind its theatrical creations, in its rehearsal and administrative practice (especially in accepting all applicants in its larger productions), and in its social exchanges with local communities in the towns where it performs. In performing culture, the troupe has also performed its own vision of how to live in society in changing political and economic conditions.

xxx Introduction

The recent challenges to state cultural policy in France and the changes in the PACA region raise questions about the civic frame for the work of these artists. What changes and continuities are present in the ways local projects sustain ongoing patterns of national culture? In what ways does the city, the region, or Europe provide a meaningful alternative civic frame to the state? Some analysts have underlined the role of cultural policy as a means of exercising greater control over citizens. In these studies, cultural policy is an instrument of “governmentality” (Miller and Yúdice 2002; Stevenson 1999) that supports new modes of governance, including those of the European Union (Shore 2006).12 To what extent do these artists sustain broader patterns of governance in their civic projects? These questions are addressed here through situating the local experience of culture for these two groups within the broader political context of the municipality, region, state, and European Union. The subjects of this book are actors. In their efforts to create a free sphere of artistic creation and to employ it as a means of crafting their own perspective on the dynamic economic changes affecting their part of contemporary France, they have had to put their ideals to the test in the social environments of the rural Vaucluse and urban Marseille. They are primarily actors, then, and not theorists, although they are theorists too, as we shall see. At stake in the projects of artists such as these is the kind of social world that will emerge from the confrontation between economic change and the values transmitted through arts traditions in twenty-first-century Europe. Although engaged with a national discourse on culture, these theatre groups are expressing their own singular perspectives. Through their performances, these artists are making sense of their lives as members of society and presenting their vision of society as dynamic, cosmopolitan, and inclusive. Ethnographic work on contemporary France has deepened our understanding of the dialectic between local cultural systems and state institutions (Abélès 1989; Reed-Danahay 1996; Rogers 2001, 1991). In recent years, an important focus has been transnational influences, especially concerning post-colonial memory and circuits of exchange between metropolitan France and its current and former territories overseas (Beriss 2004; Silverstein 2004; Smith 2006; Terrio 2000). This literature has been especially sensitive to history as a living heritage shaping people’s lives today. But there has been little anthropological work devoted to an important arena in which French people have self-consciously grappled with issues of cultural heritage and social change: the discourse on the arts and society greatly shaped (but not wholly defined) by state cultural

Introduction xxxi

policy. It is this theme, so vital to the French (and indeed European) selfimage yet so little studied, that this book examines. In Chapter 1, I describe the evolution of French cultural policy between the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958 and the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. Arguing that the field of culture has been an influential arena for the expression of understandings of society and citizenship, this chapter describes the social and political stakes underlying debates about culture and the way they have served to articulate concerns about diversity, heritage, and national identity. Two cultural policy objectives have been particularly important to defining the public mission for the arts during this period: “decentralization” and “democratization.” This chapter also addresses the changing emphasis on “the popular” and “popular education”—concepts of vital importance for the TRAC association. Key changes during this period include the evolution from a directive role for the state to more of a partnership relationship between the Ministry of Culture and local government. With regard to the theatre in particular, the death of “the popular” as a significant mobilizing theme of cultural policy was part of a broader change in which professional artists gained increasing autonomy from state-directed civic agendas while, paradoxically, also gaining increased support from the state. These developments have raised questions about the public mission for the arts and the extent to which the state can and should support the arts. In Chapters 2 and 3, I consider the distinctive approaches of the TRAC and the Friche to these questions, approaches taken as the two organizations draw on a national discourse about culture to craft arts projects sensitive to their local settings. Chapter 2 describes the origins of the TRAC and the company’s interpretation of popular education and popular theatre primarily in terms of aiding the underserved and underrepresented populations in rural areas. The troupe’s artistic goals have been linked to this social project in that they have concentrated on the interchange between the theatrical work and the social and physical environment of its performance. This chapter also discusses the informal economy of exchanges that sustains the troupe’s touring, both throughout its local circuit of small towns in the Vaucluse department and in its touring abroad. This touring provides sites and occasions for the “rites of the republic,” settings in which the ideals of republican universalism are performed, reproduced, and recast. In the current context, in which past state cultural policy has been strongly criticized, and in the absence of a clearly defined new public mission for state arts policy, artists and administrators at the local level have proposed their own perspectives. Focusing on the “new territories

xxxii Introduction

of art” projects, including the Friche in Marseille, Chapter 3 examines a site where local artists are negotiating new choices and responsibilities introduced by the changing role of the state in French cultural policy and by the international aspirations of Marseille and the broader Provence– Alpes–Côtes d’Azur (PACA ) region. In adapting to this context, local artists both challenge and rearticulate state cultural policy. They pursue the same universalist ideals of the French Republican tradition that have guided state policy in the past, but they reinterpret them in ways more sensitive to the distinctively “Mediterranean” setting of Marseille. Thus, in spite of strong anti-state discourse by artists and fears that the public nature of their work has been weakened by economic liberalization, the state still exerts the power to shape the terms with which public arts projects define the civic content of their work, as this case shows. At the same time, it shows artists interpreting these terms in ways that are dynamic, locally distinctive, and transnational. The broader “Euro-Mediterranean” context for regional cultural policy is described more fully in Chapter 4 through consideration of Avignon’s experience as European Capital of Culture (ECOC ) in the year 2000 and Marseille’s successful candidacy for European Capital of Culture in the year 2013. Given the increasing importance of regional and municipal cultural policy, this chapter looks at how two municipalities have engaged the European Union objective of achieving “unity in diversity” through culture. Assuming that one of the primary obstacles to overcoming social divisions in urban centres is the alienation of the residents of low-income, peripheral neighbourhoods, this chapter focuses particular attention on projects in each ECOC city that address this problem. Of particular interest here is the way a national discourse about culture structures the way the public mission of culture is defined in these projects. Consideration of these cases also highlights the uneasy balance struck between the goal of redefining cities as attractive to potential tourists and residents, on the one hand, and that of overcoming the “democratic deficit” affecting disadvantaged urban populations, on the other. In the experience of Avignon and the preparations of Marseille, we see clearly the political and economic stakes associated with “European” and “Mediterranean” arts initiatives in these cities and in the PACA region more generally. Chapters 5 and 6 describe how the theatre practice of artists of the Friche and the TRAC has engaged recent debates about national identity and cultural difference in France. Scholars have devoted more critical attention to the French colonial legacy and its relationship to the republican tradition, while national identity has become an important theme for

Introduction xxxiii

President Sarkozy (2007–). In this context, the question of how to interpret the universalist ideals of French republicanism is central. These two chapters focus on the ways these artists have responded to this question in their theatre practice. Chapter 5 examines three recent productions of the TRAC in terms of textual content and the ways social solidarity is cultivated in their rehearsal and performance settings in rural Provence. Chapter 6 describes two important themes that cross over between arts practice and daily life for both Friche and TRAC artists: an “embodied mode of being” and “prise de parole.” In cultivating a bodily attentiveness in theatre practice, as well as by encouraging the expression of independent perspectives, these themes underlie the artists’ vision of theatre as a medium for articulating ideals about social unity among citizens. Chapter 6 also discusses the ways these ideals inform the TRAC ’s European and “Mediterranean” touring through consideration of trips to Hungary and Algeria. An unspoken question haunts recent French debates about national identity and the colonial legacy in a new European era: Is a post-colonial, European republicanism possible? In shaping their own distinctive voices within a national discourse on culture, the artists of the TRAC and the Friche are presenting an answer to this question through performances of “citizens’ theatre.”

Notes 1 “It might be said, indeed, that the questions now concentrated in the meanings of the word culture are questions directly raised by the great historical changes which the changes in industry, democracy, and class, in their own way, represent, and to which the changes in art are a closely related response. The development of the word culture is a record of a number of important and continuing reactions to these changes in our social, economic and political life, and may be seen, in itself, as a special kind of map by means of which the nature of the changes can be explored.” Raymond Williams, Culture and Society (1780–1955/1983: xvi–xvii). 2 All translations from the French (written and oral) are by the author unless otherwise noted. 3 See, for example, Dubois 1999; Eling 1999; Looseley 1995, 2003; Ory 2001; Poirrier 1999, 2002; Poirrier and Rioux 2000; Poirrier and Dubois 2002; Poirrier and Rizzardo 2009; Urfalino 1996. 4 This zone was determined within the context of the Barcelona process, which refers to a framework for political, economic, and social relations between the EU and 12 Mediterranean countries. 5 Cervantès is referring to the widespread car burnings in the fall of 2005, primarily in the peripheral neighbourhoods of major French cities. These followed the accidental deaths in Paris of two youths, Zyed Benna (of Tunisian descent) and Bouna Traore (of Mauritanian descent), after they had hidden in an electrical substation while running away from police. Most car burnings took place in the greater Paris region (in areas

xxxiv Introduction that are poor, with largely immigrant communities with high levels of unemployment), but there was also violence outside Paris, including some in Marseille, although reportedly much less than might be expected in France’s second-largest city. 6 A growing body of scholarship has addressed the historically specific interpretations of the universalist ideals of the Republican model of citizenship in France, including treatments of immigration (Lewis 2007), post-colonial memory (Smith 2006), the French empire (Conklin 1997), and the French tradition of secularism (laicité) (Bowen 2007). 7 Although the term théâtre citoyen has a quite specific genealogy in France, usually associated with director Jean Vilar and more recently invoked by director Stanislav Nordey among others, I am using it here to refer broadly to the social and political intent behind each of these theatre projects. With the term “citizens’ theatre,” I refer to an approach to theatre that emphasizes the public nature of artistic value and portrays theatre as an agent of change within a national politics of culture. This approach has a long history in France. It was present at the French Revolution and in nineteenth-century initiatives of theatre decentralization, as well as in twentieth-century projects of “popular theatre.” 8 Peacock himself drew on van Gennep’s landmark study The Rites of Passage, which examines the way certain rites (e.g., circumcision, weddings) operate symbolically to mark significant changes in social position. Peacock was interested in the ways ludruk theatre “helps persons symbolically to define their movements from one type of situation to another—from traditional to modern situations. This, ludruk does in three ways: first, it helps ludruk participants (when I use this term I mean spectators as well as actors) to apprehend modernization movements in terms of vivid and meaningful symbolic classifications; second, it seduces ludruk participants into empathy with modes of social action involved in the modernization process; third, it involves the participants in aesthetic forms that structure their most general thoughts and feelings in ways stimulating to the modernization process” (Peacock 1968:6). 9 In recent years, anthropologists have argued for a more nuanced reading of contemporary state power, acknowledging lesser control over some areas of sovereignty and greater control over others. Aiwha Ong (1999) has proposed use of the concept of “graduated sovereignty” to describe certain aspects of state governance. Jessica Winegar (2006b) has applied this concept to the field of cultural production, arguing that, in Egypt, new fields of “cultural sovereignty” are taking shape within and between statecentred fields of cultural policy and international art markets. 10 This phrase from Pascale Goetschel (2004:32) echoes the famous phrase of Charles De Gaulle in his memoirs: “My whole life I have held a certain idea of France.” 11 The HLM s or habitations à loyer modéré are low-cost housing projects located on the peripheries of French cities. The first HLM s were built in the early 1960s, and their architectural style reflects a modernist aesthetic that is sometimes blamed for encouraging social alienation. 12 Cris Shore (2006) argues that, between 1992 and 2006, the underlying goal of European Union cultural policy has been unity at the expense of diversity (with the risk of reinforcing barriers to non-Europeans) and more administrative influence for the EU in the daily life of European citizens through the “governmentalisation” of culture.

1

Defining culture STATE CULTURAL POLICY AND DISCOURSE ON THE ARTS IN FRANCE

The town of Beaumes de Venise, where the TRAC theatre association was founded in 1979, had a population of fewer than 2,000 at the time. From the beginning, the troupe’s public identity was unashamedly local in many ways. Its acronym includes the assertion that it is a “rural” theatre. It has performed in small towns throughout the Vaucluse department. And, although “the TRAC ” is the common way of referring to the troupe in everyday speech, its official title, and one that shows up on all of its programs, newsletters, and publicity materials, is the TRAC “of Beaumes de Venise.” But in defining the goals for its theatre, the troupe has drawn on the concepts of a national discourse on culture and cultural policy, as illustrated in this quotation from a programmatic statement published by Vincent Siano in 1991. For a theatre of popular education The experience of the TRAC is inscribed in the philosophical continuity of the promoters of arts workshops (stages de réalisation) of popular education (a theatre “BY” and “FOR” ALL) and intends to carry on the spirit of popular theatre dear to Jean Vilar, to Dullin, and to so many other “activists.” While remaining attached to this traditional current of theatre, the T.R.A.C. also has the desire to follow the contemporary evolution of dramatic art and find its specific and original path in artistic innovation, bearing in mind its own perspective on the issue of theatre and society. (Siano 1991:446) 1

2 rites of the republic

In a more recent article, Siano describes this earlier text as a kind of “manifesto” drafted after many discussions and designed to situate the troupe’s identity within the “cultural landscape” (2004a:226). In this earlier text, there is a clear and firm commitment to amateur status and to popular theatre, especially as approached within the Ministry of Youth and Sports, where Siano began to work in 1981 as a “conseiller d’éducation populaire et de jeunesse” (or an advisor on popular education and youth—a pedagogical specialist in drama). Among other responsibilities, this position has involved designing theatre workshops (stages de réalisation) for amateurs, usually with a pedagogical dimension that extends beyond the techniques of theatre proper.1 Since it was founded, the TRAC has pursued its singular vision of the theatre—situating itself with respect to popular education and contemporary dramatic innovation. Choosing the name “the rural theatre of animation culturelle” situated the troupe within national policies of popular education and arts decentralization. Animation also made reference to the troupe’s goal, especially in its early years, to “enliven” (animer) the small towns of the Vaucluse department. The trajectory of both the troupe and Siano’s own life has been greatly shaped by the tradition of popular education and its evolution in France since the troupe was founded. In Chapter 2, I return to the TRAC , but, in this chapter, I describe the broader national discourse on culture in France that has contributed greatly to defining the political dimension of the troupe’s project. I trace the history of popular education and “the popular” in French cultural policy during the Fifth Republic. My goal here is to show how the administration of culture has shaped the ways troupe members define the public mission for their art. It has done this in part through providing a language that the troupe has drawn on to speak in its own voice and from its own position in French society. While describing the administration of culture and the place of popular education since the founding of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in 1959, I also explain some of the key terms of cultural policy discourse in order to better situate the TRAC ’s distinctive voice.

“Culture” as affair of state in France: “Democratization” and “decentralization” The origins of the French understanding of “culture” as a political project go back at least as far as the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV. Exercising both patronage and censorship, Louis XIV established a centralized

Defining culture 3

model of arts governance that has endured. Kim Eling (1999) describes subsequent changes to this model as accretions rather than significant innovations.2 Eling, nonetheless, notes an important new policy objective that appeared with the creation of the Third Republic in the 1870s: “democratization,” which is to say, the goal of broadening access to and appreciation of the arts to rural populations and the working classes. As with national education, an arts heritage was associated with republican values. With “democratization,” the dissemination of access to culture was defined as a political project. In his introduction to a collection of legislative texts bearing on state cultural policy in France since the Revolution, Philippe Poirrier states that his intent is to contribute to reflections on the stakes underlying the French model of cultural policy. He notes the challenges of globalization, a market economy, and European integration to “a model of public policy, highly centralized for a long time, strongly institutionalized, and founded initially on the will to democratize a clearly defined high culture” (Poirrier 2002:13). He notes that the legitimacy of public cultural policy is never permanently established; it grows out of a work of ongoing definition in which elected officials, actors in the arts, and citizens all participate. He concludes, That which founds the originality of the French model, it seems to me, beyond the considerable evolution and changing emphases of the last two centuries, is the idea, widely shared, that public cultural policy participates in the construction of the Republic and of democracy. (Poirrier 2002:13)

It is this idea that has infused debates about the arts with such passionate political interest in France and has contributed greatly to defining the legitimacy of the state’s role in cultural policy. This is why decentralization, one of the major objectives of post–World War II state cultural policy, has been such a contentious project. The term “decentralization” in a general political administrative sense usually refers to two series of reforms resulting in the devolution of powers from the centralized state to municipal, departmental, and regional authorities in 1981–82 and 2003–04. But with regard to the arts, it refers to recurrent efforts to provide broader access to works of art throughout the French territory and across boundaries of social class. Theatre has been an especially important genre in initiatives of decentralization. In fact, in France, the term is often narrowly associated with the post–World War II establishment of theatres in the French provinces between 1947 and 1952. But the project

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has a much longer history. Already in 1885, one dictionary of the theatre displayed some impatience with la décentralisation artistique in its definition of the term: It is, in France, a word somewhat empty of meaning, to which certain generous souls dedicate themselves with an obstinacy worthy of a better cause. (Arthur Pougin, Dictionnaire historique et pittoresque du théâtre et des arts qui s’y rattachent, in Gontard 1973:11)

In the early years of the Third Republic at the end of the nineteenth century, arts decentralization was closely associated with the tradition of “popular education.”3 This tradition is rooted in the republican ideals of the French Revolution, when arts initiatives such as the Theatre of the People were launched. Originally intending to extend the benefits of literature and education to rural and working-class populations, activists of popular education also sought to complement the successes of French primary schools in forging a dynamic and participative citizenry. Early efforts include the popular universities founded at the turn of the century and promoted by many French academics, including Émile Durkheim. Popular education has sought to complement national education not only in reaching out to neglected social classes but also in providing retraining and instruction to adults. Institutions and associations founded within the tradition of popular education have long constituted an important source of adult education programs in France. Projects devoted to arts decentralization have generally been associated with the Left in France, including the Popular Front (1936–38), but, during the 1940s, the Vichy regime’s ruralist policies (including the support of touring theatre companies in the provinces) were part of a right-wing program promoting the traditional values of small-scale farmers (see Faure 1989). Common to both Popular Front and Vichy support for arts decentralization was the assumption that it was not just provincials who would gain: modern theatre, too (viewed as bourgeois, decadent, or sterile), would benefit from the vitality of “popular” inspiration. In the divisive years following World War II , decentralization offered the promise of national unity as well: a “renewal” of both the theatre and the Republic. For many, “culture,” meaning a national arts heritage, was one of the few arenas of French life still worthy of faith following the collapse of French institutions in the disastrous 1940 defeat. Works of art and literature, as media of enduring values, were viewed as a safe haven for an essentially French creative spirit (Kelly 1989; Rigby 1989). It was in the immediate postwar period, in 1946, that access to

Defining culture 5

“culture” was guaranteed to all citizens in the preamble to the new Fourth Republic constitution. Groups promoting popular education, some of them closely linked to resistance organizations, received new support at the Liberation when associations with different political, philosophical, or spiritual orientations had the ambition of bringing culture alive for all social categories of the nation (Council of Europe 1988:30). But there has always been a fundamental ambiguity in projects of arts decentralization concerning the desirability of broader participation in “culture”—Who is qualified to participate, and on what terms? For example, policies have often sought to extend access to works of art created in Paris to people living in the provinces. But, in this model, provincial centres are framed as sites for the reception of work created elsewhere rather than valued as alternative centres of arts creation. This disagreement has been a persistent theme in the institutionalization of culture in France since the days of the Popular Front, a key moment for establishing state authority for national arts policy (Ory 1994).4 In fact, since the Popular Front, the administration of culture in France has included two parallel systems, one centred primarily on professional artists and an arts patrimony (which eventually led to the creation of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs) and the other centred on amateurs and popular education (under what eventually became the Ministry of Youth and Sports).

Popular education and the administration of the arts in the early postwar years In 1946, the Ministry of National Education included two administrative sectors under which the arts were supported. In addition to the Direction de l’Éducation Populaire, a department of arts and letters called the Direction Générale des Arts et des Lettres (DGAL ) had been created in 1944. Within the DGAL , Jeanne Laurent was named director of theatre and music. During this time, there was much interaction between administrators and organizers devoted to éducation populaire and the theatre artists supported by Jeanne Laurent. In 1951, Jeanne Laurent named Jean Vilar the director of the National Popular Theatre (Théâtre National Populaire or TNP ). Vilar was to become the most influential French director of the 1950s, and his work with the TNP did much to promote the idea, shared by Laurent, of the theatre as a “public service.” He is often quoted as saying that theatre should be available to all in that same way that gas, electricity, and water are in France. Already in 1947, Vilar had begun the performances in Avignon that would evolve

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to become what is today the largest theatre festival in Europe, and perhaps the best-known example of arts decentralization. Between 1947 and 1951, Laurent also founded five National Centres of Drama (Centres Dramatiques Nationaux or CDNs) in provincial cities. The creation of the CDN s is the project most commonly associated with theatre decentralization in France. CDN s were established in Strasbourg, Rennes, Saint-Etienne, Toulouse, and Aix-en-Provence. By 1981, nineteen CDNs and one national theatre constituted a solid network of provincial theatres. In staffing these theatres, Laurent drew on many “instructors of drama and popular education” who had been working with the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Thus, in the postwar era up until 1959, there was a relatively close rapport between the artists and organizations devoted to popular education and those under the jurisdiction of the national administration of the arts. The arrival of Charles De Gaulle and André Malraux (the first minister of the newly created Ministry of Cultural Affairs) would mark a decisive split between the two sectors.

The “failed marriage”: Popular education and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs In 1958, France inaugurated a Fifth Republic, and a new administration emphasizing stronger and more centralized administration. Malraux’s aims in defining his ministry’s policies were threefold: 1) to mark the specificity of his administration’s identity, 2) to integrate his cultural policies within Gaullist ideals of reorganizing and reshaping French society through the state, and 3) to appropriate the cultural ideals of the Left, including the aim of diffusing broad access to works of art in popular education (but not its emphasis on art within a pedagogical project). The new ministry’s aims were [t]o render accessible the capital works of humanity, and first those of France, to the greatest number of French people, to assure the widest audience for our cultural heritage, and to encourage the creation of works of art and the spirit which enrich our cultural heritage (patrimoine). (Quoted in Council of Europe 1988:29)

In many ways, this statement is extremely broad. The first aim mentioned does not even limit the ministry to French production, only to the “capital works of humanity.” Nonetheless, this short statement does define key priorities. The emphasis here is not on “culture” (the ministry’s title

Defining culture 7

included the words “affaires culturelles” or “cultural affairs”) but on works that enrich a “cultural heritage” (“patrimoine”). The term “patrimoine” generally refers to sites and objects that are meaningful within and reinforce a specifically national heritage. In addition, the focus here is on making cultural “works” available to more French people. It is not, as in arts-centred popular education associations, on broadening the bases of arts creation and participation. For Malraux, the goal of cultural policy was to further a kind of communion between individual citizens and premier works of art (Malraux sometimes referred to his decentralized arts centres, the Maisons de la Culture, as “cathedrals”). A key term in his ministry was “action culturelle,” and the “action” sought was precisely this meeting and communion. As during the Popular Front, it was intended, in the beginning at least, that the services of popular education be under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and linked to the administration of the arts.5 But this never happened, and the Direction de l’Éducation Populaire remained under the aegis of the Ministry of Youth and Sports. The main reason for the “failed marriage,” according to Geneviève Poujol, was “an ideological and political split at the very heart of the administration” (Poujol 1993:34–5). This split opposed two conceptions of arts policy, one represented by administrators who had come from the ranks of popular education and the other by those closer to Malraux and who rejected any trace of pedagogical intent in the arts. In effect, there emerged two distinct models for state governance of arts with a civic mission, one addressing professional theatre and pursued through the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and the other addressing amateur theatre through the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

May ’68: The radicalization of “the popular” and the quest for the “non-public” In what came to be referred to as the “events” of May 1968, French students and workers joined in a massive series of strikes that temporarily crippled the government. During this period, the world of the theatre was the site of several symbolically resonant events. These include the student occupation of the state Odéon theatre, whose director (the celebrated actor and director Jean-Louis Barrault) was accused of overly bourgeois programming. Theatre directors met at Villeurbanne and drafted a collective statement that proved influential for future cultural policy. At the Avignon Theatre Festival that summer, demonstrators opposed to the

8 rites of the republic

cancellation of a controversial production by the Living Theatre chanted “Béjart-Vilar-Salazar!”—associating Maurice Béjart (the renowned dancer and choreographer) and Jean Vilar (director of the state-funded Avignon Festival) with Antonio Salazar, long-time dictator of Portugal and still in power at the time. May ’68 marks a crucial change in attitude toward popular theatre within the national politics of culture. What was at stake with the theatrical confrontations in 1968 was a whole vision of the state’s role in mediating the relationship between citizens and “culture.” It is with May ’68 that two interrelated developments occur: the radicalization (and marginalization) of “the popular” and the beginnings of “création” as a rallying cry for the professional autonomy of theatre artists (including their freedom from the more broadly “pedagogical” ends attributed by these artists to popular education). At a 1967 colloquium on municipal cultural policy held at the Avignon Theatre Festival, director Roger Planchon spoke for many when he insisted that the directors of theatres must have complete autonomy. When one administrator noted that some supervision was necessary given that these directors were financed with municipal funds, Planchon responded, “No, when it comes to creation, there is no seeking consensus.” The ideas at this colloquium, and many of its participants, would become central to discourse about culture surrounding May ’68. A subsequent meeting of the directors of théâtres populaires and Maisons de la Culture (many of whom were to become extremely influential in the theatre world of the 1970s and 1980s) took place in May 1968 at Villeurbanne. At the conclusion of the meeting on May 25, they published a statement in which they “express publicly their total solidarity with the students and workers on strike and decide to establish an ongoing organization” (quoted in Temkine 1992:29). They also acknowledged the “extreme impasse at which culture finds itself today” and demanded “an effective intervention intended to modify current social relations [ . . . ] that is to say, an authentic action culturelle” (quoted in Jeanson 1973:119–24). This last phrase signals a clear break by redefining Malraux’s key term “action culturelle.” Here, it is not communion and a quasi-religious experience that is sought but an explicitly political provocation. Toward this end, the Villeurbanne statement also employs another concept: “the non-public,” meaning those lacking access to or the inclination toward attending arts events. It is one of the earliest public statements using this term. As Philippe Poirrier has noted, the notion of the “non-public” can be understood as an effort to “reformulate the place of culture in the polis as part of a politicization of the audience” (Poirrier 2000:114). But it

Defining culture 9

was also a way to avoid the administrative and ideological associations of “the popular” and to reinforce the role of professional artists in defining the political goals of arts policy. In the Villeurbanne text, the mission assigned to theatre was to furnish to the non-public—“across links of all kinds which allow us to reach closer to it”— a means for breaking down its current isolation, for emerging from its ghetto, for situating itself more and more consciously in the social and historical context, in liberating itself ever more from the mystifications of all kinds that tend to make it in itself accessory to the real situations inflicted upon it. (Quoted in Dort 1992:1007)

As is evident from the criticisms directed toward Jean Vilar, Jean-Louis Barrault, and others, the state’s cultural policies of decentralization and action culturelle were viewed as contributing to the “mystifications” rather than helping to dispel them. Dort concludes, “this radicalization of the ideology of the théâtre populaire announces or seals its demise” (Dort 1992:1007).6 Ironically, the Villeurbanne “manifesto” shows how cultural policy served to legitimate the institutions of the Fifth Republic and define the leadership of the state in certain key arenas. Historian Pascale Goetschel (2004:224) has suggested that Malraux’s signature creation (the Maisons de la Culture established in provincial cities) might be best understood as a means of asserting the territorial claims (both geographic and administrative) of a new ministry. What is clear is that, through decentralization initiatives such as the CDN s and the Maisons de la Culture, artists and administrators outside Paris helped to legitimize “culture” by acting as emissaries of the state and presenting policy objectives to local elected officials. The end result was that new actors and terms of debate were introduced, helping to create a broader public field of discourse centred on the arts and society. By claiming a new arena for state intervention, Malraux had also created a new set of actors with their own perspectives on the state’s role, shaped by very specific professional interests. Scholars of French state cultural policy (Lebovics 1999:201; Urfalino 1996) have argued that the policies in the Malraux years (1959–69) served primarily to create a ministry for professional artists at the expense of the broader civic mission of Jean Vilar and others in the early postwar period. But it is important to recognize the drive toward professional autonomy by influential theatre artists as they distanced themselves from the actors and discourse of popular education and popular theatre. Like Malraux himself, these directors also struggled to legitimate their cultural project

10 rites of the republic

within the new institutions of the Fifth Republic. As Goetschel demonstrates in her history of the Centres Dramatiques Nationaux, in the 1950s and 60s, the directors of the CDN s were at a severe professional disadvantage by virtue of living outside of Paris. These directors mostly succeeded in creating viable, critically well-received arts projects, but one also sees in the process of theatre decentralization a professionalization that exploited the political goals of popular education and (as with the later introduction of the term “non-public”) redefined them as identical with the autonomy of professional artists.

1969–1981: “Cultural development” and “animation culturelle” After Malraux, during the presidencies of Georges Pompidou (1969–74) and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1974–81), the role of state cultural policy was diminished. In 1969, as a reaction to the strikes, there was a draconian cutback in aid to the arts and especially to theatre directors. Arts funding would remain below .05 per cent of the national budget throughout the 1970s. Between 1968 and 1970, the budget of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs was cut from .44 per cent to .39 per cent, but there was a 13 per cent decline in the share allotted for the regional theatres, both the CDNs and the MCs (Maisons de la Culture), many of which were directed by those who had met at Villeurbanne. During this period, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs was formally reduced to the status of a “secretariat.” As Kim Eling notes, “consequently, the Giscard years were widely seen as a period of stagnation in French national cultural policy” (Eling 1999:6). Nonetheless, both professional and amateur theatre activity grew during the 1970s. Between 1971 and 1985, the number of troupes applying for funding from the ministry rose from 80 in 1971 to 655 in 1985. The highest number in a single year was 760 in 1983. This increase is partly attributable to increased state and local funding for theatre following 1981, but, in France’s economic slump in 1977, with little funding from the state, there were nonetheless 250 applications (Dort 1992:1009). Part of the appeal of theatre was its association with a distinctive civic tradition within the politics of culture in France. Participating in theatre, whether as amateur or professional, has involved negotiating and finding a place within this field. It is during this period that we see increased efforts to define cultural policy as a means of fighting the dehumanizing effects of capitalism, most notably in the discourse about “cultural development.” Already, at the 14th

Defining culture 11

General Conference of UNESCO in 1966, we find the Director General of Arts and Letters Pierre Moinot speaking of “a humanism of development” that needs to be encouraged parallel to the technological and scientific revolutions of the twentieth century in order to avoid “an excessive development of facile consumption” (Moinot quoted in Poirrier 2002:238). Similarly, Prime Minister Jacques Chaban-Delmas in 1971 states, It is up to us to ensure that economic growth, in all ways indispensable, not create an injurious society that would subjugate its members to material imperatives and exclude all those who do not submit to it. The individual person must be defended . . . and originality must be taken back in the face of an encroaching uniformity. . . . This is why the government intends to act at the same time to improve work conditions, renovate cities, and develop cultural life in this country. (Quoted in Poirrier 2002:277)

For Jacques Duhamel (1993), Minister of Cultural Affairs between 1971 and 1973, culture was a last refuge against the mercenary logic of the market and the worship of spectacle and consumption. In his view, the logic of economic growth and instability so characteristic of “modern” societies (and especially of France during the thirty years following World War II ) was responsible for the sense of a loss of identity in “modern man.” What was needed was the invention of a new form of civilization in which culture and economic growth could be reconciled, the compartmentalization of social and economic structures could be transcended, and the alienated individual could be more fully integrated within society as a whole. Echoing the Villeurbanne criticisms of Malraux’s focus on the inherent power of artistic works alone and on a broader diffusion of access to these works, Duhamel stated that artistic works are only valuable in terms of their “action” upon individuals: It is therefore not enough for a work of art to be exposed in order for a true contact to be established. . . . A mediation becomes necessary, and this is what is referred to as animation. (Quoted in Caune 1992:175)

The verb “animer” means to lead, oversee, or administer, and an “animateur,” in its broadest sense, is simply a leader or organizer. But the verb also carries the meaning of the English “to animate” or “to enliven.” As part of the general administration of the territory, a new profession was institutionalized in the 1970s and charged with regenerating

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disadvantaged urban communities and remote rural ones. Animateur culturel or socio-culturel refers to this position, which was intended to strengthen the social fabric through arts practice. In 1978, the periodical Cahiers de l’Atelier published an article that promoted animation culturelle and criticized earlier projects of arts democratization: We will not mobilize these men and women by offering them products of traditional culture. . . . We must work through a process of animation that respects the cultural practices proper to each collectivity (collectivité de base) and gives to each the means of self-expression. (Quoted in Busson 1986:78)

Critics of prior efforts to decentralize the arts often stressed their inattention to local initiatives and interests and the imposition from Paris of a single dominant cultural model. In the 1970s, when regionalist appeals were strong, the socialist party (Parti Socialiste or PS ), among others, endorsed the agenda of animation culturelle. It later made this agenda a part of the platform in the party’s successful 1981 campaign. Although the PS later came to endorse the greatest freedom for artistic creation (including freedom from the tenets of sociocultural animation), animateurs remained important, especially in the popular education sector of the Ministry of Youth and Sports. It is in this context that the TRAC in 1979 chose the name “rural theatre of cultural animation.” Vincent Siano long served as an animateur at the Ministry of Youth and Sports, as did Jean-Luc Violet, a key member of the troupe during the 1980s and 90s.

1981–1993: Change and continuity under Lang — The evolution of “développement culturel” During the tenure of François Mitterrand’s Minister of Culture7 Jack Lang (1981–86, 1988–93), the ministry’s budget was dramatically increased. In 1982, there was a 79 per cent increase over the previous year’s budget and “a rise in the share of cultural expenditure in total central government expenditure from 0.47 per cent to 0.76 per cent” (Eling 1999:10).8 Describing this new emphasis, Lang invoked the legacy of 1968, stating, “From now on, power will be used to seek out the beach under the paving stones” (quoted in Temkine 1992:68).9 At the end of Lang’s tenure in 1993, funding for the Ministry of Culture had reached approximately 1 per cent of the national budget, an astonishingly high figure compared to that in the United States.10 The professional theatre in particular was

Defining culture 13

important to Lang, as he had been director of the Théâtre National de Chaillot and the Festival of Nancy in the 1970s. During the Lang years, “cultural development” gained currency as a key term serving to define the new administration’s priorities in diverse arenas and to seek coherence among them. The emphasis on “a humanism of development” and defending against “encroaching uniformity” helped to buttress French calls for a “cultural exception” for the arts in international trade agreements.11 The significant contributions made toward French administrative decentralization during these years included new regional cultural policy institutions, and both this decentralization and these institutions were framed as encouraging “cultural development.” In addition, Lang adopted a broader conception of culture that acknowledged genres of popular arts not recognized by Malraux, including circus, French chanson, rock music, and the graphic comic arts. This opening to new genres and new voices was part of Lang’s approach to “democratization.” What is perhaps most important to note about cultural development is the way that it was interpreted to recognize and encourage the commercial dimension of the arts in the Lang years. The protection of individuality and singular voices in the midst of facile consumption and standardization required the total creative freedom of artists called for by the Villeurbanne theatre directors. This is a period of increasing autonomy for professional theatre artists in France who advocated for greater respect for “creation” and freedom from the pedagogical and “populist” excesses of popular theatre and popular education. Philippe Urfalino (1993) has argued that the economic justification for culture introduced during this period in effect led to the “dissolution” of French cultural policy or, at least, to the disappearance of its former raison d’être in that the Ministry lost its civic mission by privileging the interests of professional specialists. Director Patrice Chéreau is probably the best-known representative of the “creator” supported by the Ministry of Culture in the 1980s at the expense of animation culturelle. In 1973, in spite of his sharing the direction of the Théâtre National Populaire, Chéreau announced the “death” of théâtre populaire and added, I don’t believe anymore in anything that has made up the theatrical combat up to the present—I mean the quest for the audience, animation culturelle. (Quoted in Dort 1992:1037, italics in original)

Indeed, in 1982, Chéreau created a theatrical parody of animation culturelle. Because this was performed at a former Maison de la Culture,

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which had been transformed into the Théâtre des Amandiers for Chéreau, some felt that this perfectly symbolized the end of an era of theatre decentralization. Director Roger Planchon (leader of those at Villeurbanne in 1968) described the position of the “creators” succinctly in an interview in the French daily newspaper Le Monde in 1981: The word “culture,” which was useful for a time in making ourselves heard by power, must be abandoned today. It has justified too many doubtful enterprises that had nothing artistic about them. (Quoted in Urfalino 1993:823)

In noting how “useful” the word culture had been, his words underline how these directors used the rhetoric of arts discourse to gain support from the state. Through the early 1990s, création was often portrayed by professional theatre directors as threatened by the “regressive populism” of théâtre populaire. The inclusive goals of Vilar were portrayed as promoting a theatre for the masses at the expense of singular individual inspiration and “minority” experiences (“minority,” in this sense being opposed to “mass” and not intended to refer to an ethnic or religious identity). The rejection of a class-based conception of French society by theatre artists such as Planchon (who, as a former amateur theatre practitioner had earlier profited from and reinforced such a conception) was consistent with the move away from a class-oriented portrayal of society by the French intelligentsia more generally in the 1980s. Theatre “creators” argued that, in attempting to address what “the people” wanted, “theatre for everyone” merely acted as a front for a market mentality and the transformation of artistic work into a market commodity. These criticisms show how professional theatre artists increasingly asserted a stronger voice and greater independence.12 During this period, one important forum for the defence of création and the criticism of théâtre populaire was the journal Théâtre/Public. A 1994 issue, for example, includes an excerpt from an article by director Jean-Marie Hordé arguing that it is time to do away with “Vilarian masks” that hide the way a commercial logic necessarily underlies the quest for a broad public: “The performance that seeks the consumer at the expense of the reflecting citizen can in no way be defined as populaire” (Hordé 1994:35). Similarly, in a 1993 interview, director Daniel Mesguich was asked whether the theatre had become elitist. Echoing director Antoine Vitez, who once said that the theatre should be “elitist for everyone,” Mesguich argues that the theatre progresses through respect for the individual rather than a social collectivity:

Defining culture 15 The only universal, in the long run, is originality. The singular song, very idiomatic, difficult at first maybe, of x, y, or z in France, does more for the theatre, and therefore for the théâtre populaire, if there ever has been one, than all those who do not cease to make it regress by crying out their desire for a theatre of the majority, a lazy theatre. (Mesguich 1993:60)

Mesguich’s vision of “the universal” in the theatre contrasts sharply with that of Vilar or Malraux. For Mesguich, the transcendent quality of artistic value is not in its engagement with a timeless artistic tradition, still less with a heritage of le peuple. As with Hordé, Mesguich associates the aim of reaching a wide audience with artistic complacency, and with a “lazy” and “regressive” conception of the theatre. Emphasizing originality, the perspective of Mesguich is in keeping with the emphasis on “creation” at the Ministry of Culture, and he in fact concludes with a defence of professional theatre’s state funding, stating that “state-funded theatre nullifies, tends to nullify, this elitism [of money]” (Mesguich 1993:60). But surveys conducted by the Ministry of Culture between 1973 and 1989 (Ministère de la Culture 1990) suggest that, in spite of recurrent efforts at decentralization, there was not a notable change in audience makeup measured in socio-economic terms. Audiences continued to be those with high levels of education, largely from professional or service sectors rather than the working classes (manual labour). More recent studies (Donnat 1998, INSEE 2005, 2006) confirm that, in spite of recurrent efforts to broaden the appreciation of the arts to include people from all socioeconomic categories, there has been little change in the last forty years.

Decentralization in the Lang years During this period, there were also two important changes involving the relationship between centralized state cultural policy and local governance. Through decentralization, new responsibilities for cultural policy came to be assumed at the local level and the “grammar” of state cultural policy came to be more firmly anchored locally. In the reforms of decentralization in 1982–83, regional councils gained power through choosing their own executives, and authority was transferred from prefects (centrally appointed representatives of the state) to regional, departmental, and municipal authorities. In conjunction with these moves, and building on Malraux’s creation of a “regional committee” for cultural affairs (CRAC ), an institution was created to administer culture in

16 rites of the republic

each of France’s 22 regions: the DRAC (Direction Régionale d’Affaires Culturelles). A source of funding, expertise, and cultural programming, the DRAC has sustained and encouraged the discourse of state cultural policy at the local level and thus helped to consolidate and render locally meaningful a “political grammar” dedicated to culture. Poirrier and Rioux describe this “territorialization” of culture in France since the end of World War II : The policy of theatre decentralization initiated by Jeanne Laurent in 1946, the Maisons de la Culture by André Malraux in 1961, the promotion of cultural development and of the Fonds d’Innovation Culturel by Jacques Duhamel at the beginning of the decade of the 1970s, the charters put into place by Michel Guy in the middle of the same decade are the principal stages of the consolidation of a contractual system. The conventions of cultural development of the Lang ministry starting in 1982 only extended this political grammar to the departments, regions, and other “new” inter-municipal partnerships, for which the principal rules form the common institutional heritage of the milieu of cultural action. These rules have been perfected and enriched, learned, appropriated, and transmitted for a half century. One can interpret them as a field of references and practical norms through which members of cultural networks enter into contact through well-known institutional procedures and through informal exchanges of information. It is inside these networks and through this grammar, which is common to them, that they elaborate their requests, arguments, and justifications. (Poirrier and Rioux 2000:58)

The diffusion of this political grammar and its widespread relevance are two of the most important results of arts decentralization policy in the Fifth Republic. It would be wrong, however, to see cultural policy in France during this period as wholly defined by the central state. To the policy of the many institutions associated with the Ministry of Culture throughout France should be added the cultural policy initiatives of the region (since 1982), the department, and, especially, the municipality. Philippe Urfalino has even described the increasing importance of mayoral and other city- and town-centred initiatives in the period of 1960–80 as resulting in the “municipalization of culture” (Urfalino 1996). In many ways, the decentralization of culture in 1982–83 sought more to capture and redefine a process already in place than to generate a wholly new dynamic. Local elected officials have drawn on the prestige and legitimacy

Defining culture 17

associated with cultural projects in the same way that Mitterrand and other presidents have at the national level. What occurs with decentralization is not less power for the state, which has exerted enormous influence in presenting a model for the governance of culture to these local authorities. Rather, it is in the decade immediately following the election of François Mitterrand, as Philippe Poirrier has noted, that we see both the high point of a national politics of culture and a key change in the local role of the central state. The essential change is “the passage from a tutelary state, very selective in its support and responsible for protecting a national vision, to a partner state that encourages and institutionalizes little by little the forms of partnership” (Poirrier 2002:13).

1993–2008: The RGPP and the diminution of popular education In the post-Lang era, efforts continued to integrate popular education and the administration of culture. In February 1989, Jack Lang and Roger Bambuck (of the Ministry of Youth and Sports) signed a “protocol agreement” to work together to encourage arts and cultural opportunities for young people. In 1995, Minister of Culture Jacques Toubon built on this initiative in creating the Council of Culture and Popular Education (Conseil Culture-Éducation Populaire), which established dialogue between the Ministry of Culture and federations of youth and popular education, something that had not existed at any time during the Fifth Republic. In 1999, Minister of Culture Catherine Trautmann signed a “charter of objectives for culture and popular education” with eight of the most important federations of popular education.13 This charter was followed by a new protocol agreement in 2001, signed by Minister of Culture Catherine Tasca and Minister of Youth and Sports MarieGeorge Buffet, entitled “Arts Practice, Culture and Popular Education,” and intended to promote the artistic and cultural dimension of local development projects and the work, in particular, of small associations.14 The biggest change affecting popular education in recent years has been the RGPP (Révision Générale des Politiques Publiques, which can be translated as the General Public Policy Review). The RGPP is a massive project of state reform in France with the goal of making governance more modern and efficient. In effect, the RGPP has eliminated the main agency that organized activities of popular education in the past. Beginning in 2007 following the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as president, the RGPP has addressed decreasing the size of the state through the

18 rites of the republic

reorganization of certain services and the elimination of others. Certain state institutions (including the Ministry of Youth and Sports) were slated for particularly severe “reorganization.” The RGPP has transformed this ministry into a secretariat (under the administration of the Ministry of Health and Sports) and has arranged for certain important responsibilities of the former ministry to be transferred. In the future, the activities of youth and sports will be handled by agencies whose primary responsibilities lie elsewhere (including agencies responsible for public housing, requests for asylum, and public food safety). Plans call for the closing of some of the Centres for Popular Education and Sports (Centres d’Éducation Populaire et des Sports or CREPS ), which have been important regional resources for voluntary associations. This reform has had an immediate effect on the TRAC and other arts initiatives like it. It is likely that the kind of position held by Vincent Siano (responsible for amateur arts initiatives) at the departmental office of the Ministry of Youth and Sports will be phased out. The bulk of the responsibilities of the office in which Siano works are now under the authority of the regional prefect, something that will align that office more closely with the political priorities of the central state and likely reduce its autonomy. It is unclear at present whether the RGPP reforms will lead to the definitive dismantling of popular education, as is feared by those in the field, or whether a change of political regime could result in a reassessment of its value and a reinstatement of its policies as a political priority.

1993–2008: Critical perspectives on French state cultural policy Jack Lang was one of President Mitterrand’s closest advisors and, at one time, had responsibility for the extremely large and challenging administration of the Ministry of Education in addition to the Ministry of Culture. After Lang left in 1992, no Minister of Culture has kept the post longer than three years, and most have stayed no more than two. Culture was generally not a major issue in the presidential campaigns of 1995, 2002, or 2007. After funding for culture reached 1 per cent of the national budget under Lang, it dropped to roughly 0.7 per cent and has remained close to that since 1995. The communications industries (primarily film, television, and radio) became an increasingly important priority in the administration of the Ministry of Culture during this period. In 2000, the ministry was given again (the first time was in 1978) the name “the Ministry of Culture and Communications.” It has retained this name across the administration of five ministers: Catherine Tasca

Defining culture 19

(2000–02), Jean-Jacques Aillagon (2002–04), Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres (2004–07), Christine Albanel (2007–09), and Frédéric Mitterrand (2009–). Robert Abirached has used the phrase “a tired system” (2005) to refer to state cultural policy after Lang. By the end of Jack Lang’s tenure, critics were already assailing his ambitious agenda (Caune 1992, Schneider 1993). In 1991, Marc Fumaroli published his influential The Cultural State, in which he attacked a bloated bureaucracy serving the vested interests of local and state cultural administrators. In the wake of studies showing the failure of postwar policies to significantly broaden the audience of the arts in terms of socio-economic status (Donnat and Cogneau 1990), there was a growing consensus that state cultural policy needed to be dramatically redefined. In the spring of 1996, Jacques Rigaud called for a “refoundation” of cultural policy in a text that served as a basis for reexamining cultural policy at the Ministry of Culture under Chirac’s new minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy. Other critics include sociologist Philippe Urfalino, who argued that state cultural policy had failed to achieve its broad social mission and that expectations that such policy strengthen democracy or sustain citizenship were misplaced (1996, 1997; Le Débat 2006). Books and articles by scholars and former administrators at the Ministry of Culture have carried titles emphasizing the end of an era: “the exhaustion of utopias” (Donnat 1994), “the end of a myth” (Djian 2005, Donnat 1991), “the end of the cultural exception” (Farchy 1999), and, a more recent Fumaroli article, “the twilight of the cultural state” (2006).15 Some of this critical thinking about state cultural policy was well expressed in a special dossier devoted to the topic in the 2006 NovemberDecember issue of the influential journal Le Débat. Centred on an article by sociologist Nathalie Heinich criticizing cultural policy since the beginning of the Lang era in 1981, the dossier included reactions to this essay by prominent analysts of cultural policy, such as Urfalino, Maryvonne de Saint-Pulgent (member of the Conseil d’État), and Marc Fumaroli (member of the Académie Française), and a reaction by Jack Lang himself (at the time, an advisor to the Parti Socialiste’s presidential candidate Ségolène Royal). In her article, Heinich argues that state cultural policy since the end of the Lang era has had an overly ambitious and ill-conceived social agenda. This “overactive” policy, while attempting to bring about cultural democratization through the arts, has had several unintended pernicious effects. It has generated a surplus of artists in French society generally and encouraged the expansion of an elitist avant-garde, out of touch with the general public. She notes, in particular, the “inflation of theatrical avant-garde offerings” (Heinich 2006:137). Because these

20 rites of the republic

policies have most served the interests of artists closest to power, and along with them the intermediaries of the state who are their interlocutors, they have furthered the development of an arts-centred corporatism. Heinich concludes that artists are no longer the category most in need of support and that a fundamentally different approach to cultural policy is necessary in order to achieve democratization. Because we have learned that this process cannot be achieved through expanding the number of works available to citizens, we should work to expand the demand for such works among young people through the national education system and through higher quality television, she states. The Ministry of Culture’s purview and ambitions should be sharply limited. Other contributors shared the assessment that cultural policy today is seriously disconnected both from contemporary society in general and arts world in particular. Cultural policy, as the dossier’s introduction puts it, “faces an impasse, not knowing whether to advance or retreat, while the arts and society evolve at a high speed” (Le Débat 2006:133). The most critical of the Le Débat contributors is Fumaroli, for whom the field of culture created by state policies is a state-engineered substitute for religion (the subtitle of L’Etat Culturel is “Essay on a Modern Religion”). In his contribution to Le Débat, Fumaroli speaks of the “imperialist zeal” of the decentralizing agents of cultural democratization, comparing them to the missionaries of the Catholic Church in the nineteenth century, fanning out to discover their own “terres de mission”: zones of the “non-public” to be converted to state culture. Taken together, these essays argue for a sharp break with Fifth Republic traditions of state cultural policy. In recent critiques, a few key priorities have emerged. First, as seen in the 2006 Le Débat articles, analysts on both the Left and the Right have voiced support for a stronger emphasis on education as a way of redefining the vocation of state cultural policy. Second, some have called for cultural policy to lead the way in a recomposition of the partnership between state and local government (Saez 2006). In this view, the state should no longer be the sole source of new initiatives, and mayors and other locally elected representatives should define a new mission for culture more closely aligned with the aims of local governance. Third, European integration has been hailed as the most meaningful and desirable frame for state cultural policy by former President Jacques Chirac (2006). Chirac viewed states as best placed to ensure cultural diversity in a globalizing world (by protecting national identity through the arts with the “cultural exception”) and to lead the process of European integration. The concept held to bring these two goals into coherent alignment is “unity in diversity,” a motto that, as Chirac’s Minister of Culture

Defining culture 21

Donnedieu de Vabres noted in a 2005 speech, is shared by the European Union and that bastion of French cultural heritage, the Comédie Française Theatre.

Conclusion Viewed only from the perspective of those disillusioned with French state cultural policy at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the story of the French administration of culture throughout the Fifth Republic is one of grand ambitions unrealized. We have arrived at the “end of utopias,” whether one thinks specifically of the history of popular education in France or more generally of the great social agendas pursued through arts policies by the Ministry of Culture since 1959. But to focus only on the recent disillusion with earlier ambitious agendas is to miss the profound and enduring changes that artists and arts administrators brought about during this period. On the one hand, French politics has changed, as new actors were introduced into the political process, along with a new language defining the arts in political terms. On the other hand, the arts in France were changed, as the public context for their appreciation was influenced by a national discourse on culture. In spite of recent pessimistic assessments of the results of French cultural policy, arts production supported by public institutions (including the central state but also the region, department, and municipality) is stronger than ever. Thus, although it is important to note the significant turning points marked by changes in language and actors across different administrations of the Fifth Republic, the reader should beware of recurrent dramatic assertions that all is finished, such as Ariane Mnouchkine’s funeral procession mourning “the death of culture” in 1973. Instead, such assertions should be viewed as rhetorical statements situated within a dynamic and vital discourse on culture that continues to provide terms and institutional structures for the expression of broadly diverse perspectives on citizenship and society across the French territory. In spite of criticisms of state cultural policy by scholars and former administrators, the most recent budget for culture does not show a significant decrease. Nor did the general orientation of the Ministry of Culture change dramatically during the tenure of Christine Albanel (2007–09) or (thus far) that of Frédéric Mitterrand (2009–). But it seems clear that the recent critiques and the diminution of popular education pursued through the RGPP signal a radically different era for “culture,” one in which the role of the central state is being redefined and reorganized. What is most

22 rites of the republic

important in the story told in this chapter is the evolution of a national discourse on culture and its diffusion across the French territory, in part through state initiatives of decentralization and democratization. The state’s role in the administration of culture has both grown and changed since 1958. Even after responsibilities were shifted to the local level after 1982, the state has continued to provide the model for governance, direct funding, and a language within which local cultural initiatives have been defined in the terms of a national discourse. A second important change is the increasing autonomy of professional theatre artists with regard to the agendas of sociocultural animation and popular education. Such agendas offered perspectives for defining the public mission of the arts in ways that linked locally based associations with national policy priorities. The rejection of popular theatre and the increasing autonomy of state-supported professional theatre artists after 1968 contributed to the doubts today about the state’s role in defining, supporting, and promoting a public mission for the arts. That said, the artists who are the subjects of this book have not abandoned their faith in a public mission for the arts. If the present chapter has described the language of culture in France, the following chapters describe particular voices speaking that language and the diverse perspectives they bring to bear on this national discourse. We will see how this language has been meaningful locally and how these artists have drawn on it to shape their own responses to the question of what the public, civic value of art should be in a changing political and economic context.

Notes 1 For example, while the year-long Don Quixote workshop in 1992–93 included weekly flamenco classes, it also included dramaturgical research on the La Mancha region and a trip to that area prior to the rehearsal and staging of the play. 2 “ . . . the conventions of the Fifth Republic only reinvigorated and perpetuated a tradition firmly anchored in French political history: if interpreted broadly, ‘cultural policy’ could be said to have been invented by France’s absolutist monarchy, and subsequent regimes only built on the absolutist core, adding layer upon layer of later priorities and preoccupations—traces of which persist to this day” (Eling 1999:1). 3 It is worth emphasizing here that the adjective “populaire” is not a true cognate of “popular” in English. While the latter refers primarily to that which is broadly diffused, in common currency, and widely appreciated, the former indexes, first and foremost, a distinction of social class. The French dictionary Le Robert Micro lists the first meaning of “populaire” as “that which emanates from the people . . . as opposed to the bourgeoisie” (2006:1022). 4 Pascal Ory argues that the cultural policy of the Popular Front (1935–38) is the “practical synthesis” from which all subsequent policy evolved, from Vichy through the Fifth

Defining culture 23 Republic. Ory also states that the optimism generated by the Popular Front fed into two important currents: the “modernizing voluntarism” of the state as patron of the arts, which is to say the cultural form of the welfare state, and also the “modernizing liberalism, of free access for all sensibilities to public recognition” (Ory 1994:849). Ory employs a broad definition of cultural policy, defining it as a field that links politics, leisure, the arts, and the economy. He holds that this field maintained its coherence after the Popular Front but took on a considerably different shape after World War II . The Fifth Republic introduced a dramatically expanded role for the central state (the key difference between the Popular Front and the Fifth Republic). It is with the Fifth Republic that “culture” acquires greatest legitimacy as a medium of the universalist ideals of the Republic while also playing a role in expanding involvement in the state project, which is to say, democratizing collective engagement in the state’s mediation of arts and leisure activities. 5 A decree of July 24 specifies that the new ministry is to include the Department of Arts and Letters to which the services of popular education are to be attached, the Department of Architecture, the Department of the Archives of France, and the National Centre of Cinematography or CNC (Poujol 2005:24). 6 Robert Abirached, former Director of Theatre under Minister of Culture Jack Lang, has attributed this radicalization to the influence of Brecht. His words underline the continuity and longevity of a distinctively French tradition of popular theatre, which, it should be noted, was much changed but did not disappear after 1968: The French tradition, which stretches from Pottecher to Romain Rolland, including Gémier and continuing on to Vilar, is a tradition identifying le peuple with the national community, with the understanding that theatre was able to bring society together again. . . . [T]his idea of shaping a national community founders with the irruption of Brechtianism. Brecht calls for a theatre that divides, destroys, and begins to undermine the society where it is situated: that is the famous Brechtian ruse, which consists of asking for money from a state that one wants to take down. (Abirached, quoted in Poirrier and Rioux 2000:278)

7 Note that the ministry’s name changed in 1976 (to the Ministry of Culture and the Environment), and, since then, its name has included, in some iteration, the title “Ministère de la Culture” or “Ministry of Culture.” 8 It should be noted that, in spite of an increased budget, the basic funding priorities of the Ministry of Culture under Lang did not change. The overwhelming bulk of funding went toward professional artists in the more traditionally supported high cultural genres (Eling 1999:11). 9 One of the May ’68 slogans was “Under the paving stones lies the beach (Sous les pavés la plage).” 10 It has been estimated that funding for the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States constitutes about one tenth of 1 per cent of the overall federal budget (Constitutional Rights Foundation 2000). Careful comparison with funding in the United States is difficult, however, and beyond the scope of this book, but two points warrant mention. First, the NEA is not equivalent to the Ministry of Culture. Former NEA Chairman Bill Ivey states that the 2006 budget provided arts funding of $9 per citizen as opposed to about $80 per citizen in France. But, he notes, the total is deceptive because, as the name of the agency implies, the French ministry does far more than pay for performances and exhibitions; it regulates broadcasting, like our FCC , manages 38,000 historic sites, far more than our Interior Department, and promotes global trade in French cultural goods, like the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. (Ivey 2008:239)

In addition, support from the private sector is much more important in the United States. Whereas major European theatres and museums often receive 80 per cent or

24 rites of the republic more of their support from public funding, former NEA Chairman Dana Goia has stated that in 2004 about 44 percent of the income generated by American arts organizations came from sales or the box office. The rest was donated—overwhelmingly from the private sector. Only about 13 percent of arts support in the U.S. came from the government, and only about 9 percent from the federal government. (National Endowment for the Arts 2007:v)

11 French negotiators succeeded in having a “cultural exception” granted for the arts in the 1994 Uruguay Round of the GATT trade negotiations and also influenced the European position on a cultural exception at the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization, with the stated goal of encouraging “cultural diversity” in the face of globalization (Poirrier 2002:483). 12 Kim Eling’s study of the cultural policy addressing theatre in the 1981–93 period emphasizes the special influence enjoyed by professional theatre artists with respect to state policy. Although one might assume there to be a statist, hierarchical relationship in which the Ministry of Culture plays an active, dominant role through the appointment of senior artistic and administrative personnel, the theatre sector exemplified a very different style of policy-making. Far from being in a position to impose a coherent set of policy objectives on the sector, or even to bear significantly on individual artistic choices, policy-makers were severely constrained by the demands of a highly organized and influential profession, and by a strong informal tradition of consensual policy-making based on close collaboration between senior officials and leading professionals (1999:83–4).

13 These include the CEMEA (Centre d’Entraînement aux Méthodes d’Éducation Active), the CIRASTI (Conseil Interassociatif pour la Réalisation d’Activités Techniques Internationales), the CNFR (Confédération Nationale des Foyers Ruraux), the FFMJC (Fédération Française des Maisons de Jeunes et de la Culture), the FRANCAS (Fédération Nationale Laïque de Structures et Activités Éducatives, Sociales et Culturelles), the FNLL (Fédération Nationale Léo-Lagrange), PEC (Fédération Nationale Peuple et Culture), and LFEEP (Ligue Française de l’Enseignement et de l’Éducation Permanente). 14 For further discussion of Fifth Republic efforts to integrate the administration of culture and popular education, see Mignon 2007. 15 Prior to the presidential election in the spring of 2007, the concerns of artists were evident in a May 16 editorial in France’s most influential daily newspaper, Le Monde. Titled simply “Do not eliminate the Ministry of Culture,” it was signed by well-known film directors and screenwriters. In February of 2008, demonstrators in Paris protested a “disengagement from the state” in the 2008 budget for culture.

2 “Culture” in local perspective

THE TRAC OF BEAUMES DE VENISE

The “Captain Fracasse” of the TRAC : An original, captivating, and seductive version The adaptation of Théophile Gautier’s novel by Serge Ganzl is in every sense remarkable. But don’t expect to rediscover the faithful “Captain Fracasse” we were all subjected to back in grade school. Here is an original work. While the TRAC has kept the framework of the novel, it has added piquant, even very funny details. This original version is marked by a surprising exploration and a limitless imagination. This performance, where action leads to suspense, where laughter gives way to tears, is captivating from beginning to end. Vincent Siano and his troupe (twenty-five young amateur actors, if you please!) have recast and corrected the story of Fracasse. And with what merit. The staging is spectacular, the costumes seductive, the set subtle but colourful and very much in tune with the rest. A veritable tour de force achieved with meagre means. This original “Fracasse” is the fruit of long work: an entire year of meetings twice a week spent polishing this creation. A particularly strong point: the perfectly executed swordfights. I was in Beaumes de Venise the 18th of May for the première. I invite you to discover the “Captain Fracasse” of the TRAC . Which is to say, the Rural Theatre of Cultural Animation. Jean-Marc Aubert (1980)

At the end of the 1970s, an economic downturn signalled the end of the “thirty glorious years” of postwar economic growth. Young people in rural southern France were moving away to find jobs elsewhere. In the 25

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smallest of towns in rural areas, the closing of primary schools made the future seem especially bleak. In 1979, a group of young people came together in the small town of Beaumes de Venise to create a theatrical staging of a classic of French literature: Le Capitaine Fracasse. Gautier’s novel is the story of an aristocrat fallen on hard times and mired in self-pity until he finds himself drawn into a series of cloak and dagger adventures with a travelling provincial theatre troupe. Fracasse signalled the birth of a new provincial theatre troupe: the TRAC of Beaumes de Venise. Led by Vincent Siano, son of Italian immigrants to nearby Aubignan, the troupe made up for its members’ lack of professional training with imaginative staging and skilled and energetic performances from the actors, some of whom performed with the southern speech characteristic of rural Provence. The name of the troupe called attention to the goal of its members—getting people from outside the world of “culture” to move beyond their stage fright (le trac) and perform with them. The show reviewed above was performed in the Cultural Centre of the Barbière (Centre Culturel de la Barbière), a site that encouraged amateur arts in a peripheral neighbourhood outside the walls of Avignon. Another early newspaper article about the troupe carried the headline

Image Not Available

The cast of Fracasse in front of the Foyer Cantonal of Beaumes de Venise in the spring of 1980. Vincent Siano is the bearded man farthest to the left, second row. Photo by the TRAC .

“Culture” in local perspective 27

THE VAUCLUSE DEPARTMENT: AN ECONOMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW 1 The Vaucluse department, one of five in the Provence–Alpes– Côtes d’Azur region (PACA ), is relatively small in geographic size compared to other French departments. The department seat and social centre is Avignon, located on the eastern bank of the Rhone River (which forms the western boundary of the department) and just north of the Durance River (which constitutes the department’s southern boundary). Roughly one fourth of the department’s 547,000 inhabitants live in the greater Avignon area, with Avignon proper comprised of 94,787 inhabitants. The next three largest communities, forming a semi-circle to Avignon’s north and east, are Orange with 30,627, Carpentras with 28,445, and Cavaillon with 26,305. Its 151 municipalities include towns as small as Auribeau, where the TRAC once performed for an audience bigger than the town’s population (46, at the time, and 71 in 2006). Beaumes de Venise (2,223 inhabitants) is located at the foot of the Montmirail mountain range in the north of the department. As throughout France, the services sector has risen in the last thirty years, particularly with respect to tourism. At the same time, the importance of agriculture has declined, although less dramatically in the Vaucluse than in other areas. Although the Vaucluse is more agricultural and less dependent on tourism than the region as a whole, the percentage of the Vaucluse population working in the tertiary sector in 1993 (67.3) was still higher than the national percentage (64.2), although not as high as the PACA percentage (73.9), the highest in France (INSEE 1993). In 2006, unemployment in the Vaucluse was listed at 10.5 per cent, higher than the national figure of 9.3 per cent but lower than the PACA figure for the same year: 11.6 per cent. The department has seen a continued high rate of in-migration since the end of World War II . To sum up, the department has a service-dominated economy with a relatively strong agricultural sector and an increasingly important tourism industry.

“Le trac sans complexes,” which can be translated as “stage fright without inhibitions (or hang-ups).” By offering employment and training in the theatre arts, the troupe helped many to begin careers in fields such as acting, stage design, lighting, and make-up. Fracasse was very well received. The fact that the previously quoted and highly positive review in a major local newspaper was signed was especially unusual for an amateur production. From the beginning, many have welcomed the troupe’s success in building a viable

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arts initiative in a small rural town and have approved of the TRAC ’s dedication to touring the small towns of the Vaucluse. In this chapter, I provide an overview of the troupe’s practice in the Vaucluse department from 1979 to 2008. This includes consideration of the aesthetic, ideological, and institutional choices the troupe has made as it has adapted to the changes in the local role of the central state with respect to culture described in Chapter 1. Such changes may be seen as part of broader processes reshaping the role of the state in local governance in Europe. In the face of the political and economic changes since its founding, the troupe has drawn on a national discourse on culture and recast it through a theatre project combining a sensitivity to its local environment with an “original, captivating, and seductive” artistic vision.

Interpreting the ideals of popular education in the rural Vaucluse Vincent Siano and the origins of the TR AC “Without Vincent Siano, there would be no TRAC ,” a troupe member once told me. Like many enduring theatre initiatives, this troupe owes much to the vision and energy of one person. A short biography of Siano is posted on the website of the Université Populaire d’Avignon (where he has taught): Vincent Siano, child of terroni,2 born in 1952 halfway between Naples and Reggio Calabria to a father who was a woodcutter-agricultural worker and a mother with a rural background (paysanne), immigrated to the Vaucluse when he was nine years old. His work in socio-cultural animation led him to state certification as an animateur (1980) and his university studies to a doctorate in psychology (1986). But, starting in 1969, his theatrical activity at the grass-roots level and principally in rural areas would lead him to found the TRAC of Beaumes de Venise in 1979—a group of amateurs who went on to keep this status—and to travel to the villages of the region with an expanding repertoire, to multiply theatrical experiences in association circles, and to build “a true theatre in a rural area.” Recruited, in 1981, by the Direction Départementale de la Jeunesse et des Sports de Vaucluse [the office of the Ministry of Youth and Sports responsible for the Vaucluse department], he serves there in his capacity as a counsellor of youth and popular education. Theatrical experience and the desire to reflect on this practice allowed him to acquire a DEA in theatre at the Université de Censier-Paris III in 1998.3

“Culture” in local perspective 29

As a statement intended for an audience particularly sensitive to “the popular,” this text highlights two themes that have been especially important: Siano’s own rural background and his emphasis on amateur participation in the arts. Siano’s thesis for his 1986 doctorat de troisième cycle is entitled “The Primary School, Society, and Paysans—Social Representations, Ideologies, and Mentalities: A Study of a Group of Small-Scale Farmers (paysans) of the Vaucluse.”4 This study examines the attitudes and strategies of 40 farmers concerning education. Siano’s central aim was to understand a division that the TRAC ’s popular education has sought to overcome: the barrier separating those with little education from the pursuit of higher learning and the appreciation of the arts. Much of the thesis is devoted to understanding and working against the fatalism of social class, which had led poor parents in rural areas to de-emphasize or neglect scholarly pursuits in preparing their children’s futures: The fatalist appropriation of educational failure, as a reality lived or felt by the working classes (couches populaires) and viewed as due in great part to the nature of the child, brings forth as a precaution from the paysans a conditional and doubtful “if”. . . . “I would like for my child to go as far as possible if he were gifted for studies.” (Siano 1985:265)

After describing how many of these parents highly valued higher education and only discouraged their children from pursuing it because these children did not appear to have the necessary skills for succeeding with it, Siano argues that the conditional “if he were gifted for studies” justifies in advance the eventual failure of the child and the non-realization of their aspirations and dreams. (Siano 1985:266)

The goal of overcoming this kind of fatalism is evident in the administration of the TRAC , particularly in productions and workshops intended to promote arts participation among all social classes and to fight the self-imposed distance from “culture” evident in the subjects of his study. When I asked him in 1993 whether the TRAC ’s project was intended to bring together art and a rural environment, Siano replied, “It is not just for building bridges between the rural world and culture. It is for building bridges everywhere.” He went on to cite examples of these bridges in a production of Don Quixote, emphasizing the contacts between participants with little education and those who were teachers or otherwise highly educated. One

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man in this production, a plumber, described to him with some emotion how his family had been very excited about his performances with the troupe, that there had been a recognition there that he hadn’t received in the past. Siano saw this man’s participation as an example of bringing together individuals from different backgrounds in the service of a common arts project. He viewed theatre as a practice allowing one to step out of a socially defined status and actively shape one’s identity. This perspective recalled Siano’s comments concerning amateur theatre in the “old days,” prior to 1968, when theatre was reserved for “the gifted.” For Siano, participation in the arts was a way for individuals to break through that barrier. In many ways, the TRAC is a child of May ’68, as Siano says in a more recent article: In 1969, we created in Aubignan in the Vaucluse an MJC (Maison des Jeunes et de la Culture) in which theatre would end up playing a dominant role. We wanted to change the world with people, being close to them, from the same community, but integrating into our approach ideas from “the exterior,” from the student and worker movement. (Siano 2004a:218)

He notes the influence of a local shopkeeper, the owner of a bar-tabac, who would speak of the Avignon Theatre Festival to the young people like himself. But the most important influence was the arrival in the 1970s of two “Technical and Pedagogical Counsellors” (Conseillers Techniques et Pédagogiques) from the Ministry of Youth and Sports—René Jauneau and Étienne Catallan—who organized the first theatre workshop for amateurs in the area. This began an important wave of amateur theatre activity, which led to the creation of the Action du Théâtre Vauclusien (ATV) in 1978, an autonomous federation of troupes and groups of amateurs who had taken part in the workshops. Vincent Siano was from Aubignan, and it was the MJC there that spurred the creation of Fracasse and the TRAC . The TR AC perspective on place: “Un théâtre de terroir” and “le jeu de l’enchantement” One key theme in the TRAC philosophy is the relationship between theatrical creation and its physical and social environment. From the outset, it has sought to be a theatre of “terroir.” This distinctively French concept, usually used with regard to gastronomy, refers to the singular qualities of geography, climate, and patterns of cultivation (“culture”) that

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contribute to the local identity of culinary products throughout France. Scrupulously regulated through the system of AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée), the notion of terroir is crucial to defining the taste and quality of a host of foods, most notably wine but also others including olive oil, butter, cheese, as well as poultry and livestock. In the programmatic 1991 article quoted from at the beginning of Chapter 1, Siano notes that the troupe is inspired by the work of Peter Brook (who had staged The Mahabharata in a quarry outside Avignon in 1986) but distinguishes the TRAC ’s approach from a purely scenographic interest in the physical site of performance by emphasizing the social environment as well. The TRAC ’s approach goes beyond aesthetic concerns or scenographic originality and seeks a social link between the theatrical site, the performance, and the physical and human environment. (Siano 1991:448, italics in original)

These concerns are evident in many aspects of the TRAC ’s practice from the very beginning and are apparent in the 1982 production Fontamara (a theatrical adaptation of the novel by Ignazio Silone) staged in a site near Beaumes de Venise. Fontamara is the story of poor farmers in the Abruzzo Mountains who fought for water and against the fascist regime of Mussolini. The play was performed in a key local heritage site. This site has been the location of a Celto-Ligurian settlement (oppidum), a Romanesque church, and a stone quarry in use until just after World War II . The troupe brought the audience members up on foot to the quarry, and the play was performed as the sun was going down. The goal was partly to draw attention to a site charged with memory, partly to take advantage of the beauty of the setting, and partly, also, to encourage people to see their environment as filled with poetic possibility. This has been an ongoing goal of the troupe—not simply to celebrate local memory but to encourage an active appropriation of the meaning of a specific place, by the performers and audience members, within a particular artistic vision. This production called attention to the memory of the site but also showed it as amenable to reinterpretation in the service of a creative dramatic production. Fontamara also celebrated (as have many TRAC productions) a certain ruralist vision, one emphasizing the memory of poor farmers, and, in this way, it interpreted the ideals of popular theatre in the context of the rural Vaucluse. Other examples of productions performed in natural settings include the performance of a work by Jean Giono, which was presented in a natural amphitheatre in a farm and also on the paths of transhumance

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with flocks of animals and shepherds in 1995, and a play about Mont Ventoux, based on poetry and music, performed on the trails of Mont Ventoux in 1999. In these sites, the goal has been to establish a relationship with the people living there and to integrate the TRAC ’s work within local cycles of performance and social events. The troupe returns frequently to many of the same towns, even as it is constantly seeking out new partners in the Vaucluse and, increasingly in recent years, in the Alpes-de-HauteProvence department. Thus, the TRAC has a strategy of diffusion that is integrated within the realities of the rural world and installs theatre in diverse and original sites of the small towns of the region. It is an itinerant theatre adapted to a terroir; the performance is not the fulfilment of a simple contract but the realization of a meeting with a local community or as part of a directed project in which the diffusion is a pretext for a “full” cultural project (action culturelle) (Suds en Lubéron, Chantiers sur Scènes, local festivals . . . ). (Siano 1991:449)

It is important to note that the troupe has not emphasized a social bond with the audience in place of aesthetic innovation and quality. In spite of the name chosen by the troupe in 1979, a name that it retains today, the 1991 text even states that TRAC ’s approach “distances itself from a theatre of animation or intervention” by “playing on the harmonies and contrasts between the theatrical work and its environment.” There is here a respect, both for the integrity of dramatic texts (“The theatrical act performed must keep the work in its fullness without distorting it”) and for a poetic quality present in the physical and social environment of the troupe’s performances. The goal has been to create a dialogue between the artistic work and the environment in which it is performed. Beyond seeking to take the theatre to small towns where it is not often performed, the troupe has also made a point of seeking out “surprising sites (quarries, farms, fields, mountain valleys, sheep barns, charcoalproducing sites, vineyards, wine cellars, train stations, ruins, worksites, rivers, beaches),” but the goal was not originality at all costs, but to seek out the singular resonance of a poetic word (parole) in a particular environment, to create an ambiance propitious to a specific listening, to a unique liaison between the people of an area (les gens du pays), the “guests” and the work. (Siano 2004a:220)

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Siano’s second (DEA ) thesis, completed in 1999, is entitled “On the Necessity of the Play of Theatrical Enchantment (De la nécessité du jeu de l’enchantement théâtral).” By the latter term, he refers to the transformation of daily existence that theatre brings about through the media of desire and imagination. He has noted that the etymology of the word “to enchant” is the Latin “incantare,” a term that, in the twelfth century, meant to sing or chant a magic formula, and he sees in this an apt parallel to the enchantment that takes place in the theatre. Siano’s DEA thesis is a study of “Amateur theatrical practice in rural areas, in the words of farmers (paysans) and children of farmers,” and it focuses on the importance of “enchantment” to participants in amateur theatre productions. But the work of the TRAC also cultivates this enchantment among its audience members in its efforts to find a liaison between the spirit of a place, the people living there, the performers, and the dramatic text. It is in these ways, through pursuing “the play of enchantment” in rural areas, with a project devoted to cultivating arts participation open to all and grounded in the social networks of small towns, that the troupe has sought to integrate its artistic and social aims and present its own distinctive approach to popular education and culture. Preparations for a TR AC performance, summer 1993: A snapshot Although I met the members of the troupe in the summers of 1990 and 1991, I got to know them best during my thirteen months of dissertation fieldwork in 1992–93. The following description draws from this research. It is two o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun is not making the job of the people setting up the stage any easier. We have already unloaded the wooden painted backdrop and the scaffolding from which actors will later speak and at one point leap during the show. We have also unloaded and set up the wooden boat that helps to situate tonight’s play, Molière’s Les Fourberies de Scapin, in Naples. The actors will perform on a concrete stage here, unlike the elaborate set used for Don Quixote the year before. That set included a wooden platform on which actors would sometimes dance and a series of sails that suggested windmills. It took hours to assemble and needed the patient and sometimes not-so-patient direction of the set designer himself for us (the tech crew, myself, and whichever other troupe members were available) to get it right. André, a retiree from the SNCF (the French national railroad) and now in charge of organizing the tech crew, is not happy. We are in the small town of Robion, waiting for the people from the mayor’s office to bring a longer extension cord so that we can set up the lights. Part of André’s role in the

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troupe is to overcome the many obstacles that pop up as the troupe travels with its set and adapts to local staging conditions. “It was like this in Beaumes last week too,” he tells me. “The bleachers from the town hall did not show up until two hours before the show.” After setting up the platforms for the lights, we wait in the shade: myself, André, John (who plays mandolin for the show), and Lucas, who is a working tech with the troupe for the summer with a CES contract.5 The stage in Robion is a huge outdoor amphitheatre. Benches fan out in a graded semicircle facing a sheer rock wall at least 30 feet high behind the stage. Looking out from the back of the highest row of benches, one can see the tile roofs of Robion below. At six o’clock, two hours before the show is to start, the rest of the cast begins to arrive. Vincent Siano, the director, makes sure preparations are in order for the “apéritif,” a round of drinks and toasts with the mayor and others from the town who show up to welcome the troupe. This is just a quick visit—time to say hello and officially mark the arrival of the troupe. But there is still time for business. Patrick Roux, the set designer and man in charge of the troupe’s bookings by municipalities and cultural events organizers, is talking with two of the Robion people responsible for hiring the troupe. They have been needling him about the price of the Don Quixote production and comparing it to another production they recently considered hiring: a play

The set for Scapin in the outdoor amphitheatre of Robion, 1993. Photo by the author.

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based on a film by Marcel Pagnol. Roux points out that the TRAC ’s play included original music, original staging, and was an entirely new adaptation of the novel. This is part of an ongoing bargaining session—mostly softened with jokes and laughter but involving, nonetheless, the negotiation of the sum to be paid the troupe for its productions. There is no one fee for all of the troupe’s buyers: it is a sliding scale—adjusted according to the means and willingness to pay of each of the municipalities. After the show, there will be a meal where all the troupe members and the local “hosts” will be interspersed on long benches, and there will be more time to discuss changes in the town and the troupe since the TRAC’s last visit a year ago. Gilbert Chiron, the president of the troupe, has now arrived and is helping arrange props. He points out to me that there will also be time for the Robionnais to catch up among themselves during the intermission. “What intermission?” I ask. Molière’s play as written does not have one, and the troupe has never included one in previous performances. He explains that, at Robion, there is always an intermission so that people have time to go to the concession stand and visit with one another. Just as the troupe fits its set within the diverse physical environments in which it performs, it also sometimes adapts its performance to the expectations of its hosts. Mylène Grimaldi (who acted with the troupe from Fracasse up through 1993) once told me that the biggest change

The set for Scapin on a street in Beaumes de Venise, 1993. Photo by the author.

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for her occurred in the small town of Sitia in Crete, where the troupe travelled with its adaptation of the novel Zorba the Greek. Mylène performed the role of the widow. The audience included Mme Kazantzakis, the author’s widow, who had seen the troupe’s production in Cadenet (in the Vaucluse) and arranged for the troupe to come to Sitia. “She thought that the widow should die onstage!” said Mylène. “So that’s what I did.” Gilbert’s wife Cathy has arrived, and Gilbert leaves to take care of his two-year-old son. As the main make-up specialist for the troupe, Cathy has designed the make-up for this production and also (with one helper) will be there to get the actors made up before the show. At 5:30, Vincent Siano has moved onstage, where he is talking and joking with a group of small children and their mothers. The children will participate in the play as “the children of Naples” and are rehearsing where to set up and where to go during the show. They will have no spoken lines but appear excited that they will be onstage. Vincent is carefully recruiting the smallest child for a role that is a little more involved. In one scene, the children yell insults at the Géronte character, a miserly old man. When he moves toward them angrily, they all run off except for one that he catches. The child is to scream for his mother and, at times when they have performed this scene in the past, the child has been so convincing that there’s been a sudden hush in the audience. People wonder whether the child really wants his mother or not. But when Géronte puts him down and the child thumbs his nose at the old man and runs off, the audience laughs to see that the child is still in character. Vincent has found one little boy who seems ready to go, and he and the actor who plays Géronte, Jean-Luc, are going over their moves. An hour before the show, the actors no longer have time to talk casually with me as they did before. The nervous energy has picked up considerably. Cathy is calling out insistently to actors from the makeup station set up in one of the restrooms near the stage. Well aware of when people need to be ready and how many people she will need to prepare, she now has more of an edge in her voice, especially since she will also need to set up the sound equipment that she will operate during the show. She is now calling people by their last names, including her husband Gilbert (whom she always calls by his last name). The sound of mandolin music can be heard faintly as the musician John goes over his songs. Luc, another one of the young actors, is bounding around back stage shouting lines, practising onstage moves, and otherwise working off nervousness. Jean-Luc (Géronte) is taking part in his usual pre-show ritual: sitting apart from the others, in costume, avoiding eye contact, and blowing puffs of cigar smoke slowly skyward.

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A half hour before the show, people make their way up the hill from the town and begin to stream into the amphitheatre. People call out to one another across the benches. Children are interspersed throughout the crowd too and scramble over and under the benches to get at one another. Back stage, Vincent is now speaking intensely to two of the actors about a scene he did not like the last time the show was performed. He takes them through the blocking and makes sure they know the lines and then runs off to prepare for his own part (he will perform the main role of the valet Scapin). The show is to start around 8:00 pm, but it is still light at 8:00 and no one is in a hurry. People continue to talk and laugh as the beautiful, clear sky darkens slowly. Gradually, the crowd grows quiet. Back stage, Vincent checks with the actors to make sure all is ready. Seeing nothing out of place, he says, “OK, let’s go” and walks out on stage. The lights drop, leaving him alone in the light, and he waits in the middle of the amphitheatre stage until it is quiet. “We are very happy to be back in Robion, and on such a fine night. Bonne soirée!” he says, and the show begins. As this brief narrative shows, the work involved in staging TRAC productions is truly amazing, given that very few members are paid for their participation.6 It involves not only the physical work, such as the assembling and dismantling of the set, but also the cultivating of social networks that are crucial to the hiring of the troupe throughout its departmental circuit. Patrick Roux’s contribution to the troupe was invaluable in this respect. He was greatly missed when he left the troupe to found his own business designing sets for local theatre companies, and it took some time before Sylvie Quoirin, who took over bookings, was able to replace him adequately. At the same time, Roux’s trajectory underlines the troupe’s contribution to the economic life of the area. Others have used their experience with the troupe as a springboard to a professional career, including Lucas Gontard, the CES stage technician who helped assemble the set that day. At the same time that Gontard was working with the TRAC , he was also enrolled at the prestigious Institut Supérieur des Techniques du Spectacle in Avignon, a path that has since been followed by other TRAC technicians. The troupe generally creates from one to seven new productions every year, some of which live on for years with replacements for original cast members; others are only performed from five to ten times. Overall, the troupe stages more than 60 performances a year, primarily in the small towns of the Vaucluse (including in its home theatre, the Salle Fracasse) but also in frequent exchanges with other amateur groups outside France. The troupe has gained a loyal following, and it usually

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draws an audience of 100 to 200 people. As an association (under the “law of 1901”), the TRAC is governed by a council of administration, which holds monthly meetings and an annual general assembly open to all. Depending on the year, the troupe includes from 30 to 50 active members (Siano 2004a:220). Anyone can take part in a stage de realisation (a production-specific training workshop), and Siano casts the production based on his knowledge of the previous work of actors and on their work during the workshop. A dual production strategy has emerged within the troupe. There is the kind of large, inclusive production such as Don Quixote, in which the emphasis has been on the broadest possible participation—incorporating beginning actors into a production with more skilled ones so that novices learn about and take part in the world of the theatre. The TRAC has also created productions with fewer actors, performances that are easier to take on tour and have allowed the most talented troupe members to work as an ensemble with similarly skilled actors. The earlier description of preparations for a show underlines how much each TRAC performance involves an elaborate set of rituals that include setting up, meeting with local hosts, the performance itself, breaking down the set, and then dinner afterward. These are settings with people of all ages, from small children to the elderly. They are intensely social moments marked by a sense of collective purpose. I didn’t realize the amount of social interaction involved in these performances until some of the new arrivals to the troupe mentioned it to me. Malika Mazari is a good example. In her early thirties when I met her in 1993, she had moved to Avignon in 1990. Of North African heritage, she had grown up in a peripheral neighbourhood (banlieue) of Paris. She had performed with the troupe on its local circuit and also travelled with the TRAC to Hungary and Italy. Malika loved to joke about her “urban” identity. She told me that “the rural side of things” was not so much her thing: “I know more the cité side, you understand?” Malika was, in many ways, both a teacher and student of popular education. In addition to her participation in the TRAC , she was directly involved in other projects of animation through her work at the Centre Social de la Reine Jeanne with an association, the Association Rencontre et Loisirs pour Tous (Association for Meetings and Leisure for All). She was responsible for the section devoted to young people, adolescent girls especially. She said that it was her first job in Avignon, and it was in the Reine Jeanne area (a peripheral neighbourhood outside the walls of Avignon), which she described as “very, very, very popular.” In an interview one day, she described what éducation populaire meant for her.

“Culture” in local perspective 39 It gives people who don’t know what culture is, what an artist is —it gives them all that is supposedly beyond the reach of what they can’t attain. And well . . . it also lets people attain the right to do it. Because, because people haven’t necessarily gone to theatre schools, people haven’t necessarily gone to the conservatory, people haven’t necessarily had a past that was super culturally enriching. And so, for me, éducation populaire lets people—most maybe haven’t read a book in their life, they haven’t necessarily seen plays, they don’t go out at all to the cinema, their only cultural art is the TV —it lets them, brings them the means of saying something and doing something else. You see?

As an actress in the TRAC , Malika especially appreciated performing in rural areas and touring. As in Avignon, she was an animatrice, but the exchanges with the audience and hosts in the TRAC touring were special.

Malika Mazari, Avignon, 1993. Photo by the author.

40 rites of the republic Because it’s related, the life of a town or a village or a country and what you are going to bring to them, I find that fabulous. It means that they are conscious of what we can give and what they can receive. And then the quality of the work—it is all the harmony with respect to that. Performing Don Quixote in the open air—it gave an extra dimension to the performance. It is something fabulous. You had the impression of being in communion with all that was around you, and you don’t give just to the people; you give to all that is around you. And that is fabulous. I never felt that anywhere but working with the TRAC , especially with Don Quixote.

Malika was very excited about her work with the TRAC . I had become accustomed to hearing actors grumble about the overly ambitious aspects of Don Quixote. In contrast to other TRAC productions, the set required a wooden floor to be installed (and taken down) by those actors and others willing to help. The show also had a very large cast and a longer running time than most of the company’s productions. As former TRAC president Gilbert Chiron once put it to me, “With Don Quixote, I think the TRAC reached the threshold of its competence.” But Malika didn’t say anything like this in our interview. Even with the small roles she had performed, she said that she had found the experience “superb” and “magical.” What she liked the most about the troupe, she said, was that there was a message behind it. Given her own work in a Centre de Loisirs, it was a little surprising when she said, “But it’s not’s just therapy—like at a Centre de Loisirs. There is a work of quality behind it.” I asked her to talk a little about what she got out of her participation with the TRAC . There’s the relational side—meeting people. Because it’s stupid but I’ve always done theatre with people with problems [she laughs]. No, it’s true! With the Théâtre du Fil, with Gatti, whereas there [with the TRAC ] I find myself with people my age who have families, who have kids. That was the main thing. Compared to all the theatre I’ve done. . . .

The Théâtre du Fil (located in a peripheral neighbourhood outside Paris) works with young people, including those who have “come up against the justice system” at some point.7 By “Gatti,” she means renowned theatre director Armand Gatti, who had, in Avignon in 1991, directed a group of young people who were unemployed or otherwise “in difficulty.” It was a Ministry of Culture–sponsored project of action culturelle. After

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several months of rehearsals, the play was performed at the Avignon Theatre Festival in 1991. Once the production was over, Gatti and the people associated with him left Avignon. Part of what Malika seemed to appreciate about the TRAC was the stability of the project and its participants and, in contrast to the Gatti project, its established status as a long-term institution in the area. Over the years, the TRAC has woven a network of connections with municipalities that builds on a long history of distinctive municipal identities. In the 1980s and 90s, the municipalities within the TRAC ’s circuit drew on national cultural policies devoted to heritage (patrimoine) to assert their own municipal aims, a process to which TRAC performances contributed. Consideration of this network and recent changes to it helps to show how the TRAC has contributed to embedding a national politics of culture in its local environment and also to recasting this politics from its own perspective.8

Local, national, and regional: The territorialization of politics in France A considerable ethnographic literature has described the interrelated nature of local cultural systems and the central state in France. Examining an Aveyronnais community in which male primogeniture inheritance patterns not only did not disappear but actually grew stronger in the post–World War II years of economic expansion, Susan Carol Rogers argues for closer attention to the ways local and national are closely interrelated: “fulfilling and preserving each other” (1991:198). The history of the formation of the French departments in 1791 reveals the longevity of this process. Like the introduction of the metric system, which gradually replaced the myriad standards for weights and measures, the establishment of new territorial boundaries was intended to unify the country’s diverse local communities. A study by Marie-Vic OzoufMarignier (1986) of the petitions from local municipalities shows that this proposal prompted a fierce debate and engendered strong reactions from even the smallest communities, each of which fought to make a case for its own worthiness as the local seat of administrative power. Ultimately, these local appeals were less a refusal of the new revolutionary regime than a part of the process by which the power of the centralized state became more widely diffused and rooted in local conditions. Considering this intertwined relationship between local and national interests, which shaped the creation of the departments, Ozouf-Marignier asks whether we should regard this as a politics of territory or a “territorialization of politics.”

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There are 36,782 municipalities in France, an extraordinarily high number (40 per cent of the total number in the European Union). In 1988, there were 32,000 rural municipalities alone, compared to the 3,600 total for Italy, a country with a population close to that of France (Borne 1988:146). In France, the attachment to the integrity of even the smallest of municipalities has been strong and long-standing. As Marc Abélès notes, the territorial segmentation adopted at the beginning of the French Revolution is characterized, at each level (township, department, region) by the prevalence of the centre. It is this polycentrism that characterizes the French system and has never been truly challenged. (Abélès 2005:153)

Abélès states that the laws of decentralization in 1982 ended up multiplying the number of centres of state power but did not change the basic structure of this system in which each small municipal centre is both responsible for local governance and a representative of the state (2005:153–54): a “tamed Jacobinism” in the words of Pierre Grémion. There have been many efforts to regroup smaller municipalities in order to more efficiently distribute resources such as schools and recreation centres, but even the smallest of townships has continued to hold to its independence and a singular identity. These townships are certainly not strictly bounded as “local.” Nor is the “national” the only extralocal dimension important to them. Nonetheless, they remain centres of a patterned social organization based on local territorial distinctions. In his 1989 ethnography of a French department, Marc Abélès describes this “polycentric” system and shows the deeply interrelated way that the national informs the local in French politics. At the centre of Abélès’ study are the local kinship networks that determine eligibility for political office in local voting districts. In this analysis, local politics involves something more than simply implementing or countering the policies of the state. It is rather a process through which a territorially defined network of social relationships both uses the institutions of the nation state to anchor itself and simultaneously serves as anchor to this larger national system. If these local networks are viewed as primary in the way local municipalities have resisted incorporation within more efficient administrative entities, what emerges is a recurrent “territorialization of politics” in which local social patterns sustain the authority of the state. The TRAC draws on a municipally centred network similar to others diffused throughout the national territory. The troupe has helped to foster

“Culture” in local perspective 43

involvement in state agendas at the grass-roots level, in part through its contributing to local municipal engagements with state cultural policy. A local performance circuit: The TR AC ’s relationship with mayors and arts organizers Asked how many different townships the troupe had performed in, one member answered, “I think we have been to nearly all of them in the

Image Not Available

Vaucluse TRAC performance sites, 1979–2000. Reprinted with permission from a photo-history of the troupe, Théâtres en Campagne et Scènes au Village, 1969–2000 (TRACES 2001:139).

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Vaucluse.” This is not quite true (there are 151 municipalities in the Vaucluse), but the troupe has performed in most of them, as illustrated in the map above of TRAC performance sites. In the Vaucluse, as elsewhere in France, local conditions continue to provide a set of social as well as political boundaries. Physical features that were once powerful barriers to travel remain influential to social relations today. The Rhone River constitutes the border between the Vaucluse and the Gard to the west. Today, the river is easily crossed by bridges at Avignon and farther north. Nonetheless, the TRAC ’s social networks in the Vaucluse do not generally extend across the river into the Gard department. The TRAC has only rarely performed in the Gard even though many of this department’s towns are closer to Beaumes de Venise than are some of the townships in the southeastern corner of the Vaucluse where they have performed frequently. In many ways, the theatre practice of the TRAC is sustained by the polycentrism of local politics in France. Here, the department serves as a broader frame for an interconnected system of cities and towns. Although delimited by the administrative boundaries of the department, the system is not closed in on itself. Rather, each township operates as a centre of commerce and exchange with other towns, both in France and abroad. The troupe’s work helps local administrators to promote their own townships as centres of “culture.” An interview with the mayor of Vacqueyras, a town of 1,000 inhabitants where the troupe has frequently performed, provides an example. Asked how the troupe’s productions fit within the overall events programming, the mayor began by describing the cultural history of Vacqueyras, and his effort to continue it: Vacqueyras is the home (patrie) of a troubadour, Raimbaud. We have tried to introduce Raimbaud to those Vacqueyrassians who didn’t know him at all. . . . We have wanted to give to Vacqueyras a certain cultural life, including nights of poetry and music. We have hosted evening events centred on the Middle Ages and, through certain poems, have tried to trace the line to the modern troubadours.

The mayor here describes the singular identity of Vacqueyras with respect to its long cultural history, distinguished both by its own “patron saint” of culture (Raimbaud) and by his place in the regional literary and performance tradition of the troubadours. But the “singular” identity of Vacqueyras, in fact, shares much with that of the many other municipalities that created festivals and other arts events in the 1980s and 1990s. In defining this identity through culture, the mayor situated his

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own township within this national patrimoine discourse, and within the local market for tourism. The mayor went on to speak of the diversity of the town’s offerings: We have also had many theatrical performances. Several times we have called on the TRAC of Beaumes de Venise. I am a very good friend of Vincent Siano. . . . They are always excellent. In general, they give us a low price. . . . Three years running we called on them, but this year we will have other events: a night of jazz music and another of Provençal events, for example. We are never disappointed. We know that the TRAC now has an audience in the region. . . . It helps to give a certain cultural life to Vacqueyras.

Identifying the TRAC as “of Beaumes de Venise,” the mayor points to the troupe’s established identity, which is linked to a particular township in the area, and to the TRAC ’s ties to local arts organizers and municipal authorities. In contrast to initiatives by outsiders viewed by some as “parachuted” in,9 the troupe’s members are drawn from the area and have long been committed to it. In a competitive market for tourism, these productions are an important means of distinguishing the attractions of one town from another. I asked the mayor if many tourists came to events organized by his office, and he smiled and said, Alas, and fortunately. It is true that the people who are in the gîtes come often. There are shows almost every night in the area. It is incredible. There is a frantic competition. Everyone is taking audience members away from everyone else.

The mayor’s “alas” indicates his regret that there are not more locals at these shows and also, perhaps, that these performances are valued not simply because of the high ideals often claimed for them (be it intellectual cultivation or social integration) but also for their place in a new local economic environment. For each event, “we try to do something so that the tourists get to know the town and appreciate the wine of Vacqueyras at the same time.” He notes that, in response to the heightened competition among townships, there was a tendency toward specialization, so that each town focused on a particular kind of festival or performance and also on a specific date for its major events in the summer. In this way, each town maintains its distinct place within the summer’s programming in the area. The mayor’s primary concern in hiring is the town’s cycle of events during the year. Performers such as the TRAC are hired according

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to this cycle. As the mayor notes, “When we need a theatre production, we call on them.” But, in pursuing these local interests, the mayor is also drawing on and contributing to the support for the state-led national discourse on culture. The mayor’s interview illustrates some of the key ways that the local administration of culture in the rural Vaucluse is dependent on a polycentric system of distinct townships. During the Mitterrand era (1981–95), these municipalities increasingly used “culture” as a tool for the promotion of town identity. Municipal authorities drew on elements of local and national history to portray their town’s distinctiveness as a cultural centre. Whereas formerly the folkloric aspects of a particular town might be more emphasized, in the 1980s and 1990s, even the smallest of towns launched festivals and sponsored arts events in order to publicize their “culturedness.” Once, having just returned from Hungary in 1992 where I had seen dual street signs indicating a new name replacing the former Soviet one, I was startled to discover in a small town in Provence a street sign marked “Rue Cocteau. Ex Rue de la Pétanque (Cocteau Street, Formerly Pétanque Street).” The town had decided to replace the earlier reference to “pétanque,” the game played on public squares throughout southern France especially by older men, with a reference to the brilliant and idiosyncratic playwright of the mid-twentieth century, Jean Cocteau. TRAC troupe members sometimes complained about how tourism affected attitudes toward theatre in the area. At issue was both the seriousness with which troupe members felt spectators should engage their work and also the composition of these audiences. Too many tourists implied a failure to reach a popular or rural audience, and the possibility that local performances might simply become another diversion offering local colour to tourists uninterested in theatre art was also feared. One older member expressed his disgust with a newspaper headline celebrating the department’s arts festivals as unique offerings to tourists: “Instead of snow or the beach: culture.” Clearly, the rising numbers of tourists greatly contributed to local theatre audiences. In turn, these performances helped to bring back previous visitors and attract new ones. In the 1990s, the troupe created productions with tourists specifically in mind, such as its “cultural walks”: spectators hike through the hills of the northern Vaucluse and see a series of theatrical and musical presentations based on the works of regional authors and poets. As the troupe has adapted its practice to fit the new economic conditions, it has also seen its long-standing emphasis on European exchanges become more important to local mayors and arts organizers.

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In addition to its own touring to other European countries (discussed more in Chapter 5), the troupe has brought many groups to the Vaucluse. One festival largely organized by TRAC leaders in 1992, for example, was entitled “Europe on Stage” and included young performers from Ireland, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Italy, and the former Soviet Union (which apparently required some administrative juggling in order to be included as “European”). The Irish participants ended up inviting the troupe to a festival they organized in Derry10, and the Italians similarly invited the troupe to perform in Naples. These became ongoing exchanges, including a visit from the Hungarian zither players in the summer of 2001. Another exchange the troupe helped create was the twinning of the town of Varvara in Crete with Cadenet in the Vaucluse. The TRAC ’s involvement in this process shows the troupe’s embeddedness in the local network of arts associations and municipal authorities who hire theatre productions in the area. It also shows how this system has contributed to European exchanges and is being reproduced in part through them. Two associations were particularly important in arranging the sister cities relationship: the Foyers Ruraux, a national association that has helped to fund many arts and other events in rural areas, and Suds en Lubéron, a group devoted to promoting activities in the Lubéron valley in the southeastern part of the Vaucluse. For the première of the TRAC ’s adaptation of the novel Zorba the Greek, the troupe invited the widow of the author, Mme Kazantzakis, to Cadenet. She ended up helping to establish the sister city relationship between Cadenet and the birthplace of Kazantzakis, Varvara. This collaboration prompted new exchanges such as the participation of a group from Crete in the “Europe on Stage” workshops mentioned previously, a TRAC tour in Crete with the Zorba production, and visits by schoolchildren of the two towns. In much the same way as the mayor of Vacqueyras did, Mme Adelh, the cultural assistant to the mayor of Cadenet, describes their reasons for hiring the troupe (“We can always count on 200 to 250 people”) and the preference for a regular date for the town’s annual events: Usually, we present performances based on a theme or a festival. When Don Quixote was presented, we had an exposition on Spain and a group of Spanish musicians. Our programming is often around the 14th of July.

I asked her if the arts activity in the area had increased.

48 rites of the republic Oh, yes. We are in the fourth year of our term, and, when I began four years ago, there were three events per year. Now there are activities all year long. The mayor’s office helps to organize all that with associations such as the Foyers Ruraux. The town is not big enough for a cultural centre, so we take care of it.

The European exchanges are part of the expanded program of cultural activities that has accompanied and contributed to the growth of tourism in the area. The TRAC’s performances and its broader efforts to build social relationships with its audiences fit within this larger pattern. The troupe’s frequent touring distinguishes it from other amateur (and professional) troupes in the area and helps the group attract participants. In some ways, the troupe presents itself as a local centre of culture in Europe, as in this map from one of the TRAC ’s programs showing the group’s travels emanating from its own centre: the Vaucluse. The centrality of Beaumes in this map, and the troupe’s self-definition as “of Beaumes de Venise” indicates the importance of this affiliation in its local theatre practice. What was the most enduring foundation during the expansion of “culture” and European exchanges in the 1980s and 1990s was the affirmation of municipalities as centres for social and economic exchanges. Compared to many more ephemeral efforts to

Image Not Available

Map showing international touring, printed on TRAC programs through the early 1990s.

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promote interaction among Europeans, the exchanges between municipalities appear, at least so far, to be a long-term phenomenon. But it is not at all clear that this is necessarily leading to the creation of a “new Europe,” if one means by that a new entity defined by an overarching or pan-European identity. Rather than the Europeanization of rural France, the introduction of a European dimension in areas such as the Vaucluse is better described as the adaptation of this broader transnational political agenda to a locally defined set of interests organized around the singular qualities of distinct municipalities—an adaptation similar to the “territorialization of politics” in the creation of the French departments, which Ozouf-Marignier described. In this sense, “Europe” may serve some of the same functions that “culture” did for local cultural events organizers in the 1980s and 1990s: a means for promoting the appeal of their own patrimoine as a local territorial centre within a national political culture. Changes in the local engagement with state cultural policy in France: A case of neo-liberalization? As noted in Chapter 1, two important changes have taken place in the national politics of culture in France since the 1990s: the processes of decentralization and deconcentration that have placed more of the responsibility for cultural policy on local authorities and the massive project of modernizing state reform in France (RGPP ), which has greatly diminished support for popular education, and with it, a host of voluntary associations devoted to a mission of public service through the arts. My focus has been on the national context for these changes. But to what extent are they due to a broader development of neo-liberalism, which is to say, an ideology and practice promoting minimal state intervention in the economy and favouring individual rights over social solidarity and collective responsibility for the poor? Many scholars argue that we currently live in an “age of neoliberalism,” and David Harvey argues that the world has undergone “an emphatic turn towards neoliberalism in political-economic practices and thinking since the 1970s” (Harvey 2005:2). As a term describing sweeping changes characteristic of a new political and economic order, “neo-liberalism” or the often-preferred “neo-liberalization” (emphasizing processes of change, rather than a static system) fits contemporary France imperfectly. This is especially true if one considers neo-liberalism as an ideological project, as, for example, in the formulation of Kim Moody (1997:119–20). It is, he states, a mixture of neoclassical economic fundamentalism, market regulation in place of state guidance, economic redistribution in favor of

50 rites of the republic capital (known as supply-side economics), moral authoritarianism with an idealized family at its center, international free trade principles (sometimes inconsistently applied), and a thorough intolerance of trade unionism. (Moody, quoted in Brenner and Theodore 2002:352)

Compared to the United States, this ideology has very little traction in France, where a strong state is expected to intervene forcefully in the domestic economy and support for centralized state intervention in the economy extends across the political spectrum. And while support for trade unionism has declined significantly in the last 20 years, it is hard to argue that the French state has less influence today than it did two decades ago. The question is not whether the state’s role is more or less significant but how this role has changed. Some analysts have argued (Brenner 2004; Ferguson and Gupta 2002) that one of the most important changes involves the relationship between states and the national territory. I draw here especially on Brenner (2004) whose work captures some of the important dynamics at work in Europe in the last 50 years and, in this way, helps to identify the distinctiveness of French contributions and responses to them. Brenner (2004) argues that the period between 1960 and 2000 in Europe was marked by a “fundamental rescaling of national state space” (Brenner 2004:450). He describes cities as especially important players in this process in their implementation of entrepreneurial approaches to urban governance. Although he acknowledges the significant role of European integration in transforming European political space, he views changes involving internal processes of “downscaling” (the devolution or decentralization of regulatory responsibilities to lower levels of governance within a nation state) as equally important. Among these lower levels, cities have been particularly important sites of “glocalization strategies” that have fundamentally changed the relationship between state governance and the national territory. Brenner argues that these new strategies exacerbate economic inequalities across the national space, in contrast to the Keynesian model (emphasizing a strong role for the state) of economic management in the 1960s (in which economic equality across the national space was sought through institutions such as the French DATAR ).11 The term “glocalization” refers to both state and local initiatives that are based on “concerted national political strategies to position diverse subnational spaces (localities, cities, regions, industrial districts) within supranational (European or global) circuits of capital accumulation” (Brenner 2004:476).

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Among other factors, Brenner sees these strategies as having been influenced by the economic crises of the 1970s and the end of industrial growth, which led to state bailouts to certain regions over others, and by the inter-city and inter-region competition linked to tourism and greater integration within European and global markets in the 1980s and 90s. Policies of decentralization and deconcentration (variably received and implemented) during the late 1990s and the early twenty-first century also contributed to this glocalization. In essence, through glocalization, local centres have become subject to international competition and are less easily managed by centralized state policies extending across the national territory. Brenner does not claim that these transformations reflect a weakened state. Rather, they indicate an adjustment to changing international conditions, an adjustment intended to help states manage the economy more effectively: [E]ven in the midst of the wide-ranging rescaling processes that have unsettled traditional, nationally focused regulatory arrangements and institutional forms, national states have attempted to retain control over major subnational political-economic spaces by integrating them within operationally rescaled, but still nationally coordinated, accumulation strategies. (Brenner 2004:481)

Thus, in answer to the question of how the state has changed in this period, Brenner’s analysis highlights the shift of responsibilities from the central state to local authorities and describes cities as particularly important to new patterns of governance. He also argues that the net result of changes is a less equal distribution of resources. For Brenner, the twin phenomena of “glocalization” and state rescaling have led to “uneven spatial development, chronic macroeconomic instability, intensifying inequality and social exclusion” (Brenner 2004:482). Whether or not these are necessary or enduring results of the changes in governance noted, one thing is certain: in France and elsewhere, the withdrawal of the centralized state’s support in certain sectors has prompted widespread concerns about the ability of states to ensure respect for the general interest and to achieve the goals of social and economic justice across the national territory and within the European Union. Such concerns have been especially prevalent in France. In this context, much greater responsibility for collective solidarity has devolved to the local level, which has put greater pressure on the associations and local elected officials that make up the network of support for initiatives such as

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the TRAC . Recent developments show how these broader changes have affected the local performance circuit for the troupe and how the TRAC has adapted to them. Changes in the TR AC performance circuit: The CoVe and the Pôle de Développement Culturel Although I have emphasized the resilience of polycentrism and municipal governance, there have nonetheless been two important developments in the last 40 years that have profoundly affected this relationship between local towns and cities and the central state. The first is the greater assumption of local control for cultural policy. Between 1960 and 1980, the steady rise in local funding for culture resulted in what Philippe Urfalino has described as “the municipalization of culture.” By 1981, this growth had raised municipalities to the position of primary source of public funds for culture with “52 per cent of public expenses for culture against 38.7 per cent for the state” (Urfalino 1996:281). The second development is the phenomenon of “intercommunality,” a term that refers to the movement toward collective governance among French municipalities. As with the earlier effort seeking the integration of small municipal centres, the goal has been more efficiency.12 Beginning in 1966, certain municipalities joined together in “urban communities” as part of “districts.” But in 1992 (10 years after the major decentralization laws of 1982), there were fewer than 250 such groupings of townships in France. In 1992, the status of “community of municipalities” was created, intended especially for small towns in rural areas. More than 1,000 such communities were created in the first five years following this legislation. In 1999, the Chevènement law intended to simplify and reinforce inter-municipal cooperation was passed. This legislation was hugely successful, and, in 2008, there were 2,583 communities of municipalities.13 It is worth noting that this movement has not been without critics. Two members of the National Assembly (Patrick Beaudouin and Philippe Pemezec of the UMP party) argue that intercommunality has led to a wasteful overlap of jurisdictions because of a lack of clarity in defining how responsibilities should be shared and managed among the participating townships (Beaudouin and Pemezec 2005). The “CoVe” is a community of municipalities located in the Vaucluse. Its name stands for Communauté d’Agglomération Ventoux—Comtat Venaissin and refers to its region in the northern part of the Vaucluse. It is one of the older intercommunal structures, growing out of “the urban district of Carpentras” created in 1966. Carpentras is the largest of the

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25 towns that make up the CoVe. Its change from a district to a “communauté” with its current name occurred in 2002 following the passage of the Chevènement law. In 1998, Carpentras and the Comtat Venaissin area received the status of “region of art and history” from the Ministry of Culture and Communication. The program recognizing and helping such regions (created in 1985) is part of a national politics devoted to the preservation and appreciation of France’s architectural patrimony. The term “patrimoine,” according to the Ministry of Culture, must be understood in the broadest sense, given that it concerns both the ensemble of the built patrimony of the city and natural, industrial, and maritime patrimonies, as well as the memory of residents. The intent therefore is to integrate into the process all the elements that contribute to the identity of a city or a country rich in its past and strong in its dynamism. (Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication 2010)

The policies related to the places designated by the Ministry of Culture as cities and regions of art and history (“Villes et Pays d’art et d’histoire”) are intended to draw together several sectors, including cultural policy, education, housing, urbanism and technical services, sustainable development, and tourism. In this way, the “art and history” initiative is part of a “global project of territory.” The act of having one’s town or community of townships designated a “region of art and history” provides support from the Ministry of Culture, but it also carries responsibilities. The local residents are expected to gain a greater appreciation for their contributions to the national architectural patrimony and to do their part to protect it. The goal is also to cultivate a kind of public engagement centred on this architectural heritage. The expected debates about this heritage are considered evidence of a healthy “mature” local democracy. The desire to make the residents sensitive to architecture, to the patrimoine, to urbanism, and to landscape must bring them to consider themselves actors regarding their surroundings and way of life (cadre de vie). The quality of architecture and landscape is a social issue and must be able to be widely debated locally. This appropriation by the residents, witness to the maturity of local democracy, will be encouraged. (Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication 2010)

The move toward the “intercommunal” joining together of small townships has not diminished the integrity of individual municipalities. This is

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evident when one looks at how the “cities and regions of art and history” program has been drawn on by the CoVe. One way the CoVe has highlighted its local architectural and historical heritage has been through a program called “Visites en Scène,” which is a tour of certain towns based on staged scenes accompanied by music. The TRAC has taken part in several of these, providing regular performances in the summer at many of the towns, including Bédoin, Beaumes de Venise, and Venasque in the summer of 2009. The TRAC has drawn from its extensive repertoire to create performances especially linked to the particular towns where it has performed. For example, in Venasque (the town that was the capital of the “Comtat Venaissin” in the medieval period before Carpentras replaced it as capital), the TRAC recounted the history of the Comtat’s becoming part of France. This performance was an excerpt from the company’s 2007 creation Chivau Frus. It included a face-off between medieval Venasque residents and those of nearby Saint-Didier, as well as the songs of the Provençal troubadour Raimbaut and Mireille by Frédéric Mistral. The audiences for such performances were composed of both tourists and the local residents targeted by the “art and history” program. It was important to the troupe that its work for this program not be viewed as simply a folkloric portrayal of an idealized past as part of a national heritage narrative. The troupe’s performances highlighted conflict between townships, showing these, rather than any overarching regional characteristics, to be the most significant frames for identity in these periods. The performances also included elements directing attention to a long history of “Mediterranean” and European influences in the area. While Provençal folkloric musical presentations usually feature the traditional flute and tambour performed in nineteenth-century costumes, the TRAC’s performance added to these the mandolin and Bulgarian bagpipes. The troupe has also incorporated North African instruments and songs into these “Visites en Scènes.” The Pôle de Développement Culturel The cultural development centres grew out of legislation at the end of the 1990s that changed the relationship between cultural policy and territory for departments in important ways. These laws encouraged the creation of collaborative groups of small towns and also the elaboration of projects with department-wide influence. In order to extend access to the arts throughout the territory and during the entire year, the Vaucluse department developed a plan for cultural development in 2002, which was enacted in 2003.14 Five cultural centres were planned and given this label by the General Council. According to the Vaucluse department’s

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website, the centres’ objective is “to assure the animation of a network of structures, associations, and cultural operators in the territory.” These include a “pluri-cultural” centre (pôle pluriculturel) shared by the towns of Vaison-la-Romaine and Rasteau, created (as was the TRAC ’s centre) in 2005. In 2006, the department announced plans for two other centres. One is to be in the southern part of the Lubéron region shared by the towns of Pertuis and Cadenet (with the aim of bringing together artists and associations in the areas of visual and performing arts). The other centre is to be in the Apt region and will be devoted to artistic creation and to bringing together artists and associations. The fourth centre is that of the TRAC , and it “directs projects targeting amateur arts practice throughout the entire department.” As a result of the administrative restructuring of the RGPP (General Public Policy Review or Révision Générale des Politiques Publiques) beginning in 2007, the Ministry of Youth and Sports became a “secretariat” devoted to sports (Secrétaire d’État aux Sports) within the newly created Ministry of Health and Sports. What used to be the Ministry of Youth and Sports office responsible for the Vaucluse department (Direction Départmentale de la Jeunesse et des Sports) is now the Vaucluse department office of social cohesion (Direction Départementale de la Cohésion Sociale). It is this Vaucluse department office (the DDCS ) that is responsible for the administration of the Beaume de Venise centre. The Pôle Départemental des Pratiques Amateurs Beaumes de Venise (an organization or centre of cultural development whose name can be loosely translated as the “Beaumes de Venise departmental centre of amateur practices”) in fact brings together several partners. Although the TRAC association is the director, this network includes the township of Beaumes de Venise, the community of townships of the Ventoux– Comtat Venaissin (the Communauté d’Agglomération Ventoux Comtat or CoVe), the DDCS , and the General Council of the Vaucluse. Part of the goal of establishing such centres is to coordinate cultural policy coherently across the Vaucluse department as a whole. Here we see the ongoing importance of the department as an organizational frame for the system of interconnected townships within it. In many ways, the township and department are dependent upon one another. This relationship is reflected in the way the state cultural policies discussed in this chapter have been drawn on and implemented in the Vaucluse. The TRAC ’s contribution to developing a coherent cultural policy across the department is in serving as a centre specialized in encouraging amateur arts creation and training for amateurs. The Pôle Départemental des Pratiques Amateurs Beaumes de Venise is also intended to encourage

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better relations between amateurs and professionals through meetings, exchanges, and teaching. Another of its important stated goals is to “ensure that the historical patrimoine is involved in projects of cultural development.” It is also to encourage multi- and interdisciplinary projects, “attending to the balance between traditions and modernity,” and to put in place what is necessary in order to provide a better accessibility to all audiences. Most of these are goals the TRAC has pursued through its own practice since its founding, but these goals are now more closely aligned with departmental cultural policy objectives. This new policy has also resulted in the organization of activities on a larger scale than in the past. In the fall of 2009, for example, the Pôle hosted talks and presentations devoted to Paul Puaux (former director of the Avignon Theatre Festival) and his legacy. The Vaucluse has long supported the troupe, but the status of the troupe as a pôle or departmental centre of amateur practice seems especially important in the wake of the RGPP . There has been diminished support for associations of popular education following the disappearance of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, which provided funding for many of the troupe’s creations through production workshop grants. The future of popular education? TR AC member Mario Leccia Given the extraordinary sacrifices that sustain the TRAC ’s productions, one might well ask why troupe members participate. Siano himself conducted research on this question among troupe members with a rural background (his subjects all grew up in the rural Vaucluse and most had parents who were farmers). His study (Siano 2004b) is especially interesting in showing the desire to go outside daily life—to discover and create a poetic perspective outside one’s everyday experience. At the same time, he shows the constant presence of this perspective in one’s daily life. Gilbert Chiron describes the end of his work day and departure for rehearsal: “As soon as I am in my car, I am rehearsing.” But there are also those who are paid for their participation in the troupe, and this has periodically created tensions because, in some ways, the volunteering of some subsidizes the participation of others. But saying that these paid participants do it only for the money is to neglect many aspects of their motivation. Mario Leccia is a good example. Thirty-three years old in 2008, Mario is a paid musician for the troupe and an actor for the troupe. He also performs with his band, La Bande à Koustik, and teaches theatre and music workshops in the area. He lives with his wife MarieMadeleine and their daughter in the mountains near Monieux (their first home there was a yurt), close to Sault. He had grown up in a small town

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in the Vaucluse and began participating in TRAC productions in background parts when he was 18. On tour with the troupe in the Alps of Haute Provence department in 2008, we sat for an interview near a river in the small town of Geniès. “Vincent started offering me roles. For one of them, I would have to learn to play accordion. I think that was a sort of tactic on his part,” he said smiling. Mario stuck with it and went to a music school in Le Thor for a year, and he also performed with a troupe doing street theatre and worked in a musical instrument repair shop in Avignon. He also performed (unpaid) in the Giono plays the TRAC did in 1985–86. Afterwards, he was offered an “emploi-jeunes” contract (CEJ ) along with two other young people. Although these youth employment contracts were normally for five years, one of the three people left after one year and was replaced by Marie-Madeleine. I asked him about the troupe’s identity as “citizens’ theatre.” First, let me say that I have worked with a lot of theatre groups as a musician—companies that don’t have this commitment to the territory and to politics. With the TRAC , Vincent demands a high level of competence—at the technical level: the fundamentals of acting, elocution. The TRAC is the only group I’ve worked with where the actors warm up, for example.

For Mario, this attention to the technical details was linked to the political vision of the troupe because there was a shared investment in working together toward a common goal across differences of background. I really feel the relevance of the perspective of the troupe. With other companies, it seems as if there is a kind of crisis. They don’t know what to defend anymore. And with the TRAC , there are many more people from different backgrounds: a road worker (cantonnier), a professor, a psychiatric assistant. . . . There is no homogeneity. . . . It creates a kind of unity. I adhere completely to what the TRAC pursues—the ideals.

In expressing the reasons for his appreciation of the TRAC project, Mario integrates the aesthetic and social aims of the troupe. The political vision of broader inclusiveness helps to sustain a commitment to artistic integrity. Participation with the TRAC also reinforces his own values concerning openness to people from other backgrounds. It is also true that there are many opportunities for communication and exchange among people of all ages within the TRAC , much more than in the most

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important site for amateur theatre in the United States: college productions. The troupe has been a place for the affirmation of values about broader inclusiveness and for discussion, dialogue, and compromise— ultimately, for finding solutions with others across boundaries of age and social class. These values have been reinforced in touring to and exchanges with people throughout Europe and North Africa. Mario himself took part in touring in Bulgaria and in Algeria. Mario also believes the TRAC to be a platform for engaging issues in society at large and for addressing what he viewed as the two most important social problems today: “Solitude and fear of the Other.” He saw the troupe’s work as representative of a particularly valuable kind of cultural policy in which associations have a crucial role. In France, we say that there is no cultural policy without the Ministry of Culture. But without—or at least in order for culture to develop in a certain direction—necessarily, it is not enough for the Ministry of Culture to decree certain objectives. It is truly the associations that can act as intermediaries for cultural policy, for initiatives taken higher up. Associations that often don’t have the means. . . . What is important is the investment of people—and inevitably people who decide will act.

In this view, participation in the TRAC is part of a model for cultural policy that is nationally shared, but one in which people at the grassroots level are important actors in showing the way through example to institutional actors, such as those at the Ministry of Culture. Mario also drew on his experiences with the TRAC in describing his views toward Europe and the Mediterranean. He expressed strong support for Siano’s emphasis on the local with the TRAC and said it was important to protect local identity against globalization. For Mario, participation in the TRAC has been a professional opportunity, but he came to the profession because he was attracted to a particular kind of practice and ideology in the first place. It is quite possible that he would have quit if his job had not allowed him to go on, as indeed many people have, but he was able to continue because of the state support he received through a youth employment contract (a CEJ ) at a cultural institution and because of the support for “culture” locally through the CoVe and other organizations. The local and national contexts have changed considerably since the founding of the TRAC, but troupe members such as Mario seem committed to pursuing the troupe’s ideals in a changed political and economic landscape for culture.

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Conclusion In creating a dynamic and enduring arts project in the rural Vaucluse, the TRAC has interpreted the terms of a national discourse on culture and made them meaningful within its local performance circuit. The troupe has sought a middle way between the priorities of artistic creation and sociocultural animation, emphasizing both tradition and innovation. It has pursued a creative agenda founded on the principles of popular education and popular theatre and interpreted these in terms of underserved and underrepresented populations living in rural areas. Its innovative artistic agenda has focused on the distinctive aesthetic qualities of the local physical environment and on the quest for a dialogue between the artistic work and the social and physical environment where it is performed. It is in large part through its creative performances in this vein that it has been viewed as “original, captivating, and seductive.” The troupe has also been valued for its contributions to municipal cultural policy in the Vaucluse. In this chapter, I have described the polycentric system linking state and local governance in French politics and the importance of municipalities within this system. In order to better define the singularity of the French case, I have drawn here on Brenner’s study of local–state relations in Europe between 1960 and 2000. Brenner argues that “glocalization strategies” have fundamentally changed the relationship between state governance and the national territory and identifies cities as particularly important sites of such strategies. Fundamental to this change in relationship are processes of “downscaling” in which responsibilities are transferred to lower (more local) levels of governance. This transference of responsibility is especially important in France given the high number of municipalities and their role in the French polycentric political system. With regard to the history of the TRAC , two important changes have occurred within this system. The first is the “municipalization of culture” between 1960 and 1980, in consequence of which municipalities became the primary source of public funds for culture in France. The second is the move toward “communities of municipalities” illustrated in the Vaucluse by the CoVe. Each of these developments has increased the importance of municipally centred heritage (patrimoine) policies. In both addressing local residents as democratic actors and in reaching out to foreign and other tourists in its audiences, the programs implementing these heritage policies have done so in ways counter to nativism and parochialism. This is illustrated by the contributions of TRAC members to the CoVe Visites en Scènes program. Musicians have included music and instruments that reflect a wider European and

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Mediterranean heritage than is often the case in folkloric performances of local identity. These contributions reflect the TRAC priorities in their arts project more generally, priorities that are reflected in a motto often present in the troupe’s newsletter: “From the terroir to the international.” The TRAC has changed greatly between the time of its origins in the period just after May ’68 to the current period when the institutional support it long received for its popular education agenda—in particular, through the Ministry of Youth and Sports—seems to be disappearing. One strategy that may prove to be a crucial response to this change has been the designation of the TRAC association as a pôle or “centre of cultural development” within the Vaucluse department. Although the troupe has long enjoyed the support of the Vaucluse, this special status seems particularly important in light of the decline in state support for locally based arts projects of popular education. The opportunities for a new generation of TRAC members no longer include the kind of position as animateur that Vincent Siano long held, but this chapter has concluded with discussion of a younger troupe member who adheres fully to the troupe’s ideals and the voluntary association as a medium for achieving them while, at the same time, making a living as a professional musician. Although the TRAC is a dynamic presence today and its productions are filled with young participants who believe in its values, the troupe’s relationship to the cultural policy of the central state is unclear. As the state has retreated from a strong position on the public mission for the arts, this task has been left more and more to the discretion and resources of local government in France. In this context, both artists and administrators (municipal, departmental, and regional) have found their own ways of defining a public mission for the arts. These include the ideas surrounding “new territories of art” in Marseille.

Notes 1 Unless otherwise noted, figures are from 2006 and were published in the Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques (INSEE ) 2007 census. 2 This word is a derogatory term in Italian for poor southern Italians. 3 Reference here is to Siano’s “doctorat de troisième cycle” from the Centre de Recherche en Psychologie de l’Éducation from the Université de Provence. The DEA (Diplôme d’Études Approfondies) is an advanced degree that generally involved one to two years of study after the maîtrise (a master’s degree comprising four years of study after one’s high school diploma). Both the DEA and the doctorat de troisième cycle have been replaced as the French system has been aligned with a single European postgraduate education system.

“Culture” in local perspective 61 4 The term “paysan” (literally “peasant”) is used far more in French than is the equivalent term in English. The term emphasizes aspects of cultural rather than professional identity. As opposed to “agriculteur,” “paysan” includes within it the word “pays,” which has often served to designate smaller, culturally distinct regions within the political territory of the nation state (see Braudel 1986, Thiesse 1997). The word “paysan” (as noun or adjective) suggests a way of life grounded in the rural traditions of a particular locale. French agriculture has changed dramatically in the last 50 years, becoming highly mechanized and marked by much bigger farms than in the past. But the word “paysan” still serves to reference a distinctively rural way of life, whether viewed as anachronistic in today’s France or celebrated as a more authentic alternative to modern life (Rogers 1987). 5 The contrat emploi-solidarité (CES ) is a state-subsidized, fixed-term contract designed to help provide training and experience to unemployed young people. Created in 1990, the CES was eliminated in 2005 in favour of CAE s (employment assistance contracts) and CA s (contracts for the future), which are similarly designed to encourage longterm employment for job seekers by providing professional experience and transferable skills. 6 The TRAC has had many temporary and part-time employees. These include a halftime accountant and bookings position paid for in part through the state-sponsored FONJEP program (Fonds de Coopération de la Jeunesse et l’Education Populaire), intended to help associations hire administrative help. The troupe has also employed many CES (contrat emploi-solidarité) stage technicians. The CES positions (of anywhere from six months to two years in duration) were intended to help out-of-work young people get training and job experience. 7 The person who had designed and supervised make up for the Don Quixote production had also worked with the Théâtre du Fil. After moving to Avignon, she created her own arts association devoted to, among other things, creating theatre productions with women incarcerated in the Avignon prison. 8 See also Roche and Williams’ study of two 2007 TRAC productions and the recent Pole of Cultural Development in the context of French decentralization policies (2009). 9 See also Abélès (1989) for a discussion of this term with respect to local-outsider distinctions in French local politics. 10 The official name is Londonderry but one cannot avoid the unionist/loyalist associations of the two names. In local usage, even among Protestants, “Derry” is favoured. 11 The DATAR (Délégation à l’Aménagement du Territoire et à l’Action Régionale) was founded in 1963 to coordinate regional planning with national economic policy. 12 According to the AdCF (Assemblée des Communautés de France 2008), 10,000 French municipalities have fewer than 200 inhabitants, and 32,000 have fewer than 2,000. 13 This included 92 per cent of the municipalities and 54.6 million inhabitants (Assemblée des Communautés de France 2008:2). 14 The official name of this plan was the Schéma Départemental de Développement Culturel.

3

The Friche la Belle de Mai REDEFINING STATE CULTURAL POLICY IN “EURO-MEDITERRANEAN” MARSEILLE

The Friche la Belle de Mai is a sprawling set of hangar-like buildings that used to be a tobacco factory. In 1992, the old factory became an arts centre that now boasts 60 structures filled with more than 400 people, including artists, administrators, technicians, and staff. Located behind Marseille’s Saint Charles train station, the Friche1 contains over 5,000 square meters of gallery and theatre space where nearly 1,000 artists stage more than 500 events a year. As I waited for the bus to take me there in the summer of 2006, an older woman explained to me why it was late. “It’s because of Euroméditerranée,” she said, referring to the extensive urban renovation project responsible for cranes and jackhammers seemingly everywhere. “Ah, the Friche,” she said brightly when I told her where I was going. “A nice place, I hear.” A nice place! I thought at the time. I had been reading about it for months. Didn’t she know about all the events and the 105,000 visitors a year the Friche claims? To be polite, it seemed, she added, “I hear they have a theatre there.” And then, less certain: “Don’t they?” This conversation was my first hint of concerns later expressed to me by Friche artists and administrators. Many felt that the Friche had few links to the area surrounding it and had remained something of an island in the midst of a working-class neighbourhood in transition. This view surprised me because of the founding principle of the Friche, stated in publicity materials: “the artist, the city, his (or her) city.” The text goes on to state that this principle “can only be realized if one examines the relationship between the artist and economic growth” (Lextrait 2001). In 2007, that relationship changed dramatically for the Friche. As with many civic-minded arts groups in France, such as the TRAC , a 62

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public voluntary association had been responsible for its administration since its founding in 1992. In 2007, this association was changed into a “Cooperative Company of Collective Interest (Société Coopérative d’Intérêt Collectif)” or SCIC . The SCIC is a new type of private but non-profit, general interest cooperative company. Created in 2001, the SCIC combines the structure of a business with certain aspects of cooperatives (such as impartible reserves) and the goal of the general interest in that the SCIC must be focused on its local socio-economic environment. At the Friche, it is hoped that the change to SCIC status will allow greater control of the group’s artistic projects and a more flexible administration enabling, as the association’s newsletter states, “the creation of new forms of plural partnership and governance of the site” (Kahn 2006a:22). This move toward new forms of governance is linked to broader change for arts initiatives in France, as globalization and Europeanization transform the relationship between local cultural producers, national culture, and the state. State cultural policies pursuing democratization and decentralization have sought to extend access to the arts by transcending the barriers of territory and social class in France. Cultural policy has also been a key vector of French “republican universalism”: the idea that the preservation of the Republic depends not on its being composed of distinct communities and diverse cultural identities but on individual citizens being equal under law and linked directly to the state without intermediary representation. Through financial support for artists, the state has sought to protect a universalist, disinterested realm of culture, free from locally parochial concerns and narrowly “particularist” limitations. In some ways, SCIC status represents the privatization of a public enterprise and thus reflects the broader trend throughout Europe since the 1990s in which state cultural policy has been marked by challenges to the public mandate for the arts (McGuigan 2004). SCIC status at the Friche means that it will take responsibility for managing its own reconciliation of artistic freedom with the local economy. A long tradition of rebellion to centralized authority, stark poverty, and an extraordinarily diverse population have long posed challenges to French republican ideals in Marseille. In recent years, the city has also been the site of intense real-estate development. This includes the European Union urban renovation program in Marseille entitled “Euroméditerranée,” part of which is centred in the Belle de Mai neighbourhood where the Friche is located. At the same time, the Provence–Alpes–Côtes d’Azur region has gained considerable power for the administration of culture through policies of

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administrative decentralization. The context for cultural policy in this region has also been greatly affected by the Euro-Mediterranean aspirations of local government officials, be it at the level of the municipality, department, or region. As with the TRAC , the experience of the Friche shows local cultural producers both challenging and re-articulating state-centred French cultural policy. In redefining their public mission, Friche artists draw on the same universalist ideals that have motivated state cultural policy in France generally since World War II. But, consonant with the ideology of an arts movement called “new territories of art,” they also stretch and adapt these to fit the distinctively cosmopolitan identity of Marseille. Drawing on recent studies addressing the changing nature of the state and state cultural policy in an era of globalization, this chapter asks whether recent developments at the Friche demonstrate a fundamental change in the way state cultural policy mediates the relationship between these artists and their local environment. To what extent do the initiatives of the Friche, as a new territory of art, represent a recasting of the public mission for the arts in a new Euro-Mediterranean context?

State cultural policy and the governance of culture in an era of globalization Recent scholarship addressing the evolution of state power in a globalizing political economy has highlighted two important changes. First, authority in certain areas of the economy has devolved from the state to the private sector. Thus, for example, David Nugent emphasizes the importance of economic changes since the 1970s in discussing scholars such as Rose and Miller (1992) and Trouillot (2001), who “have begun to trace the processes by which governmental forces are becoming increasingly disentangled from state structures” (Nugent 2007:214). These processes include the privatization of formerly state-run sectors as well as the introduction of an enterprise model of operation for services such as schools, post offices, and public transportation. The second change involves the growing importance of new transnational modes of governance. Scholars have addressed the influence of transnational agencies such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, NGO s, and international voluntary and activist organizations. James Ferguson and Akhil Gupta (2002), for example, argue that the outsourcing of functions of the state to such agencies is an important part of “an emerging system of transnational

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governmentality” (990). Others have addressed changes in European Union governance. Cris Shore (2006) argues that the evolution of European cultural policy since 1992 (when the Maastricht Treaty recognized a distinct administrative domain for culture in the European Union) has been defined primarily by the desire to exert greater EU influence on the daily life of citizens through the “governmentalisation” of culture.2 These changes do not mean that the state has less significance or that a specifically national field for culture has been superseded (Cash 2007; Trouillot 200). Rather, recent scholarship posits new modes of governance emerging parallel to the state. Jessica Winegar (2006), for example, has argued that, in Egypt, new fields of “cultural sovereignty” are taking shape within and between state-centred fields of cultural policy and international art markets. These studies raise important questions about the role of the state in a new transnational era. If the state has no less significance, how is its role changing in relation to these new forms of governance? Here I am most interested in the relationship between local cultural producers and state cultural policy. To what extent are emergent transnational political and economic formations changing the civic dimension of the Friche arts project? The French state’s role in cultural policy since the beginning of the Fifth Republic (1958–) has both expanded and changed with regard to local governance. Because of decentralization and the growing importance of cultural policy at the level of the region, department, and municipality, the role of the state has become less directive and selective and more collaborative. Although there have been strong criticisms of the central state’s failure to achieve the goals promoted in policies of decentralization and democratization at the national level, local authorities have had their own reasons for supporting cultural policy. As certain responsibilities have shifted from the central state to local authorities, cities have played an especially important role in new patterns of governance. In this chapter, I describe how the public arts project of the Friche has been greatly shaped by the singular urban context of Marseille.

Marseille: A contradictory cosmopolitanism With a population of 826,700, Marseille is France’s second largest city. And more than any other French city, it has an extraordinarily heterogeneous population, including people of Armenian, Comorian, Spanish, Italian, and North African (especially Algerian) origin. As the main port for France’s relations with its colonies, Marseille has long been a key

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entry point for immigrants and for ongoing relations with their countries of origin. Today, the descendants of sharply opposed groups coexist in Marseille: Armenians and Kurds, Algerian Sephardic Jews and Muslim North Africans. “A contradictory and complicated city” is the conclusion of Émile Temime. Reluctant to use the term himself, Temime nonetheless states that it is one of the rare cities in the Mediterranean region where “one can still speak of cosmopolitanism” (Temime 2005:11). When riots broke out in the peripheral neighbourhoods of major French cities in November of 2005, Marseille was curiously quiet. In the national media and among many residents of Marseille, the reason given was often Marseille’s exceptional status as a place of multicultural tolerance, a status sometimes attributed to geography.3 Surrounded by mountains, the city is cut off from inland France and lacks a peripheral belt of banlieues (neighbourhoods with high levels of poverty, unemployment, and young people). Marseille is said to be a model of relative harmony among groups of different ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds, a model unique in France.4 Over and above their diverse origins, residents are said to share an attachment to a singular Marseillais identity, even in the poorest neighbourhoods (Moreau 2001).5 There is some truth to all these claims. But there is much that this narrative leaves out. Marseille has been the site of racially motivated murders, and the xenophobic National Front routinely receives a relatively high percentage of the vote.6 Émile Temime (2005) describes a long tradition of distrust of foreigners.7 Rather than a melting pot, Marseille is a place where communities do coexist, but often warily and at a distance. Compared to other French cities, Marseille is a place of striking poverty. Though the city has no circular periphery of banlieues, it does have a clear and dramatic division between the northern neighbourhoods (with exceptionally high levels of young people and unemployment) and the wealthier south. The city has the largest ZUS (Zone Urbaine Sensible, a high priority for urban policy targeting social inequalities) and the highest number of residents living in these zones of all French cities.8 In 1999, unemployment was at 40 per cent in these zones, worse for young people (50 per cent), but it was at 20 per cent for Marseille as a whole. A report in 2005 noted that three of the five poorest ZUS areas in France (in terms of residents’ level of income) were in Marseille (Ballaguy 2007:128). Unemployment in Marseille has decreased dramatically in recent years (from 20 to 15 per cent between 1995 and 2003). But in spite of this overall change, unemployment continues to be highly concentrated in certain neighbourhoods, and the city remains, as Philippe Langevin has put it, “the champion of inequalities” (Langevin 2007:28). Instead of short-term

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jobs, he argues, what is needed is more training and follow-through in order to make sure that the benefits of growth do not go only to those outside the city or those in the wealthiest parts of it. An important part of the recent growth he refers to is the intensive urban renovation that began in the 1990s and continues today, a process that included the creation of the Friche la Belle de Mai.

Friche autonomy and municipal cultural policy in Marseille Marseille has never been an important political capital and, in contrast to Paris, few rulers have celebrated their glory through public monuments there. Rather, it has, through much of its history, been an important port for trade and economic exchange: emporium and not imperium, in the words of social geographer Marcel Roncayolo (1996). It therefore seems fitting that, in postindustrial Marseille, former factories should become a key component of municipal arts initiatives. The Friche la Belle de Mai owes its beginnings to a broad arts renaissance in Marseille that began with the election of the independent (former Socialist Party) candidate Robert-Paul Vigoureux in 1989. Key to this revitalization was the transformation of rundown and abandoned properties into dynamic sites for arts creation and for public arts-centred festivals. These include events such as the music festival called the Fiesta des Suds, which now draws more than 50,000 people each year and which has been held in an abandoned hangar near the port (the Docks des Suds). The occupation of abandoned buildings by artists has been enthusiastically endorsed by the municipality as a means of infusing life into neglected parts of the city. Michel Peraldi and Michel Samson state that, “in Marseille, friches are now one of the essential components of cultural policies” (Peraldi and Samson 2005:209). Peraldi and Samson see the explosion of the Marseille arts scene in the 1990s as one component of a vast “re-enchantment” of the city nationally spurred by the introduction of a new high-speed train line (TGV ) between Paris and Marseille and the real estate speculation that came with it. The first part of this re-enchantment involved the promotion of a new image of Marseille through extensive press, magazine, and television coverage. The second part, they state, “consisted of the celebration of a cultural inventiveness consonant with the expectations of the Parisian creative class” (Peraldi and Samson 2005:118). The Belle de Mai factory owned by SEITA (Société Nationale d’Exploitation Industrielle des Tabacs et Allumettes) closed in 1989. In 1992, Philippe Foulquié, a theatre director from Lyon, became the

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director responsible for the new Friche arts centre. He opened the site to experimental and other arts groups. While Foulquié has been primarily an administrator at the Friche, this term does not capture the breadth of his influence there. An accomplished artist himself, Foulquié developed a strong voice as a visionary thinker about the place of the arts in society, and he situated the role of the Friche in Marseille within this broader vision. Since 1992, he has negotiated skilfully to define a place for the Friche in the city’s urban planning projects, arguing for the economic value of the arts for the city of Marseille: “and if culture were the economic alternative this city and this neighbourhood needed?” (Foulquié, quoted in Lextrait 2001:4). Peraldi and Samson note that the many empty industrial spaces had other attractive suitors whom political leaders found embarrassing. In 1989, for example, a huge flea market opened in the abandoned Alsthom factory in the 15th arrondissement, attracting tens of thousands of visitors each weekend for a kind of “poor people’s market.” Neighbourhood committees mobilized, and the market sparked debate across all shades of the political spectrum. Installing cultural projects in abandoned buildings was a cheap and efficient way of keeping these spaces free for future development in ways more palatable to those Marseillais disenchanted with the increasing importance of North African trade in the local economy.9 According to Peraldi and Samson (2005:223), another attraction of the arts festivals for Marseillais politicians is the opportunity to present themselves as benefactors of the arts to their local constituencies: these festivals are moments of collective happiness perfectly suited to the needs of politicians, who are trying to associate, in the minds of their constituents, their own identities with that of the neighbourhood. The Friche draws on municipal support (for example, the property belongs to the city), but Foulquié has also worked to protect his autonomy. In 1995, the Friche was designated the “major cultural axis of development (pole culturel majeur de développement)” of the EuroMediterranean project, the extensive urban renovation plan targeting the port area and extending to the Belle de Mai district. Euromed receives half of its funding from the state, 25 per cent from the municipality, and the rest from the department, region, and the ensemble of municipalities (Marseille-Provence-Métropole) to which Marseille belongs. Euromed is the primary medium through which European Union funds are distributed to the municipality of Marseille. The Friche has thus benefited from and contributed to a national economic revalorization of Marseille and has been integrated within the major EU project of urban development in Marseille. Being aligned with Euromed provides the Friche with

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The original Euromed zone and location of the Friche within Marseille.

a counterweight to municipal politics other than the state Ministry of Culture, while simultaneously defining an important cultural policy role for itself with regard to the municipality’s European and Mediterranean aspirations.

Friche perspectives on state cultural policy: Monarchism versus “new territories of art” When I first visited the Friche in the summer of 2006, I wanted to understand how it defined and enacted the public mission of its arts project. In Friche publicity materials, Philippe Foulquié emphasized the arts centre’s power to protect and encourage freedom of expression but seemed to reject the idea that the Friche was an exemplary cultural policy initiative.

70 rites of the republic The Friche is not a model, nor an alternative; it is perhaps only, in the end, one of the multiple forms of this extraordinary capacity of men to counter (déjouer) the systems that prevent them from speaking. (Philippe Foulquié, quoted in Friche la Belle de Mai n.d.)

What surprised me, in interviews with Foulquié, was that state cultural policy often seemed to be included as one of these systems that prevent people from speaking. Foulquié criticized the Ministry of Culture for its bureaucratization, cronyism, inequities, and a general institutional sterility. He spoke most strongly against the “monarchist” cultural policy of presidents Mitterrand and Chirac. He was not against the “great works” of these presidents, such as I.M. Pei’s pyramid at the Louvre or, more recently, Chirac’s Quai Branly Museum. What he objected to was the use to which such art is put—the celebration of “the king” (in this case, Mitterrand or Chirac) in the same manner as Versailles celebrated Louis XIV. He also criticized the system in which a few prestigious projects are singled out for resources and cultural legitimation. Locally, this favouritism is reflected in the overwhelming share of state money that goes to Marseille’s La Criée, a national theatre (scène nationale). Foulquié proposes focusing on more modest initiatives (such as the Friche, of course) under the rubric “new territories of art.” It is not just funding priorities that concern Foulquié—it is the relationship between the artist-citizen and the state that has evolved from

Image Not Available

Philippe Foulquié, 2009. Photo by Françis Blaise, reproduced with permission.

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an increasingly bureaucratic system. Here Foulquié echoes the views of sociologist Vincent Dubois (1999), who has argued that a deliberate vagueness in the key concepts of cultural policy has masked the state’s increasingly important role in shaping discourse on the arts in France since the 1960s.10 Dubois also argues that, although the state’s policies of decentralization have failed to alter significantly the class-based nature of arts appreciation in France, they have succeeded in shaping subjects of democratization. He is referring not to the populations targeted by these policies (distant rural citizens or residents of the urban banlieues, for example) but to the cultural policy actors and administrators who have fashioned themselves as democratic subjects in ways that follow the contours of a cultural logic proper to this field of administrative discourse. Doing so, they enact the civic agenda called for in state cultural policy, and act as advocates for the value of, and need for, its institutions.11 Foulquié noted, “I fight for a system that would be a little more ‘civil society’ and a little less ‘para-public society.’” When I asked him what he meant by “para-publique,” he said, “A society where everyone is a civil servant (fonctionnaire).” In his view, state cultural policy has been “more about consecration than the true work of creation.” He preferred the new territories projects, where “the state is secondary. Its importance is reduced.” Similarly, François Cervantès, director of the theatre troupe L’Entreprise, stated that he had turned down an offer to become director at one of the national theatres because of the incestuous relations among directors (“people who just keep each other happy”). He described it as “I’ll buy your production and you buy mine.” At times, mayors or local critics have opposed state-supported artists in their communities, and one of the missions of the Ministry of Culture has been to protect the universalist work of such artists from the “particularist” critiques of local publics. In 1993, I asked one administrator if she was worried about low attendance at performances supported by her ministry. “On the contrary,” she replied. “It means we are doing our jobs.” She meant that they were supporting worthy artists who would not be able to pursue their work otherwise—that is, if they were dependent on selling their wares to a public incapable of recognizing and appreciating their artistic merit. It is this desire to protect culture as a special field that has led the French government to lobby successfully for a cultural exception for the arts, both in the GATT trade agreement of 1994 and later in the European Union. This field is held to be both apart from the economy and, because of that, paradoxically capable of acting as an ameliorative force upon it—the “mitigating and rallying alternative” of Raymond Williams.12 Singularly important in the French

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case is the crucial importance of the state in defining, institutionalizing, and administering this field of culture. It is just this role—or at least the way it has been played in the recent past—that has been challenged by “new territories” artists. The implications of this change extend far beyond funding priorities and directly affect the spatial dimension of civic engagement for artists in France. Beyond providing financial assistance, state cultural policy has structured the sphere of interpretation for arts practice by providing a civic frame, a broader political context defining the public value of art. Through key terms and discourses, such policy has provided an interpretive lens structuring the ways civic-minded artists frame their work in local environments. Performances in isolated rural towns are not simply art or entertainment but “cultural animation” or “cultural action.” Policies of decentralization have been defined with reference to a national territory, and they frame the local work of artists as interventions into national society in line with broad policy objectives directed by the state. The recent challenges to state cultural policy threaten the coherence of this discourse and suggest a broader shift in the desired role for the state in French society. Some artists on the left have criticized the new territories artists for not according an important enough role to the state. A 2002 editorial about these arts projects in the leftist daily newspaper l’Humanité warned against concessions to “the advance of a globalizing economic liberalism that consumes and digests everything.” The author (Nicolas Romeas, editor of the journal Cassandre) refers to the “Pavlov complex,” which forbids any specific political control or will under the pretext that the artist must be allowed his “liberty”. . . . This complex, which leads to impotence, eliminates from the outset any idea of control by the state. And thus it encourages the imminent takeover by the private market of the greater part of artistic and cultural circuits. We go from one extreme to the other with as much excessiveness as the conversion to a liberal economy in certain countries of the former Eastern bloc. We throw out the baby with the bathwater; whereas it is imperative that we escape this ambiguity which becomes very dangerous. (Romeas 2002)

In stark contrast, Friche critiques portrayed the state as a dangerous actor, tempting and co-opting theatre artists engaged in the real work of creation. When Foulquié speaks of the capacity of people to “counter the systems that prevent them from speaking,” he refers as much to the state

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as to the global economy. But he doesn’t reject either one. Rather, he calls for playing within these systems and turning them to one’s own ends. In Friche critiques, the state’s value in protecting artists from the vagaries of commerce and the incomprehension of locals is hardly mentioned. This may be because cultural entrepreneurs such as Foulquié have found such a fertile ground in Marseille for projects combining urban renewal and arts creation. But in distancing themselves from state cultural policy while presenting themselves as more capable of realizing the republican ideals of state policy in the past, Friche administrators have become more vulnerable to criticisms about the local impact of their public project.

Belle de Mai and “the problem of the neighbourhood” Situated to the northwest of the Saint Charles train station, the Belle de Mai contains many of the complex and contradictory factors characteristic of Marseille more generally. Roughly one eighth of the neighbourhood (in its northwestern corner) is part of a ZUS . On the opposite, southeastern side of the neighbourhood, an area about twice as big that runs parallel to the train tracks is included within the Euro-Mediterranean urban renovation plan. The Friche arts centre was established in a neighbourhood with a rich and singular history, in a building that was key to the identity of this neighbourhood in the past (Bonnadier 1997). Waves of Italian immigrants came to the neighbourhood in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The women working at the tobacco-processing factory on Guibal Street (opened in 1868) were key to shaping the area’s unionist and socialist identity. In March 1871, the contingent from the Belle de Mai assumed leadership of the Commune of Marseille, the most important after Paris. The reputation of the neighbourhood was apparently so strong that Jules Guesde, a key political figure in the fight for workers’ rights in the late nineteenth century, called it the “Boulevard of the Revolution.” In 1926, a neighbourhood street was given this name. Other street and square names commemorate socialist and communist leaders from the Belle de Mai such as Clovis Hugues, Jean Cristofol, and Bernard Cadenat.13 Describing the neighbourhood in the 1980s in the first book of his detective trilogy (in which the city of Marseille plays a central role), Jean-Claude Izzo called Belle de Mai “historically, the oldest popular neighbourhood of Marseille. A red, worker’s neighbourhood”: The neighbourhood gave birth to hardcore unionists, communist activists by the thousands. And a few fine criminals as well.

74 rites of the republic Francis-le-Belge was a child of the neighbourhood.14 Today, people voted almost in equal numbers for the Communists and the National Front. (Izzo 1995:176)

Recent voting figures confirm that support for the Communist Party has dramatically declined since the 1980s and support for the National Front has grown (see chapter endnote 6). The neighbourhood underwent serious changes that reflected the broader postindustrial changes in Marseille as a whole. In 1990, the last of the many factories that had provided so many jobs to the neighbourhood finally closed and the community lost much of its former life. Many shops closed, as did the neighbourhood nursery school. The main change to the neighbourhood in the 1990s involved the conversion of the old SEITA factory buildings to house three complexes (called îlots, i.e., small islands): a heritage centre with storage facilities for Marseille’s museums and archives, a media centre (where one can often see a crowd outside waiting to see the actors of the television series Plus Belle la Vie, which is filmed there), and a venue for cultural and artistic events (the Friche). In view of these changes, it should be noted that the old neighbourhood never entirely died. The market at the Place Cadenat, held three times a week, shows the ongoing life of the community’s sociability. Many residents maintain a lively commitment to the neighbourhood through organizations such as the community association relaying local concerns to the mayor’s office (the CIQ or Comité d’Intérêts de Quartier) and Babel de Mai, an innovative neighbourhood journal. Dynamic local arts projects that are unattached to the Friche include Les Bancs Publics: Lieu d’Expérimentations Culturelles and the Théâtre Gyptis. In the last few years, the changing goals of the Friche and its new status as an SCIC have led to hopes that the arts centre will be less “an island” than in the past. A 2008 article in Babel de Mai is worth quoting at length. Drawing on an interview with Friche representative Alexandra Ivantchenko and on written statements of the SCIC president (architect Patrick Bouchain), Blandine Cordellier describes the relations between the neighbourhood and the Friche: In Marseille, in general, when one speaks of Belle de Mai, people think immediately of the Friche. In the Belle de Mai neighbourhood, in general, the residents feel that the Friche is not really part of their neighbourhood. This sentiment does not come out of nowhere: at the beginning, the development of the Friche Belle de Mai was not really conceived in relation to the neighbourhood and its history. However, a

The Friche la Belle de Mai 75 change seems to be taking place. Soon, maybe, several projects will be realized—a sports track, a day-care centre, an urban gardening project (Jardiner la Friche) and a self-help housing construction project (the Grand Ensemble)15—largely open to residents of the neighbourhood, beyond the cultural activities usually presented. (Cordellier 2008:10)

Regarding the integration of the Friche within the neighbourhood, Blandine Cordellier underlines both the reasons for hope and pessimism. She uses a hesitant tone: a change seems to be taking place. It is important to note here that it is the new SCIC status that has motivated both the hopefulness expressed in this article and the criticism about the distance between the neighbourhood and the arts centre. In none of the earlier Babel de Mai articles (published since 2003) does one find such criticisms. It appears that while SCIC status has brought the Friche new freedoms, it has also invited greater scrutiny of the local dimension of this project. Other analysts of urban renovation in Marseille have argued that cultural initiatives such as the Friche are less a solution to economic problems than part of the problem. Describing the aggressive gentrification of the Marseille-République project close to the Vieux Port, journalist François Ruffin argues that the arts are often complicit in the displacement of working-class residents from their traditional neighbourhoods: Culture plays its role of alibi, and the consensus reigning around culture, around its industry, its cosmopolitanism, its sanctuaries (who would take the risk of opposing the installation of a new theatre or library, even though the new Paris opera house and the Vieille Charité museum actually acted as spearheads for the real estate “re-conquest” of these neighbourhoods?) masks the social forces at work. . . . Cultural actors, “the world of architects, photographers, cinema, and theatre” benefit concretely from these “renovations.” They are the first to profit from the proximity to service industries, high-speed rail stations, and other facilities of renovated areas. The involvement of those who work in the performing arts helps to explain the weakness of their opposition to this urban transformation. (Ruffin 2007)

Such criticisms hardly seem to apply to the Friche, given that the Belle de Mai has not been the site of the aggressive speculation and evacuation of residents described by Ruffin in the Marseille-République project. But they do focus blame on artists (as opposed to state or municipal authorities, for example) in new ways that highlight the difficult reconciliation of

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civic goals with culture’s role in making neighbourhoods more attractive to investors. Here, local cultural producers are negotiating a public role for culture while trying to maintain their autonomy. This has involved playing off certain actors, such as the state and the municipality. In addition, the local constituency they claim has questioned them more about the local impact of their work.

Defining the local in civic terms: Fighting “le repli communautaire” in Belle de Mai The first of three fundamental objectives of the administrative committee of the Friche (Système Friche Théâtre) regarding urban development is “to valorize and reinforce the bonds with the local territory, particularly with respect to the surrounding neighbourhood.”16 In 2006, I asked François Cervantès about this. I had walked the wide expanse of the Friche, and it didn’t seem that there were many outsiders or, after I had talked with administrators, many links with the local community. No. My experience is, there are not a lot of links. The neighbourhood is changing very fast, and there are people who are very, very poor. The Friche is changing very, very fast. There are links but not a lot. But it is barely the beginning for the Friche. We have fought for fifteen years just to exist. The opening out to the neighbourhood is something that will happen as there are more things for people to see, more reasons for them to stay.

We sat at a table in the midst of construction for the restaurant that has since opened, and I strained to hear him over the noise of the hammers and drills. The restaurant is one of the innovations made possible by SCIC status at the Friche. For Cervantès, the restaurant and other proposed businesses at the Friche (such as a bookstore) will help draw people in. Cervantès envisioned a future with the Friche as a social crossroads within the Belle de Mai, with local residents stopping by for all kinds of performances such as marionettes, theatre, dance, and music, as well as for books and meals and art. The Friche has pursued projects reaching out to the neighbourhood, including the theatre production Cervantès created in a Belle de Mai middle school with the students. Based in part on his own experiences attending classes at the school, this production was a compromise with city officials who approached him and wanted him to teach the students

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François Cervantès in the restaurant of La Friche, 2008. Photo by the author.

how to act. Instead of a more pedagogical environment centred on acting exercises, Cervantès wanted to create a theatrical production with the students. In his view, this project was not just about the transmission of skills; it was also about providing a voice to students through the language of art. But he did not consider this voice to be serving the expression of a pre-existent cultural identity. Rather, the process of artistic creation was a medium for dialogue and exchange. In a 2006 interview, Cervantès emphasized the value of art in going beyond cultural identity by helping individuals transcend tradition and heritage: “Certainly, culture provides reference points that we need but the important thing remains the present moment, meetings, exchanges. . . .” (Cervantès 2006). For Cervantès, in a Marseille composed of people of broadly different national, ethnic, and religious heritages, the important thing is to avoid a retreat into a closed and narrow identity (a “crispation identitaire”) at the expense of collective solidarity—the kind of solidarity promoted within the French republican tradition. It is in part through cultural policy that the centralized state has promoted and protected this republican model of citizenship. For artists such as Cervantès, the theatre remains a dynamic medium for these values. But while he and other Friche artists remain faithful to these republican ideals, they criticize the state’s role in ensuring the universalist qualities of culture.

“New territories of art” as regional cultural policy initiative At the same time, new territories of art ( NTA ) projects have been embraced by regional administrators as a new initiative sensitive to local

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interests just as regions are gaining power for the administration of culture through decentralization. The NTA s are a loose coalition of artists and administrators promoting a new conception of the public value of the arts. They share a desire to have a strong impact on their local environments and to protect their autonomy with regard to the state and globalizing economic change. Many are based in non-traditional noninstitutional settings, such as abandoned warehouses in postindustrial cities. In 2000, the secretary of state responsible for heritage and decentralization authorized a study of these new initiatives, which led to a conference hosted by the Friche in 2002. The most important theme emerging from the collection of essays published after this conference is the importance of establishing closer interaction between artists and the people living in their communities. As one administrator put it, “These new sites permit the co-production of expression between artists and inhabitants” (Kahn and Lextrait 2005:23). Renaud Muselier, deputy mayor of Marseille, described the Friche as a symbol of a new era of cultural policy in which “works are no longer disseminated in temples of culture but created in sites where artists can establish a different bond with the public” (Kahn and Lextrait 2005:24). Another key theme is maintaining artists’ autonomy from the state. The criticisms of state cultural policy evident at the national level are also evident at the local level, even by administrators who are presumably responsible for defining state policy. “I reject the official, statist vision of culture,” said Michel Collardelle in a 2007 interview. Collardelle is president of the new statefunded Museum of the Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean (MUCEM ). Administrators express the fear of “institutionalizing” the “new territories of art.” Christian Martin, former cultural attaché for the Provence–Alpes–Côtes d’Azur region (1998–04), states that “these projects emanate from the population, emerge from local actors.” They exhibit a kind of “spontaneous affinity with spaces that are charged with daily life, and vectors of memory, of popular lived experience” (Kahn and Lextrait 2005:26–7). There is some continuity here with earlier civically minded theatre projects celebrating the popular, such as Jean Vilar’s National Popular Theatre of the 1950s and 60s. But here the local authorities do not propose a single unifying frame within which these projects are defined as meaningful at the national level. They do, however, emphasize their territorial constituency. Martin, for example, notes the growing importance of the region in French cultural policy following the processes of state administrative decentralization undertaken since 1982:

The Friche la Belle de Mai 79 In terms of cultural decentralization, a sort of quiet revolution is taking place, in which regions have an important role to play. The friches are absolutely important points of support. . . . They are tools for inventing a new kind of cultural policy. (Quoted in Kahn and Lextrait 2005:27)

With this exceptional reference to decentralization, the administrators rarely referred to national society, but there were frequent references to Europe and the Mediterranean. These projects seem particularly valuable as examples of Europeanization and internationalization at the grass-roots level. Former Minister of Urban Affairs Claude Bartolone (1998–02) states, “This meeting at the very heart of a cultural friche allowed us to situate our debates at a European and international scale in a North-South dialogue that we must strengthen” (quoted in Kahn and Lextrait 2005:23). Christian Martin makes a similar point while emphasizing his administrative area, the region: I would like to insist on the major role that these friches are being called on to play in the construction of a regional space. A regional space that we would like to remain strong in its traditions, its values, and its solidarities, but also, . . . especially, open to the cultures of the world, with obviously, as it concerns the PACA region, a special attraction to the countries of the Euro-Mediterranean space, on both sides of the Mediterranean. (Quoted in Kahn and Lextrait 2005:26–7)

Here, the new territories arts projects are aligned with Marseille’s aspirations to a major role in new political and economic partnerships. These goals have taken on new importance following the 2008 creation of the Union for the Mediterranean, which joined the European Union and twelve Mediterranean countries.17 There are important differences between the Euro-Mediterranean initiatives discussed here. The Union for the Mediterranean is the product of the Barcelona Process (begun in 1995) and the recent efforts of French president Nicolas Sarkozy. The future direction and importance of this union (and hence, its impact on the Friche) are unclear at present. In contrast, the Euro-Mediterranean urban renovation project was central to Friche autonomy with regard to the municipality and continues to be crucial to the Friche. Equally important is the designation of Marseille as European Capital of Culture in the year 2013. The city’s Mediterranean identity was central in its campaign to win the EU designation. The

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Information centre for Marseille-Provence 2013 at the Friche, 2008. Photo by the author.

headquarters for the ECOC campaign were on Friche grounds and the Friche was named a key cultural intermediary for the project. What these initiatives share is their contribution to an increasingly significant EuroMediterranean frame for culture in Marseille. In addition to providing a potentially important source of funding outside the usual municipal, regional, and state sources, this frame has provided support for the interpretation of the universalist ideals of the Republic in ways that reflect the distinctively “Mediterranean” qualities of Marseille.

Friche international exchanges: Republican universalism in a new context In 2006, Jean-Louis Fabiani addressed the cultural singularity of the city of Marseille and described the future Museum of the Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean.18 For Fabiani, the creation of this museum in Marseille signals a radical transformation in France. The MUCEM will replace the National Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions, designed to illustrate the various popular and local origins of national culture. The underlying assumption, he noted, was that a singular national frame contained these local forms of expression and provided the dominant context within which they were meaningful. The transnational frame of the new museum indicates the obsolescence of this model and signals a recognition of the importance of Europe and the Mediterranean (especially

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North Africa) in French society. The museum also contributes to defining Marseille as a key site for reflection about France’s colonial legacy and its future relations with other European and Mediterranean countries. The Friche has made a strong contribution to this new role for Marseille. The international exchanges of the Friche include a production centred on the Comoros Islands (les Comores) involving exchanges between artists there and Cervantès’s troupe (there is a large population in Marseille of Comorian descent). Another (entitled “Cities on the Edge”) establishes arts exchanges with other postindustrial European cities including Liverpool, Gdan´sk, and Naples. In an article published in 2007 in the monthly periodical of the Marseille municipality devoted to culture, Philippe Foulquié outlined his plans for the future. He emphasized the creation, in collaboration with the PACA region, of a contemporary Arabic-language theatre in Marseille, to be administered by Ziani Chérif Ayad, former director of the National Theatre of Algiers. The project will be truly transnational in drawing on both the administration of the Friche and the El Gosto Theatre in Algiers. The goal is to create contemporary works in Arabic “between the two shores” with Algerian, French, and other European artists; the works will be presented in both countries and elsewhere. In words calling to mind the Fourth Republic’s constitution, which guaranteed access to culture for all, Foulquié spoke of the importance of providing works in Arabic to Marseille’s Arabic-speaking population: It was like a city of 100,000 without a theatre. . . . It was necessary to have the Arabic language and its dramatists heard by these fellow citizens. A question of dignity, of recognition of one’s own culture, that’s all. To be able to go beyond. . . . (Foulquié 2007:31)

He added, significantly, “It is definitely not a case of a withdrawal into a community (repli communautaire)” (Foulquié 2007:31). Like Cervantès, Foulquié is a voice of republican universalism but interpreted so as to include linguistic pluralism, something that has often been viewed as a threat to these ideals in the past. In many ways, the theorists of “new territories of art” are proposing not so much a new approach to the arts as the adaptation of old ideals of French cultural policy to new social, political, and economic conditions. Fred Kahn (co-editor of the postconference new territories book) noted in 2006 that these projects call for more imagination in envisioning the political project of the municipality and the role of civil society in the co-construction of the polis. But his conclusion underlines the continuities with the past: the fundamental

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goals of the “new territories of art” are to “reactivate the ideas of decentralization and of participative democracy” (Kahn 2006b). As is evident in the words describing the Arabic-language theatre, these ideals are being interpreted in ways that valorize cultural pluralism, transnational exchanges, and a singular local urban environment. In this regard, the Friche and other new territories projects seem especially interesting as laboratories in which the ideals of republican universalism are being stretched to fit changing political and economic conditions even as they reproduce a national discourse on culture.

New wine in old bottles? I have described recent changes affecting the civic frame for the Friche arts project and, more generally, for new territories artists in the Provence–Alpes–Côtes d’Azur region. These changes are part of emergent transnational forms of governance that are transforming the political and economic context for culture and cultural policy in Europe. They recast the more explicitly statist cultural model of the past by introducing new imperatives that are especially evident at the Friche in their emphasis on the city. Culture has helped to define places as attractive to potential investors and residents. Increasingly, the Friche has served as cultural intermediary for Euro-Mediterranean and other transnational initiatives such as the Euromed urban renovation plan, the European Capital of Culture program, and the “Cities on the Edge” exchange network. This increasingly transnational environment has provided new sources of funding to artists and a broader frame of reference for civic discourse. It has also placed greater weight on the civic work of local cultural producers. At a time when the French state’s authority in cultural policy has been challenged, these artists are redefining civic republican ideals for a new era of globalization and Europeanization. These ideals have been interpreted in ways more sensitive (than previous state cultural policy) to the distinctive cultural diversity of Marseille. But the Friche has not (yet) created a locally sensitive project with regard to its own neighbourhood. Foulquié has rejected the idea that the Friche should be especially bound to the Belle de Mai, stating that he feels responsible to all Marseille neighbourhoods. This attitude reflects the desire to avoid a narrowly communitarian vision of the arts centre’s mission and to become a site of universalist culture. Here again the relevant broader civic frame is the city rather than national society, Europe, or the Mediterranean. In adapting to the new Euro-Mediterranean political and economic context, the Friche

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has established a broad network of transnational institutional partners in which cities have been central. In the promotional efforts of the EU , the internal diversity and stratification of cities tend to be elided, with “unity in diversity” achieved through international exchanges between cities (rather than within them). But, locally, this stratification is impossible to ignore, and the Friche is being pressed by local residents to realize its civic aims in ways more meaningful to its own neighbourhood. The case of the Friche highlights the paradoxes and ambiguities for artists in France as they seek new bases of legitimacy for civic arts projects in an era of globalization and European integration. Critics have portrayed new territories artists as pawns of a neo-liberal economy because of their anti-state views. It is also possible to view them as tools of governance—subjects who have internalized discourses of the state and serve to disseminate its authority, consonant with the analysis of cultural policy actors by Vincent Dubois (1999). But seeing them only as subjects in either sense misses the dynamic and creative qualities of their work in contributing to new networks of influence. Discussing state policy throughout Europe since the 1990s, Jim McGuigan asserts the importance of “the rise of market reasoning within the public cultural sector during the recent period of neo-liberal hegemony” (McGuigan 2004:35). He notes that a key French term associated with this change, “désétatisation” (referring literally to the process of eliminating state influence) was translated into English as “privatization.” But, he states, this misleading translation hides the fact that many of the new structures created to replace or complement state cultural policy provided opportunities for individual citizens to become more involved. He cites Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, where the art collection and building remained the property of the state and, although employees were no longer classified civil servants, the new independent foundation created to manage the museum was supported by public funds: A more accurate term than “privatization” for naming such a development is “autonomization”. . . . Organizational change at the Rijksmuseum might have brought it closer to civil society: devolving power and enabling better opportunities for public participation in the policy-making arena, rather than delivering it to the free play of market forces in the cultural field. (McGuigan 2004:50)

In many ways, “autonomization” aptly describes the goal of participatory democracy among new territories artists and the rationale underlying the Friche adoption of SCIC status. But these artists have also invited

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new questions about the local dimension of their project. In this case, a responsibility formerly associated with the state (mediating the relationship between culture and the Republic) has been adopted by local cultural producers, who now face new expectations about the public impact of their work. It is likely that the Friche’s role within the city will grow, given its status as a key cultural intermediary for the 2013 European Capital of Culture program. The case of the Friche suggests that the civic dimension of French arts projects continue to be greatly shaped by cultural and other policies of the central state. Many of the goals expressed by new territories artists are variations on the key themes of Fifth Republic state cultural policy, and Friche leaders are motivated by the same ideals of republican universalism so important to state cultural policy in the past. In addition, the growth of local arts initiatives such as the Friche owes much to the evolution of a national economy greatly shaped by the state (through the TGV train extension, for example). The new Euro-Mediterranean emphasis has often sustained rather than diminished state influence. But the civic dimension of these artists’ work is not simply a case of “old wine in new bottles.” In fact, this is probably better described by reversing the cliché—new wine in the “old bottles” of French cultural policy ideals. As they adapt these ideals to the singularly distinctive environment of Marseille, Friche artists are crafting a form of artistic civic engagement that is more sensitive to post-colonial pluralism than centralized state cultural policy has been in the past. At the same time, they are contributing to a nexus of political and economic conditions favouring Euro-Mediterranean exchanges, not simply in Marseille but within a broader national discourse on culture in contemporary France.

Notes 1 The word “friche” means a fallow piece of land and, by extension, an unimproved or neglected urban property. 2 “One of the key consequences of turning the hitherto rather nebulous and undefined domain of European culture into a target of EU intervention is to enlarge the scope of EU governance and control. To put it in more theoretical terms, the invention and expansion of EU -wide policies toward ‘culture’ is in itself a measure of the development of a new type of rationality of government; or what we might call, to adapt a term from Foucault . . . ‘EU governmentality’” (Shore 2006:9). 3 In 2001, prior to becoming the current mayor of the city, Jean-Claude Gaudin noted that Marseille’s being surrounded by mountains led to the public housing being in the heart of the city and “no tension between the populations. The poor and immigrant populations, having arrived at the port, were absorbed by the centre of the city” (Les Echos 2001:50).

The Friche la Belle de Mai 85 4 According to sociologist Jocelyne Cesari, Overall, if one brings together the characteristics of its history, its forms of sociability, its political life, the Marseillais collectivity inscribes immigrants in a relationship more on the order of integration than of assimilation, in the sense that the specificity of the Other is allowed and has a right to expression in the city. . . . The strength of Marseille is in proposing a local setting of integration within a national context relatively assimilationist. (Cesari, Moreau, and SchleyerLindenmann 2001:180)

5 In a 1998 survey, sociologist Alain Moreau asked Marseillais middle-school children (of French and Algerian origin) to what extent they considered themselves to be French, Marseillais, Mediterranean, and European. Young people of both groups considered themselves Marseillais first. Moreau notes that the children of Algerian origin consider themselves much more Marseillais than French and, generally, much less European than the young people of French origin. He concludes: The strong sense of identification with the neighbourhoods of the north of Marseille belongs primarily to those most poor, the most marginalized, and in this regard the young people of Algerian origin are most affected. With regard to this, we can see how important it is for these adolescents to feel Marseillais and so similar to other young people in the city. This major reference point for their social identity can provide them with a positive image of themselves and aid their integration into the Marseillais community. (Moreau 2001:52)

6 In the first round of the 2002 presidential elections, the National Front received 27.7 per cent of the vote in Marseille versus 19.4 per cent nationally (Benit 2004). As Andres (2006) notes, this percentage was much higher (38 to 43 per cent) in certain polling centres in La Belle de Mai. 7 “In this city, where endemic unemployment and the constant travel of people looking for work have brought to the streets a crowd of immigrants without resources, where poverty incites disorder and sometimes violence, one readily associates, drawing on an old tradition, the foreigner (in the broadest sense of the term), the delinquent, and the political agitator” (Temime 2005:11). 8 The eleven ZUS areas in Marseille include as many residents as those in Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Strasbourg combined (Ballaguy 2007:128). 9 In 1985, before his current tenure as mayor of the city, Jean-Claude Gaudin spoke of the Porte d’Aix, a strongly North African neighbourhood (close to the current Boulevard de la République renovation project) where both formal and informal trade takes place: “The neighborhood of Aix is a true Arab neighbourhood. If I have the means to do something at city hall in Marseille one day, I will” (in Le Matin, Nov. 9, 1985, quoted in Ruffin 2007). 10 A central irony presented in the scholarship of Dubois is that today’s state of affairs owes much to the work of actors with “anti-institutional” aims. André Malraux (first Minister of Cultural Affairs in 1959) famously described the arts centre he created (the Maison de la Culture) as a “machine to fight machines.” And Jack Lang, who served as Minister of Culture under François Mitterrand in the 1980s, viewed the disintegration of his own role as the natural end result of his work. Much like the Marxist vision of the eventual withering away of the state, his own vocation as Minister of Culture would disappear, he claimed, after generating a “cultural élan,” because the role would be unneeded and possibly counterproductive (Dubois 1999:302). 11 Dubois echoes recent studies employing the Foucauldian concept of “governmentality” to address the role of cultural policy in the management and control of populations in a neo-liberal era (see Miller and Yùdice 2002, Shore 2006). Like these studies, Dubois’s analysis emphasizes the internalization of self-regulating ideologies and practices. Foulquié is self-consciously defining the project of the Friche against a kind of “governmentality” that he sees present in the administration of culture in France.

86 rites of the republic 12 As noted in the introduction, Williams describes “culture” as an arts-centred response to changes in capitalism and democratic politics. He examines key English writers between 1780 and 1950 who sought to protect a separate and sacred realm in opposition to the alienation and aesthetic degradation brought on by capitalism. They also sought to make this sacred realm operative and influential, in short, to define culture as a “mitigating and rallying alternative” to the harmful social effects of rapid economic change (Williams 1983:xviii). 13 Clovis Hugues (1851–1907) was the first socialist deputy in the French National Assembly. Jean Cristofol (1901–57) was a long-time deputy of the Parti Communiste Français and one of the founders of the Marseillaise newspaper. Bernard Cadenat (1853–1930) was a socialist deputy and mayor of Marseille (see Bonnadier 1997). 14 Francis Vanverberghe, also known as Francis the Belgian (1946–2000), was a major figure in organized crime in Marseille during the “French Connection” years. According to a childhood neighbour, “In the Belle de Mai, there were those who went the wrong way and those who went the right way. We saw it immediately. The Vanverberghes went the wrong way. It’s because of the neighbourhood. The Belle de Mai was the prep school leading directly to the Baumettes prison” (quoted in Cardoza 2000). 15 The Grand Ensemble “aspires to give the opportunity to socially excluded people, victims of a lack of work or housing, to participate actively in the construction of their home on Friche sites (formerly industrial, today cultural)” (Cordellier 2008:10). 16 The other two are to “develop the accessibility of arts content and the projects of social reactivation of the designated audiences” and to “put in place specific activities and projects, sponsored by ‘Système Friche Théâtre’ in partnership with the local institutions and actors, and based on social and economic thematics and urban issues” (Friche la Belle de Mai, http://www.lafriche.org/friche/zdyn1/article.php3?id_article=138). 17 The Union for the Mediterranean (created in 2008) was initially encouraged by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. It grows out of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership formed at a conference held in Barcelona in 1995. The “Barcelona Process” brought together the 27 member states of the European Union and Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. Libya has observer status and Mauritania has traditionally been invited as a special guest. The Union for the Mediterranean aims to work more collaboratively on issues such as counterterrorism, immigration, energy, trade, pollution, water and sustainable development, and peace in the Middle East. 18 Fabiani’s address, entitled “Marseille, a City Beyond Distinction,” was presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San José, November 18, 2006.

4 “Unity in Diversity”

in EU and municipal cultural policy AVIGNON AND MARSEILLE AS EUROPEAN CAPITALS OF CULTURE

Avignon, the medieval city, rich in great accomplishments and moments of glory has henceforth been consecrated European City of Culture. Chosen to be one of nine European Cities of Culture by the Council of European Ministers of Culture, our city will rediscover over 12 months the lustre it once knew when it became, in the 14th century, capital of Christianity. . . . Avignon, city with its high quality of life, displays its charms and adorns itself with its assets to welcome those many people preparing to come make its acquaintance. Marie-Josée Roig, mayor of Avignon and conseiller régional, in the foreword to the program for the Avignon 2000 exposition “Beauty” Marseille, like Europe, was born of the Mediterranean Sea, of the marriage between a princess of the land and a sailor from Asia Minor, born of the land and the sea, of here and elsewhere.1 Founded on an alliance between immigration and the native population, at the crossroads of civilization for twenty-five centuries, this city has never ceased to conjugate welcome with assimilation. . . . Bernard Latarjet, Director of Marseille-Provence 2013 (Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2007:20)

Since its inception in 1985, the European Capital of Culture (ECOC ) program has been perfectly suited to political and economic changes in Europe. These include the transition from an industrial to a servicesdominated economy, generally, and the growing importance of cities as nodes of what have been called “glocalization” strategies, which is to say, the development of direct links between urban centres and the global 87

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economy along with the devolution of certain political responsibilities to local levels of governance. ECOC status has provided European cities with a way of redefining themselves through culture, especially postindustrial cities looking to attract tourists, investors, and potential residents. As with European Union cultural policy in general, the ECOC program has also pursued a civic aim: encouraging the cultural dimension of “ever greater union” between European citizens and especially, since 1992, “unity in diversity.” Discussion of the capitals of culture cases allows us to see the European dimension of the TRAC and Friche projects in a broader context, both regionally and within the local circuit of each group. In this chapter, I examine the local engagement with EU cultural policy in the Provence–Alpes–Côtes d’Azur region by comparing Avignon’s experience as a capital of culture in the year 2000 and Marseille’s preparations to be one in the year 2013. Although the 2000 Avignon experience had little impact on the TRAC , Marseille-Provence 2013 is quite important for the Friche, and especially for those artists who will participate, such as François Cervantès and the theatre company L’Entreprise. But, for all of these arts projects—at the TRAC , the Friche, and with the ECOC , the question of how to define the civic dimension of the arts is central. “Unity in diversity” has been called a “saccharine concept” (Shore 2006), and one might argue that its use in the ECOC is simply an effort to provide broader political legitimacy to the promotion of tourism in selected European cities without devoting sustained attention to the enduring causes of urban socio-economic inequalities. My primary interest in this chapter is in ECOC projects addressing the social alienation of residents of economically depressed areas of each city. After an overview of each city’s program, I describe selected projects that have interpreted the civic goals of the ECOC to mean furthering dialogue and exchange in peripheral neighbourhoods. “Europe,” in these settings, is a tool for reimagining the local social geography and the national context that frames it. Analysis of the ECOC experiences of Avignon and Marseille highlights what is at stake in definitions of the public value of the arts as European.

“Unity in diversity” as a form of cosmopolitanism Within the now extensive anthropological literature on European integration,2 one key object of research has been the theme of “unity in diversity” as promoted by the European Union since the 1990s. It is unclear exactly when this slogan was adopted by the EU, but it has come to characterize a

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distinctly European approach to collective identity that is held to achieve a harmonious integration of cultural pluralism within a single political identity. This theme has a long history, as shown by Michael Herzfeld (1987) who has described “diversity in unity” as an ideology especially important to the emergence of the European nation state and later understandings of European distinctiveness and superiority.3 More recently, it has been discussed as a key concept sustaining cooperation among Europeans of diverse nationalities in administrative and other work settings (Bellier 1999; Zabusky 1995). Critical perspectives have addressed the contradictions and hidden problems in “unity in diversity” as a policy objective of the European Union (Delanty 2003, 2004; Holmes 2000; McDonald 1996). Shore (2006) argues that “Unity in diversity”—like the Latin motto, “in uno plures”—offers EU policy-makers a convenient rhetorical mediation between the incompatible goal of forging a singular European consciousness, identity, and peoplehood on the one hand, and claims to be fostering cultural pluralism on the other. However, the tension between these contradictory impulses is not reconciled by this verbal sleight of hand. (Shore 2006:20–1)

In spite of the tensions that it conveys between singular and pluralist visions of European identity, this concept is being drawn on and acted on not only by EU administrators but also by those who have engaged EU cultural policy in diverse local settings throughout Europe. Like other EU cultural policy initiatives, the European Capital of Culture program has sought to contribute to processes of “Europeanization”4 (Borneman and Fowler 1997) that are transforming long-standing traditions of nationhood and territoriality in contemporary Europe. Two recent studies of the implementation of the European Capital of Culture (ECOC ) event in the year 2000 argue that the project was interpreted and enacted in ways that reflect a new understanding of shared European culture. ECOC events acted as important symbolic media for conceptions of culture that were less “essentialistic” (Sassatelli 2008) and more conducive to “plurality, multiple subjectivities, transformations, and the crossing of borders” (Roseman 2004:75) than previous notions of culture conveyed within national and regional cultural policy. These studies emphasize interaction and exchange as crucial to the European dimension of these ECOC initiatives. Speaking of the ECOC bid by Santiago de Compostela, Sharon Roseman argues that “in contrast to the earlier image of a Europe divided into rigidly bounded states, the notion of culture put forth in

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the Santiago bid also accommodates a political agenda that promotes a fluid and emerging supranational European unity” (Roseman 2004:84). Monica Sassatelli (2008) examines the interpretation and implementation of “unity in diversity” in the context of the entire 2000 ECOC program.5 She sees this approach as fundamentally different from the promotion of a shared cultural background common to the cultural policy of nation states: “In the European cultural space, it is the attitude toward diversity that makes it European, not finding a common cultural content” (Sassatelli 2008:237). But Sassatelli argues that this intent has been transformed as it has been acted upon in ECOC projects. Increasingly, the European dimension is being created by the collaboration of several actors working across national boundaries. While it is not a shared way of life that characterizes this new model of culture, the act of collaboration and social interaction paradoxically creates the conditions for new networks and shared patterns of practice that can be described as singularly “European.” These studies identify dialogue, exchange, and collaboration as important aspects of new transnational identity formations in Europe. My main interest here is in the use of “unity in diversity” with regard to the peripheral neighbourhoods of ECOC cities. To what extent have these projects encouraged dialogue and exchange within such neighbourhoods and across the social boundaries isolating residents from the broader urban community as a whole? Toward that end, I focus here on initiatives that have sought both international links and a fresh look at the existing socio-economic “diversity” in Avignon and Marseille. These initiatives have sought to give a greater voice to populations in economically depressed areas and also to provide greater public recognition of the dialogue, exchange, and collaboration that already exists in such neighbourhoods. In this way, these initiatives pursue a broader, more inclusive understanding of European identity. They also seek to use the “unity in diversity” theme as a way of influencing a national discourse on identity and citizenship, and of introducing new speakers within it. My approach in this regard is similar to Ruth Mandel’s treatment of the use of the term “cosmopolitan” with regard to German Turks (2008). In spite of great progress in recent years in addressing the cultural diversity of residents of Turkish descent (notably through the reform of citizenship laws that formerly reserved nationality to those of German blood), assertions that Germany is now fully “open to the world” are contradicted by the requirement that new citizens renounce their prior nationalities and the expectation that they renounce their language and culture as well. Failure to do both is seen as evidence that German Turks are not sufficiently cosmopolitan. At the same time, the kinds of

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translocal, entrepreneurial, and often bilingual skills demonstrated by Turkish Germans in their daily lives are neglected in a popular image of them as insular and uninterested in “integration.” A more nuanced understanding of the immigrant population might view Turkish Germans less as ghettoized victims than creative players whose skills may be transferred across boundaries—geographic, political, or cultural. (Mandel 2008:312)

In light of this “elite capture of the term cosmopolitanism,” Mandel is concerned with identifying and encouraging the development of a “demotic” cosmopolitanism, which is to say a more democratic understanding of otherness that does not privilege elites.6 This view would involve the recognition of the “self as an other among others” rather than a hierarchically construed cosmopolitanism in which essentialist ideas of national belonging continue to inform understandings of citizenship. The ECOC projects considered here show how the themes of “Europe” and the “Euro-Mediterranean” are being used to introduce new perspectives on identity and belonging in Avignon and Marseille, regarding both the social geography of each city and the broader national context.

Goals of the “European Capital of Culture” The “European City of Culture”7 project was created by the European Community’s Council of Ministers in 1985 through the initiative of Greek Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri. Since it began, the economic investment in the event by the selected cities has grown, in part because of the growing importance of the services sector in the world economy. Describing the background for the European Capital of Culture event, Greg Richards notes, “As the developed world shifts from a productionbased to a consumption-based economy, cities are increasingly realising that they have to attract an increasingly mobile consuming public in order to support the local economy” (Richards 2000:162). As a result, as Timo Heikkinen observes, “during the last two decades, the competitive ethos of selling places has spread all over Europe” (Heikkinen 2000:201). In this context, arts events have become important media for city promotion, and municipal authorities have addressed this goal more explicitly and in more sophisticated ways than in the past. For the ECOC event, the experience of Glasgow in 1990 was an important shift. In contrast to the previously selected cities of culture, Glasgow

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was not already known for its artistic and architectural heritage. A former industrial centre of coal and steel manufacturing, Glasgow was redefined by city planners in 1990 as a place of art and culture, oriented toward the future: dynamic, creative, and attractive. The influence of Glasgow is evident in the statement of the project’s goals by the General Secretary GiannaLia Cogliandro of the Association of the nine European Cities of Culture of the year 2000 (AECC ). He states that the project had two aims. The first was to “highlight the cultural wealth and diversity of the cities of Europe whilst emphasising their shared cultural heritage and the vitality of the arts” (Cogliandro 2001:7). Second, in addition to the educational impact of these cultural exchanges, the project gave the city a marketing opportunity to improve its image on a national and European scale and constituted a sort of regeneration tool for the principal areas around which the main events occurred (Cogliandro 2001:8). The ECOC has been especially valued as a means of drawing on the cachet of the European Union in order to spur urban renovation and local development in an era of growth in the services sector and the tourism industry in particular. As Gold and Gold (2005) note, the ECOC is one of these major international festivals offering golden opportunities to kick-start sluggish economies, knock years off the normal development cycle for infrastructural improvement, reposition a city in the global tourist market, create vibrant cultural quarters, and generally steal a march on rivals. In recent years, some cities of culture have hired image consultants to help them craft their campaigns, but Avignon did not. In contrast to most of the other nine cities,8 Avignon did everything “in-house” through the mayor’s office. A “Mission Avignon 2000” committee was set up within the mayor’s office, and Avignon’s organizers were able to draw directly on the services of municipal offices. In addition, as the European Commission’s final report notes, “Concerning vital axes such as the programming of projects and events, the Mission was placed directly under the Mayor’s authority” (Cogliandro 2001:32). Thus, Avignon’s project planning was integrally related to the city’s overall cultural policy. Its project is a particularly interesting case for examining how the cultural policy of one municipality has engaged a European Union initiative with broader pan-European goals.

An overview of Avignon’s European Capital of Culture Campaign It is not surprising that the Avignon municipality did not hire consultants for the ECOC. On the one hand, the city has long experience with a

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major international event, the Avignon Theatre Festival, which annually brings thousands of visitors to the city in July. The administration of this festival is independent from the municipality, but the latter has seen its benefits and learned from the festival’s status as an important annual site of debate about cultural policy, both state and local (especially, municipal).9 On the other hand, in contrast to Glasgow, for example, Avignon’s municipality was not trying to reinvent its image. Avignon is known primarily for its festival and its Palace of the Popes (Palais des Papes), and both of these have strong appeal to tourists. The challenge for the municipality was to create a project that would integrate its already strong position as a tourist destination with the “European” dimension of the ECOC initiative. The European dimension of the project for the year 2000 combined an emphasis on exchange among the nine cities across Europe with civicoriented goals in line with ongoing EU initiatives to promote a “people’s” or “citizens’ Europe” (see Shore 1993) and more recent calls for bringing cultural policy and disadvantaged Europeans “in from the margins” (Council of Europe 1997). These aims are evident in the stated goals of the Association of the nine European Cities of Culture of the year 2000 (AECC ): The cities will work to make the inhabitants of the cities and the citizens of each country more aware of the culture of other cities. Furthermore, active measures through which the citizens can learn about people and culture of the other cities by themselves without prejudices, will be made possible and gain permanent forms that continue after the cultural Capital year. This cooperation will activate the citizens and support civic democracy. . . . The activities of the cultural cities are aimed at bringing the peoples of Europe closer to each other by means of culture. (Cogliandro 2001:76)

The statement does not explain exactly how “activating the citizens” and “supporting civic democracy” should be pursued in the context of the ECOC project, but, in Avignon, the municipality put great emphasis on the promotion of greater solidarity and inclusiveness among Avignonnais. The theme chosen was “Art and Creativity.” As Avignon used its theatre festival, the ECOC would employ the arts as a means of bringing about greater social unity. With roughly 88,000 inhabitants, Avignon is a relatively small city to host an international festival of such stature. An important ECOC goal was to present Avignon as a place with arts offerings available year round. It also sought to publicize Avignon’s proximity

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to Paris following the opening of its station for the French high-speed train, the TGV . The ECOC projects included three levels of programming: European, national, and local. The European level involved coordinating associations and arts groups from the nine cities. The national level consisted of the “Beauty” exhibit. In part because of Avignon’s designation as a cultural capital, an interministerial mission set up by the French president chose Avignon for this prestigious exhibition, which was based at the Palace of the Popes. “Beauty” included both local and internationally renowned artists. The local level of the program was developed based on proposals from local organizations and arts groups. The Avignon 2000 committee selected 192 projects, and “priority was given to those projects whose aim was regional development, value enhancement and entertainment” (Cogliandro 2001:29). The goal was to promote the culture and heritage of the region. The AECC report notes that “the term culture was by no means restrictive, covering all of the social, artistic and economic practices of our society” (Cogliandro 2001:29). Projects included those in the visual and performing arts and those devoted to cultural heritage. A further important theme was new technologies. The major components of the Avignon ECOC project were as follows: 1. Beauty. An arts exhibition devoted to aesthetic shifts of the twentieth century, which involved installations in sites selected throughout the city. 2. The Yvon Lambert Centre for Contemporary Art. This museum remains an important legacy of the cultural capital year. 3. AVIGNON umérique (Digital Avignon). Exhibitions and structures bringing together digital technology and arts projects designed to encourage dialogue within and beyond Avignon. Included was a cybercafé linking Avignon to the other 2000 ECOC cities. 4. The Avignon Theatre Festival. In 2000, the festival’s programming included special emphasis on artists and playwrights from Eastern Europe. 5. The following arts projects: a. Trans-Dance-Europe: The dance festival Hivernales established exchanges with dancers from the other cities. b. Kide: A Finnish sculpture installation. c. Voices of Europe: A 90-member youth choir comprised of 10 participants from each of the nine cultural cities.

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d. Transplant’Heart: A project pairing environmental sculptors from each of the cultural cities and including project postings on the Internet. e. European Portrait: A photography exhibition on life in the nine cities. f. Restitution of Beauty: An exhibit of visual art. Avignon’s planners built on the lessons of previous ECOC s, especially Glasgow (1990), where numbers of tourists fell after the initial year but rose six years later when a new art museum was opened. As Greg Richards notes, “this underlines one of the weaknesses of such event-led strategies— the need for continual innovation of the product in order to generate repeat visits” (Richards 2000:175). Avignon included a new art museum as part of the 2000 project. The city also sought to improve the attractiveness of many of its existing landmarks. Considerable energy was devoted to the Pont d’Avignon—the broken bridge of the famous children’s song— although the mayor’s office ultimately abandoned one project intended to extend it and make it a “bridge to the twenty-first century.”10 Overall, in terms of promoting the city as an attractive tourist destination, Avignon’s experience as a cultural capital has to be considered a success. According to statistics kept by the Bureau of Tourism, the numbers of visitors to the city’s major attractions spiked sharply upward during the year 2000. In 2001, they dropped but were still higher than in 1999.11 The project further enhanced the city’s architectural heritage. It also stimulated the arts activity of the city in many areas and, in one exceptional case, was able to encourage ongoing European exchanges. Avignon’s Hivernales dance festival (Festival Les Hivernales) carried out a project entitled Trans-Dance-Europe and has since maintained close contacts and exchanges with dance groups in some of the other nine cities. But how did Avignon interpret and enact the “civic” and “European” aspects of the ECOC program? How did it interpret the phrase “unity in diversity”?

Avignon as cultural capital: “Solidarity all together” The section devoted to Avignon in the AECC final report includes the following: Avignon 2000 was intended for everyone. It reached out to every social level in the population by adopting the widest possible definition

96 rites of the republic for culture. Priority was given to events and activities for children and young people, to projects having a strong impetus on social advancement, as well as to projects aimed at various levels of sensitivity and knowledge. (Cogliandro 2001:30)

These statements make clear that the civic aims of the ECOC project described above translated primarily into the goal of making events accessible to as many people as possible in the spirit of the long tradition of arts decentralization in French state cultural policy. This point was underlined in an interview with Luis Armengol, the director of public relations for the mayor’s office and for the Avignon 2000 program. Asked if there was an important European dimension to Avignon’s civic goals in this project, Armengol said no, that while the goal was to bring people together through culture, “the citizen’s aspect was turned toward the local.” I asked him about the stated goals of the AECC , in particular those referring to “activating the citizens” and “supporting civic democracy.” He replied that these had been important aims for Avignon and explained that, although the primary aim was to schedule artistic events of high quality, “We said that if this project is not a citizen’s project (projet citoyen) it will not accomplish anything.” By “citizen’s project” he meant that it should be accessible to everyone and not just “play to the gallery” and impress the snobs (“épater les snobs”). We wanted to be a citizen’s project by bringing the Avignonnais together. Throughout the year, we had popular shows, popular gatherings—the wine harvest ball, and the New Year’s Ball outside on the 31st of December. We had 30,000 people, and believe me it was cold. . . . We had a popular ball with six bands all along the Rhone River. . . . There had never been so many people celebrating together since the Liberation. All year long, we invited the Avignonnais to events like that—free, popular, festive—because we wanted to show that culture is that, too, a gathering of men and women who come together to share a moment of joy and happiness.

The theme of bringing people together was also central in the literature published by the mayor’s office publicizing Avignon 2000 events. In one short flyer, the word “together” is scattered throughout in short phrases printed in bold:

“Unity in Diversity” in EU and municipal cultural policy 97 Together let’s celebrate Avignon 2000 Avignon 2000 is culture all together Solidarity all together All together without exclusion!

The key message in these promotional materials is the importance of unity. The political implications are important here, given that 2000 was one year away from Avignon’s municipal elections. Avignon’s mayor in 2000 was, and still is today, Marie-Josée Roig. She was a member of the party of the Right, the Rassemblement pour la République,12 which was also the party of the president of France at the time, Jacques Chirac (1995–07), and the party of his successor Nicolas Sarkozy. Roig was elected by a slim majority in 1995, but, in 2001, she won easily against a strong Parti Socialiste candidate, Elisabeth Guigou, a minister in the cabinet of the prime minister at the time, Lionel Jospin. Roig ran on a campaign stressing security issues: the threats of crime and drugs, which have been increasingly important topics of national political debate. Roig has generally been a popular mayor, and she has devoted considerable energy to promoting the city’s economic growth. In order to provide greater access to events, the Avignon mayor’s office created innovative programs providing free bus services and other assistance to people in the peripheral areas of Avignon, to people with physical disabilities, to retired people, and even to people needing childcare during the time they wanted to participate in the Avignon 2000 activities. One function of the ECOC project was to help Avignon’s mayor mobilize the community in the name of the city’s new special status as a capital of the arts in the new Europe. Through free and festive gatherings in public places and in the name of a “citizen’s project,” the mayor promoted Avignon as a place of consensus and her own office as the principal medium for achieving it. Although the emphasis on unity is evident in the preceding description, that Avignon 2000 promoted the city as a place of diversity is less clear. In this section, I describe the “Gypsy Women of Avignon,” a Digital Avignon project involving the creation of a website devoted to the culture and heritage of Avignon’s Gypsy community.13 Here, as in the description of Avignon ECOC as a whole, the role of the city is crucial to expressions of identity in a new “European” context. But this project sought to expand public discourse about difference by providing a voice to a marginalized community, to people that some residents of the city viewed as outsiders.

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European cultural space and Avignon spatial divisions The goals of “Digital Avignon” were to create “a virtual, cultural, and social space in which and through which populations in different European cities communicate and cooperate creatively through elaborating projects in common” (Avignon 2000). The director of the project, Louis Bec, sought to encourage debate and discussion of divergent viewpoints, particularly concerning new technologies. In an article in Artpress, “Digital Avignon” is described as an art project devoted to pursuing the following question: “Are the Web and new technology in general opening the way to a new urbanity, in the 18th-century sense of that word, a new form of collective intelligence?” In a sense, “Digital Avignon” was a work of art with the city as canvas. But this is not really accurate because “canvas” implies a passive city population: “Instead of the public as ‘receiver,’” Bec puts forward the idea of the resident population, a kind of evolving community or collective intelligence that Avignon umérique sets out to catalyze (Hillaire 2000:55). Louis Bec, also saw the year 2000 as an opportunity to build communication across the social divisions within Avignon. The Gypsy community is located in the Clarefond section of the Monclar neighbourhood outside the medieval walls of Avignon. Monclar also includes many people of Maghrébin descent and, in recent years, many immigrants from Afghanistan. Usually referred to as “banlieues” in France’s larger urban areas, the peripheral neighbourhoods surrounding French cities are frequently low-income and high-crime areas, with a disproportionately younger and immigrant population. A 1995 study by Azouz Begag states that what is distinctive about these neighbourhoods in Avignon is their proximity to the centre of town. None of the areas said to be the most “sensitive” are more than 30 minutes on foot from the city centre. What counts is not spatial but social distance. The insular quality of these neighbourhoods emerges from Begag’s analysis of essays written by middle-school students. Asked to describe his neighbourhood, Chahid (a seventh-grade boy) wrote, “I’ve been living in Avignon—Monclar— for five years. Don’t like it.” Afterward, before turning it in, he crossed out “Avignon” to specify his home as Monclar. For the residents of these neighbourhoods, the centre of Avignon is another world. Monclar is “a sort of small village, outside the larger city, with its own character and even its own dialect: le monclarien” (Begag 1995:32). The website “Gypsy Women of Avignon” was designed to express the local history and culture of the Gypsy community. The director of the project was a photographer named Sylvie Fraissard. “Digital Avignon”

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provided the technical assistance and paid for Sylvie Fraissard’s time, and the Gypsy women themselves took pictures, collected stories, and designed the content for the site. An important goal of the project was to counter negative stereotypes portraying Gypsies as transients or foreigners by showing that Avignon’s Gypsies, of Catalan origin for the most part, have been settled in the city since the early 1900s. As Sylvie Fraissard notes in her review of the project, The gypsies are often viewed as a population difficult to include (insérer), with whom it is often difficult to negotiate. Attempting to understand the expectations of the gypsies of Monclar living in HLM s is already a step towards the recognition of the other and therefore towards a movement from fear to recognition of the other as such.14 (Fraissard 2001)

The Gypsy community has been moved by the Avignon municipality: prior to 1963, it was located in the Balance neighbourhood in the centre of Avignon. By the late 1960s, many families had moved to Clarefond, which is where the Association of Gypsies and Travellers of Avignon President Bernadette Patras lives and where the website was created. Patras is a well-known figure in the community. When asked for directions to her apartment, she replied, “Just get off the bus and ask people in the neighbourhood.” I asked her why there was such an emphasis on Avignon with the website. There are 300 Gypsy families in Avignon. We wanted the value of our culture to be recognized; we insist on that aspect, to show the history here—to counter the things people say about Gypsies, that they’re thieves. Recently, we’ve had to put up with the attacks of a new prefect—brand new—with these “fine” ideas. He called us all “travellers”—he didn’t want to say “Gypsies,” even though we are settled here. Our grandparents were settled here.

Although the association Patras leads does include “Travellers” or nonsedentary Gypsies (as is evident in the group’s name), the great majority of Avignon’s Gypsy families have been part of the city’s population for generations. This history was addressed primarily in two parts of the website, one a film recounting the community’s history and the other a display of new and old photographs (and captions). The film is entitled Voy Caminando: Mémoires de Gitan, which translates roughly as “‘I Go Travelling” or “I Travel Along: Gypsy Memories.” It is evident in the film

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that the municipality (rather than the department or state) has been the main political interlocutor shaping living conditions for the community. In the beginning of the film, the narrator notes the Gypsy presence in Avignon at the end of the nineteenth century, when “the municipality provided them with a house on Balance Street.” The Balance area is squarely in the centre of Avignon, not far from the Palace of the Popes. Until 1906, however, the palace was used as a barracks, and the Balance neighbourhood (today a central, high-rent zone) was a red-light district. In 1963, a major renovation of the neighbourhood began, and the Gypsies were relocated outside the city’s walls. The Balance is still an important lieu de mémoire for many in the community. As part of the website project, Sylvie Fraissard was asked by the women to organize a group trip there with the goal of understanding the current conditions of their former neighbourhood. Through its photographs, the website shows that the people living there today carry with them the memory of a community with deep roots in Avignon and a rich cultural heritage. Many of the captions are written in the mixture of Catalan and Provençal that has been spoken by Gypsies in this part of southern France for over a century. Shown in the images are a local musical group (Corazon Gitano) and Gypsy dancing at community celebrations. The photographs are of special events such as weddings but also of schools, work, and other aspects of daily life in the neighbourhood. Many of the images show new and old together: children and the elderly or computers side by side with models of the traditional caravans (roulottes) of the past. Like all expressions of cultural memory, these images are both a commemoration of past events and an argument about how to read the present and envision the future. Most important here is the way the website represents the relationship between the Gypsy community and institutions of both the municipality and the state. The website shows Gypsies being actively involved with and open to the broader Avignon community. There are photographs of meetings involving community leaders and social workers and other representatives of state institutions. One photograph carries the caption “Discussion group on the theme of the insertion of the Gypsies” and another “Study group concerning questions linked to housing.” There is a whole subset of photographs devoted to schools. Some show mothers smiling as they pick up their children, often with other mothers picking up theirs. One photograph shows a smiling boy on the first day with the caption “Delighted to be at school.” Another shows a speaker at a meeting speaking on the theme of “academic monitoring and support of Gypsy children and their education.” In the past, Gypsy children were often segregated from others

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in local schools, with a distinction made between “French” and Gypsy playgrounds. There remain serious problems of absenteeism and low academic performance among Gypsy children. The images and text on this website assert that the approach of the Gypsy community toward the schools is the same as its approach to state and municipal representatives: proud of being a part of the Avignon community and open to working with others to improve life in the Monclar neighbourhood. At the same time, it is clear from the statements above by President Patras about having to put up with the “‘fine’ ideas” of a “brand new prefect” that the relations between her association and state and municipal authorities are far from perfect. Nor did she see much hope in European Union initiatives. I asked her what she thought of the following statement by the Association of the nine European Cities of Culture of the year 2000: Furthermore, active measures through which the citizens can learn to know the people and the culture of the other cities by themselves without prejudice will be made possible and gain permanent forms that continue after the Culture Capital year. . . . The activities of the Cultural Cities are aimed at bringing the peoples of Europe closer to each other by means of culture. (Cogliandro 2001:45)

She replied: They are beautiful words, but how do you expect them to bring them together when they have a tendency to ghettoize people?

The formulation of the “European” goals of the AECC emphasized exchanges between cities across national boundaries, but Patras underlines the distance separating the centre and the periphery within Avignon itself. Whereas “Digital Avignon” sought to provide a voice to the peripheral neighbourhoods of the city, the majority of the Avignon ECOC projects were in the city’s centre. According to Louis Bec, “Digital Avignon” was itself originally intended to be housed in the central Palace of the Popes before the exhibit devoted to beauty displaced it. The comments of Patras also draw attention to the divisions and social barriers within cities that stand as obstacles to city-centred EU cultural policy initiatives. Such projects tend to view cities as coherent communities within national societies, with exchanges between cities defined as “European” because of the movement across national boundaries. Avignon’s ECOC program was successful in this regard, especially with respect to the Trans-Dance-Europe program, which inaugurated a solid

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network for ongoing exchanges among dance troupes from most of the nine cities. But the “Digital Avignon” project argues for addressing existing diversity and inequalities within cities. This project shows the value of initiatives that improve communication between the city’s centre and periphery and lessen the social isolation of those living in the latter. This EU initiative was able to help bridge, if only temporarily, a long-standing division between a municipality and a marginalized community in one of its peripheral neighbourhoods. In addition, the project also helped address gender inequalities within the community through its focus on providing training and other opportunities to Gypsy women. As Patras notes, The best thing was that this opened minds a little. Otherwise, it’s not worth doing. What I try to do in my work, what we tried to do on the website, is to defend our way of life, so that people will be more open to listening. It breaks old stereotypes.

But she insisted that this was not a project seeking the “integration” of Gypsies: “We are integrated.” The project did attempt to reach out and make new contacts with others outside the Avignon Gypsy community. In addition to the website, the “Digital Avignon” work with the Gypsies included the creation of a photographic exhibit that many of the women took to Perpignan to contribute to a documentary photography festival there. For the first time, they met members of Perpignan’s sizeable Gypsy community, who were inspired by the project to pursue a similar one of their own. The project was also intended to include “European” links with other Gypsy communities outside France. But, as Sylvie Fraissard noted in an interview, “that was the goal for the third year. We never got to it.” Still, although the site is no longer active, the project has had other long-term benefits. These include providing the women with computing, scanning, photographic, and other skills that they have since used on other projects. One of these was a theatre production based on the history of Avignon’s Gypsies, created by Sylvie Patras (President Patras’s daughter), who used her new skills to promote the play. Thus, although the project generated considerable benefits for the participants, it was not characterized by the kind of European dimension described at the beginning of this chapter, which is to say that it was not marked by interaction and collaboration across national lines. Although the ECOC year provided an opportunity for new expressions of identity within Avignon, it also underscored deep and persistent divisions and inequalities that pose obstacles to the civic aims of European Union cultural policies intended to fight prejudice and promote a more democratic society.

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Avignon’s use of “unity in diversity” in municipal cultural policy Avignon’s experience as a cultural capital shows the discourse of Europe being used in a local campaign to consolidate municipal authority. The Avignon mayor’s office has long been familiar with the advantages of arts-centred promotion because of its experience with the Avignon Theatre Festival. Municipalities throughout France have long been pursuing their own cultural policies. The vast expansion of state cultural policy in the 1980s by the Socialist President Mitterrand provided greater resources (especially for the celebration and preservation of newly designated heritage sites), but the system of distinct institutional structures for specifically municipal cultural policies was already in place. Given a long history of elaborating specifically municipal policies in interaction with the Ministry of Culture and other institutions, French municipal planners are particularly well placed to succeed in “the competitive ethos of selling places.” The success of the mayor’s office, both with respect to tourists and in the 2001 election, suggests that cities could become increasingly important media for European Union cultural policy. The reinforcement of cities as central loci for EU cultural policy carries a risk of maintaining old categories of identity and social hierarchy if existing inequalities within cities are not addressed. The “Gypsy Women of Avignon” website was a promising initiative, but its failure to last points to the value of planning for long-term projects to extend beyond the ECOC year. Asked why cities had become so important as foci for cultural tourism in France, Luis Armengol replied in a 2002 interview that “the regions are not yet firmly established. . . . It is difficult to defend a cultural identity.” Seven years after the Avignon experience, in the competition for the 2013 ECOC designation, Marseille put forward a bid centred on its status as capital of a region defined primarily as the crossroads between Europe and the Mediterranean. This “EuroMediterranean” bid led to the selection of “Marseille-Provence” as 2013 European Capital of Culture.

An overview of Marseille’s European Capital of Culture campaign Today, thirty ethnic groups live together in the heart of Marseille: the city counts 80,000 Armenians, 200,000 North Africans and Africans, 70,000 Comorians. Marseille represents the largest Corsican city and the second-largest Armenian city in the world. It has a huge Italian population, one of the largest groupings of “pied-noir”15 and an important

104 rites of the republic Greek community. After all, don’t they say that Marseille is the 49th Algerian Wilaya (province) and the largest Comorian town? Marseille is thus by far the most cosmopolitan of all Mediterranean cities. (Jean-Claude Juan, quoted in Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2007:35)

Marseille-Provence 2013 is a vast and complex project of regional economic development in which international exchanges of art and culture play a central role. One of the distinguishing features of the Marseille bid compared to those of most other ECOC s is the inclusion of many small towns and intercommunal organizations along with the municipality of Marseille. This inclusion is signalled by the “Provence” added to Marseille in the official ECOC label for the city.16 The application process and planning phase subsequent to the city’s designation as 2013 ECOC represent an effort to define the Euro-Mediterranean dimension of Marseille and its surrounding area in a coherent way.17 This planning seeks to account for the many linkages between Marseille and European and Mediterranean partners under a single, organizing frame in alignment with the priorities of European Union cultural policy as defined in the EU ’s Culture Programme 2007–201318 and, especially, in the Barcelona process. In contrast to Avignon, Marseille-Provence ECOC activities are not directed from the mayor’s office but by an association (in accordance with the law of 1901). The main figure behind the vision of Marseille-Provence 2013 is Bernard Letarjet, the managing director responsible for the project in general, including areas related to artistic aspects. The organization responsible for directing Marseille 2013 is an administrative board of 20 members drawn principally from local government, public institutions such as Euromed, private companies and the Chamber of Commerce, and representatives from the four universities of the area. In addition to its broad geographic range, the action of the project is spread out over time as well, between 2009 and the end of 2013. Only 5 per cent of the overall budget was allotted for 2009, with the amount gradually rising until 2013, when the remaining 50 per cent of the budget is to be spent. The biggest percentage of the budget (22 per cent) will come from Marseille and its neighbouring cities, from the region called Marseille-ProvenceMétropole.19 The European Union and the state will contribute 15 per cent,20 business partners another 15 per cent, the PACA region and the Bouches-du-Rhône department 12.5 per cent each, the greater urban areas of Aix-en-Provence 7.5 per cent, Toulon 7.5 per cent, and other urban districts and cities 7.5 per cent.

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Marseille’s ECOC application emphasized the Mediterranean as a timely theme for Europe and Marseille as the most appropriate site for addressing it. The pre-selection file document notes several inequalities and asymmetries that argue for collaboration on economic, political, and environmental issues. These include a much higher projected rate of population growth in Mediterranean countries, growing unemployment, and increased migration toward the north. The application also notes growing trade imbalances between northern and southern Mediterranean countries and ecological challenges, especially water shortages. At present, “No true international co-operation aiming to improve water resource management is in view” (Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2007:31). Finally, “cultural” asymmetry is discussed with reference to the dearth of scientific research and book publishing in Mediterranean countries, as well as in the areas of cinema, audiovisual resources, and Internet access. If nothing is done, the document states, we can expect a “nightmare scenario” leading “at the gates of Europe, or even on our own soil, to situations of economic crisis (exploding unemployment and irremediable poverty), social emergency (aggravation of interfaith and inter-ethnic tensions), and deterioration in the quality of urban life and environmental safety (desertification, pollution, scarcity of water)” (Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2007:32). Marseille’s uniquely Mediterranean and “cosmopolitan” status is presented as making it an ideal site for addressing the above asymmetries through culture. “Culture” here refers principally to the arts but also to physical and social scientific research and to many educational initiatives. The centrepiece is the program of “Euro-Mediterranean Workshops.” These reflect a broad cross-section of participants across the region and are intended to be sustainable projects that will extend beyond 2013. There are to be 200 to 250 workshops “within community associations, businesses, laboratories, schools and the cultural institutions in the Marseille-Provence area,” bringing together “a large number of the area’s cultural, educational, scientific and business figures and, through them, a large population of students, researchers, and employees” (Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2008:85).

Marseille-Provence 2013: The Euro-Mediterranean Workshops The pre-selection file document referred to “Mediterranean” workshops. The change to “Euro-Mediterranean” was intended to reflect two main stated goals: “to enrich the cultural element of the Barcelona Process by

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creating a permanent hub for intercultural, Euro-Mediterranean dialogue in Marseille” and “to develop artistic and cultural activity as a force for renewal in the city by conjugating four issues: quality of public space, cultural irrigation of the area, widespread citizen participation and the appeal of the metropolis” (Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2008:90). There are two primary strategies for the workshops that reflect these two goals. The first strategy is entitled “Sharing the South (Le Partage des Midis)” and the second is entitled “The Radiant City (La Cité Radieuse)”—the name is inspired by the building complex created by architect Le Corbusier in Marseille. Each strategy includes four themes, and each theme is overseen by a group of “scientific and artistic advisors.” These are drawn primarily from the social sciences for the first strategy, with history, sociology, and ethnology well represented. The themes for the two strategies are as follows: SHARING THE SOUTH

THE RADIANT CITY

Migrations and Memories

Art in the Public Arena

Values and Beliefs

Walkers-Nomads-Territories

Genders and Genres

One Thousand and One Nights

The Sharing of Water

Everyone Is Involved

The advisors for these themes include many artists and directors of arts festivals and major arts institutions in addition to the directors of government agencies concerned with health, youth, and sports; arts education; and social and cultural centres in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, for the theme “Everyone Is Involved.” There are 72 programs, each of which is comprised of one or more workshops. These represent an extremely diverse collection of projects. Below, I discuss the Théâtre de la Mer project, which is part of the “Migrations and Memories” theme within the “Sharing the South” strategy.

The influence of “new territories of art” In the selection file, arts projects are especially valued because “contemporary creation—and especially young creation—fosters openness and social links” (Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2008:86). This is attributed in part to a recent focus on local issues and populations among artists.

“Unity in Diversity” in EU and municipal cultural policy 107 Artistic activities in the South as in the North are today increasingly linked to local areas and issues, and combine artistic, educational, and social dimensions. In this new relationship with people and audiences, young creators can structure and animate vital spaces of freedom. (Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2008:86)

This assessment echoes the key priorities of the “new territories of art” (NTA ) artists. This is no coincidence, given that the Marseille-Provence 2013 Association was based at the Friche when its members drafted the ECOC application. In addition, Bernard Latarjet wrote the preface to the collection of essays published after the conference (Kahn and Lextrait 2005). Just as the former cultural attaché for the PACA region, Christian Martin, referred to the “new territories” as “tools for inventing a new kind of cultural policy,” the selection file proposes that Marseille’s “EuroMediterranean Workshops (Ateliers de l’Euroméditerranée)” will be an exemplary model for European cities. This model reflects the ideals of the French republican tradition as interpreted in Marseille: As a land of immigration and a city of refuge, rejecting the divisive communitarist model, Marseille is inventing and experimenting with blends and mixes that need essential support. . . . Although Marseille may need the EU more than the other cities do, we may also be more useful to Europe than the others, thanks to our experience of sharing and integrating. Marseille, with its own resources, could provide the EU with an original and durable tool that might be used to advance the 3rd element of the Barcelona Process.21 (Association MarseilleProvence 2013 2008:295).

The ECOC bid skilfully aligned the political and economic goals of the city with the practice of local community associations and arts groups responsible for the Euro-Mediterranean Workshops. The ideology of the NTA is a strong presence in the pre-selection file, and the arts generally are a crucial component of the bid. ECOC status will allow the city to extend the influence of the European Union, consonant with the goals of the Barcelona process: The “Ateliers de l’Euroméditerranée” will deliver tangible results that will help to push the Process forward into areas where it needs to flourish: mobility for artists, encounters with artists and their works, the transmission of knowledge and skills, and contemporary creation in all various forms. (Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2008:295)

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Thus, the selection file draws on the NTA in presenting Marseille’s ECOC program as a tool for a new kind of cultural policy in which the Marseillais interpretation of the French republican tradition is presented as a model for a post-colonial Europe seeking greater social dialogue and exchange across international and other borders. One of the arts associations designated as a “Euro-Mediterranean Workshop” is the Théâtre de la Mer (Theatre of the Sea), a theatre company based in the Joliette harbour neighbourhood of the 2nd arrondissement, not far from the docks where the ferries leave regularly for Corsica, Sardinia, Algeria, and Tunisia.

The town crier project of the Theatre of the Sea (Théâtre de la Mer) In May of 2008, I went to see a group of student actors from the Marseille Theatre Conservatory perform as part of a Theatre of the Sea town crier project. The students would be performing texts that had been written by the residents of the Le Canet neighbourhood and left in drop boxes, which were given to the organizers of adult writing workshops led by Marseillais novelist Minna Sif or, sometimes, in the case of children, given to their teachers.22 Located in the northwest periphery of the city in the 14th arrondissement, Le Canet23 is part of a ZUS (Zone Urbaine Sensible): a priority zone for urban renovation because of high unemployment, among other factors. One might argue that the primary need in these neighbourhoods is economic rather than artistic. But just as the European Capital of Culture project has sought to give an economic boost through redefining cities as creative and cultured, local arts projects have tried to change the perspective on particular neighbourhoods. David Le Breton, a sociologist who has worked in the town of La Courneuve near Paris, has described an underlying “mépris” (scorn) felt by young male residents in the “neighbourhoods of exile” in France. He notes a heightened territoriality and defence of neighbourhood boundaries because of the closed-in quality of life and the inability for residents to move easily outside it.24 The first step to take in fighting the sense of mépris, states Le Breton, is to correct the social inequalities “and the democratic deficit which affects them” (Le Breton 2008:124). But, he notes, in these neighbourhoods “social and cultural decompartmentalization is essential and goes with the need for better access to housing in order to avoid the relegation, the overpopulation and the sense of a ghetto” (Le Breton 2008:124). The work of the Theatre of the Sea is one of the many designated Euro-Mediterranean workshops working to foster dialogue and exchange in such neighbourhoods.

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The Maison Blanche behind Jean-Pierre Rafaelli and students of the Marseille Theatre Conservatory rehearsing a scene from the town crier project. Photo by the author.

The Marseille Theatre Conservatory students would be performing in four different sites: a social and cultural centre at the Place des ÉtatsUnis (the site of a weekly open-air market and a hub of neighbourhood activity), on a street in front of a school close to a major housing project (the seriously run-down HLM called “la Maison Blanche” or “the White House”), in front of the St. Gabriel social and cultural centre, and in a nearby grassy, hilly park. The idea was that the students would draw audience members from each site and pick up people as they went. I was frankly sceptical that people would spontaneously join them and wondered whether people would listen at all. The conservatory is close to Marseille’s Vieux Port, just off the main street leading to the port, the Canebière. From there, we took the subway line to its end. There followed a 15-minute bus ride, and, after that, we walked another 10 minutes to the Place des États-Unis, where we met the other students. The performance began in the middle of the Place des États-Unis when two of the student readers walked up to a trio of older women sitting on a bench and started a dialogue. A small group formed around them, filled in by the other students and the rest of us. By the end of the 15-minute performance, there were about 10 to 15 people, with several children and their mothers in addition to the older women who appeared to have been “ambushed” as they were sitting on the bench. But they applauded politely and the group moved on. There was a bigger crowd, maybe 15 to 20, in front of an elementary school, which was a stone’s throw from

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Part of the audience for the town crier project, Place des États-Unis, in the Le Canet neighbourhood. Photo by the author.

the “White House.” It was windy, and the cars rushing past did not help people hear the performers, but they called out louder into the wind and struggled to straighten the texts from which they read. As the audience moved on to the next stop, two boys on one bicycle circled, and, when the group stopped, they called out that they had performed in a Molière play at their school. They introduced themselves with the names of their characters. In the park, the group decided to set up in front of four young men sitting on park benches. When the performance was finished, one of the men started to rap, giving a five-minute commentary on the neighbourhood. Overall, in spite of the sometimes challenging conditions, the group drew a respectable moving audience that concluded with a lively reception of about 30 people back at the cultural centre where they had begun. There I met the person responsible for organizing the town crier project, Frédérique Fuzibet of the Théâtre de la Mer. I learned that the audiences had not formed quite as spontaneously as I had thought. What I saw was the fruit of months of preparatory work done by the professional actors of the Théâtre de la Mer with local associations,25 teachers, parents of students, and many others, in addition to the participation of the conservatory students. Neighbourhood associations had suggested the performance sites, either because they were regular gathering places or because there was a perceived need for improved community relations. Founded in 1980, the Théâtre de la Mer has long worked with people in the northern neighbourhoods of Marseille.

“Unity in Diversity” in EU and municipal cultural policy 111 For a long time we have explored the adequacy of forms of dramatic writing for this audience outside the cultural field. We have tried to create work starting with their input, with the idea that young people have their own ideas. . . . We have done creative work based on interviews . . . going directly into the streets. . . . This has allowed us to reach people who don’t necessarily take advantage of the social and cultural opportunities available. That is what is behind the act of performing the texts publicly, the idea of the town crier.

Frédérique and her partner Akel Akian have also staged works that they have viewed as particularly important in addressing the post-colonial complexities of Marseille’s diverse population. Akian himself is originally from Morocco. One recent production in April of 2009 is The Oranges (Les Oranges: Petite et Grande Histoire de l’Algérie vue d’un Balcon), directed by Akian with scenography by Frédérique Fuzibet. This play, written by Algerian playwright Aziz Chouaki, recounts the history of Algeria in two parts. The first addresses the years of colonization from 1830 to 1962. The second, entitled “Independence and Reconstruction,” goes from 1962 “to our times.” The recounting of Algerian history, particularly that of the Algerian War and its aftermath, is especially important given the repression of memory concerning France’s past in Algeria encountered by those of Algerian descent living in France today. Chouaki fled to France in the 1990s during the violence in Algeria. For Algerians of Chouaki’s generation, caught between the Algerian government’s efforts to eradicate French influence in the 1990s and the racism and the repression of memory about the Algerian War they face in France today, the process of constructing an identity within France is especially challenging. Theatre is one means of publicly defining the place of “Algeria in France” (Silverstein 2004), of “performing the ‘impossible memory’ of a shared past” (Gross 2005). I asked Fuzibet if she would use the terms “popular theatre” or “citizens’ theatre” to describe the work of the Théâtre de la Mer. “I think that the word citoyen is more adequate than populaire because of the kinds of plays we’ve produced,” she answered. She meant that their theatre was not really “popular” in that they’d often produced demanding works of a high cultural canon that were not necessarily intended for a broad audience. She mentioned plays by Euripides and Shakespeare as examples. She went on to emphasize that the term citoyen captured only the “ethical” aims of the troupe, but, in describing the aesthetic dimension of the troupe’s work, she did so in a way that integrated ethical and aesthetic aims.

112 rites of the republic So yes, théâtre citoyen from the point of view of ethics. From the point of view of aesthetics, we have been most interested in writing . . . with new media—writing that has the quality of a bond—to find a space of citizenship.

An important dimension of the town crier project was its enactment of another perspective on the physical environment of the city. One of the performances was in front of a primary school and was requested by some of the teachers involved. At the same time, Fuzibet underlined that it was important that this project take place outside the framework of the school. I asked her why. Yes, that was a deliberate choice. The project was not funded as an in-school activity. The goal was to introduce a framework where people could say what they wanted without being asked about a particular subject. . . . That said, we sometimes directed things because of a particular problem—we would propose a subject requested by parents or teachers in relation to recent discussions in class or current concerns—incidents involving racism, for example.

The town crier project was a way of building a bridge between the school and the broader Le Canet neighbourhood. Fuzibet returned to the idea of a social bond (lien) several times in describing the priorities of the Theatre of the Sea. If we come back to the ethical aims, it is the goal of finding a bond between people in a public space . . . so that people can speak among themselves, cry, laugh—to find spaces of communication today—ways of bringing us together in other respects. Akel is Moroccan. For him, it is important that, rather than see other cultures as a danger, we see them as a valuable resource.

This emphasis on the social bond is reflected in the troupe’s respect for linguistic diversity in the texts from the writing workshops. There are many immigrants in Le Canet, and one of these workshops had been done with a class of adult primo-arrivant (newly arrived) immigrants of many different backgrounds, including Armenian, North African, Argentine, and Peruvian. Although the workshops were conducted in French, the participants were encouraged to draw on their native language. In one exercise, they were to list their favourite words in French and in their native language. Another involved describing the city of

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Marseille, and another their first days in France. Rather than ignoring or rejecting the language of origin, the writing workshop showed how it could be a bridge to arts creation—to culture—in France. This respect for the integrity of language was also present in Fuzibet’s description of the troupe’s project for Marseille’s ECOC program. With citizenship and identity as key themes, the project centres on soccer as a “mirror of identity” and involves collaboration between artists in three cities: Casablanca in Morocco, Amsterdam, and Marseille. As with the town crier project, the soccer project will draw on statements from interviewees and drop boxes. Fuzibet explained that one of the great challenges for the Theatre of the Sea for 2013 was finding staging solutions to the problem of translation. One solution involved a “chorus,” that body from classical Greek theatre intended to represent the citizens of the polis. What we’re trying to do is explore that issue [of soccer as mirror of identity], integrating several languages, using the language of the body, summarizing the action with a chorus.

The reference here to “the language of the body” is important. Drawing on the acting and directing skills of the performers, the goal was to build characters and to take the texts as expressions of personal qualities that could be portrayed by the actors. In this process, it was enormously important to respect the language as spoken by the text writers. We work through the rhythm. We respect the breathing, the mistakes. Often, the actors find that by sticking to the spoken word, we rediscover the physical qualities of the speakers.

These methods show the respect for the distinctive voices of those in the neighbourhoods where the Theatre of the Sea works. For the ECOC project, Fuzibet envisioned the chorus speaking several languages, with perhaps a different version in each city: more Arabic in Morocco and more Dutch in Holland. Through such staging strategies, the troupe was using the Euro-Mediterranean theme to address issues involving citizenship and identity, issues that have long been important to the work of its members. In addition to establishing exchanges with cities outside Europe, the soccer project will provide greater recognition of Moroccan and Arabic-speaking populations in Europe generally and in Marseille in particular. The “Mediterranean” emphasis in Marseille’s candidacy for 2013 surprised Fuzibet. She described the presentation of the project by the ECOC

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committee and the reaction of the other artists present: “Everyone was very surprised because, in the past, the municipality did not at all consider its Mediterranean aspect and what was done in the arts here that was pluricultural.” In contrast, 2013 “was based on the popular and pluricultural specificities of Marseille in a way very close to the work we do.” I asked her why she thought the mayor’s office had suddenly decided on this emphasis, and she attributed it to the director of the MarseilleProvence 2013 committee: “It was a tour de force of Bernard Latarjet.” Instead of claiming and celebrating its Mediterranean qualities, the city had been more turned toward the north—connecting with arts groups from Germany or Belgium, for example. I asked her what Europe meant to her and whether it was important to her. The Europe we see is not necessarily the one we would like to see, politically, in the sense that what is being built is not necessarily a Europe of peoples but a Europe of markets. We would like to see it more social, more egalitarian, with more integration between people.

She mentioned the wide disparity in salaries among citizens both within France and across Europe. Citing the example of Lille as a European Capital of Culture for 2004, she said that she hoped 2013 would help Marseille economically. “Lille had big problems and that [the ECOC designation] gave it a jumpstart.” In addition to the economic possibilities, she was especially happy about the city’s ECOC orientation: “2013 is an opportunity for Marseille, for what the city represents as a ‘melting pot’ [she used the English words]—what it represents in terms of exchange and mixing (brassage).” Beyond the 2013 project, the troupe has plans for a site in the Joliette neighbourhood that will be renovated and used for residencies for “authors from the Mediterranean world or artists pursuing inquiries similar to ours in their work.” Although it would sometimes serve as a space for invited performances, this new site’s main function would be as a place for exchanges with other artists, both Marseillais and more broadly “Mediterranean.” While the Theatre of the Sea seemed secure in its support from the municipality and from other funding sources for culture in France, Fuzibet expressed concern about the recent RGPP reforms of the Sarkozy administration. In particular, she mentioned the Acsé (l’Agence Nationale pour la Cohésion Sociale et l’Égalité des Chances), an association she described as initially devoted to the integration of immigrants and their families but which has become very open to helping disadvantaged populations

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in general. Fuzibet feared that placing the Acsé under the authority of the prefects would jeopardize its autonomy and make it less able to adapt freely to local conditions. In the summer of 2009, it was unclear what the long-term results would be. “What is certain is that all the associations we work with have problems right now.” These associations faced problems due to the economic crisis (“all funding agencies are currently delaying payments”). But she also feared diminished support for locally based associations following the RGPP .

Conclusion In terms of its geopolitical goals, the Euro-Mediterranean project of Marseille-Provence 2013 is much more ambitious than Avignon’s in 2000. Marseille’s efforts to integrate its program with the goals of the Barcelona process in addition to European Union cultural policy proper reflect the organizers’ aim of portraying the city as a centre not simply of Europe but of a “Euro-Mediterranean” nexus of exchange—a portrait that Marseille promotes over and against the portrayal of a “clash of civilizations.”26 It is worth noting that one of the major challenges of the Barcelona process and the current Union for the Mediterranean (the relationship between Israel and the other members) is not highlighted in the MarseilleProvence 2013 selection file’s description of the Euro-Mediterranean workshops. In addition, the uncritical embrace of the term “cosmopolitan” to describe the city as a place of multicultural harmony neglects the history of xenophobia and racist violence in Marseille. That said, the project promises to provide an opportunity to put the Euro-Mediterranean identity of the city centre stage, something not only important within a national discourse on culture but also locally, in the valorization of a rich heritage of migration and immigration. The Marseille initiative is also different from Avignon 2000 in its greater emphasis on locally based associations in the “Euro-Mediterranean Workshops.” In its encouragement of dialogue and exchange both within peripheral neighbourhoods and between these neighbourhoods and other communities outside France, the approach developed by the Theatre of the Sea promises to contribute to what Mandell has described as “the democratization of cosmopolitanism, where ‘world-openness’ necessarily would include the local as well as the global” (2008:325). With regard to the ECOC goals of furthering “unity in diversity,” the discussion of the “Gypsy Women of Avignon” website and the Theatre of the Sea town crier project highlights the value of establishing long-term

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projects embedded in communities through, in these cases, locally based associations. These projects show how a European Union cultural policy initiative devoted to “unity in diversity” has been used to bring fresh perspectives on identity and citizenship within cities and within a national discourse on these issues more broadly. They also illustrate the importance of Europe and the Mediterranean in the broader PACA regional context for culture in which the TRAC and Friche arts initiatives operate.

Notes 1 The reference here is to Marseille’s creation myth: the story of the marriage between a foreign sailor (Protis of Phocée) and a native (Ligurian) princess named Gyptis. Phocée was located in present-day Turkey, but references to the “Phocaean” origins of the city generally associate it with Greece (as cradle of democracy and Western civilization). More generally, the birth of the city from the marriage of native and foreigner has been called on to portray Marseille’s openness to cultural difference and to the integration of immigrants from broadly diverse origins (see Hermary, Hesnard, and Treziny, 1999, Rosello 2001). 2 For overviews of the anthropology of European integration, see Bellier and Wilson 2000, Borneman and Fowler 1997, Delanty and Rumford 2005, and Wilson 1998. 3 “The European ideology developed in part from a reaction to Enlightenment universalism. Characteristically, it represented European identity as revealed through specific national identities; paradoxically, it meant thinking nationalistically. The European ideology portrayed the internal disunity of the European peoples as a transcendent unity, their political divisions as a sign of robust health, and their squabbles as the free expression of individuality refined through constant competition. . . . Until well on in the sixteenth century, Europeans felt safe in assuming their own moral and cultural superiority. But this was always an uneasy conviction. . . . In the century that followed these remarkable explorations, therefore, a new understanding of European distinctiveness emerged—based, it was claimed . . . not on superiority, but on internal diversity. . . . By the mid nineteenth century, Francois Guizot had no qualms about expressing the view that diversity conferred ‘immense superiority’ . . . on European civilization” (Herzfeld 1987:77). 4 In their 1997 critical review of anthropological approaches to European integration, Borneman and Fowler called for attention to new processes of identity formation, which they called “Europeanization.” Accelerated by the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the end of the cold war and by global changes in communications technologies, and guided by the institutions of the European Union, processes of “Europeanization,” they argued, are radically changing long-standing traditions of territoriality and nationhood. Borneman and Fowler argue that what constitutes “Europeanness” is a fluid cosmopolitanism, a lack of attachment to the fundamental sources of European identity of the past: “Unlike belonging to the nation, which has a specific cultural content, identification with Europe is an empty sign” (492). 5 The European Capital of Cultural project began in 1985 as an initiative of Greece’s Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri. Each year since then, one or two cities have been chosen by the European Council and the EU ministers of culture, and the event has received funding from the European Commission. In 2000, the council and ministers could not decide among the proposals, and they announced that, to mark the millennium, nine cities would be chosen: Avignon, Bergen, Bologna, Brussels, Krakow,

“Unity in Diversity” in EU and municipal cultural policy 117 Helsinki, Prague, Reykjavik, and Santiago de Compostela. An Association of the nine European Cities of Culture of the year 2000 (AECC ) was founded, comprised of representatives from each city. 6 Mandel (2008) provides this definition of demotic: “of or pertaining to the current, ordinary, everyday form of a language, of or pertaining to the common people” (311). “The demotic citizen of a denationalized state, whose demos and cosmos transcend borders, . . . would represent a critical step toward the democratization of cosmopolitanism, where ‘world-openness’ necessarily would include the local as well as the global” (325). 7 In 1999, the “European City of Culture” initiative was renamed the “European Capital of Culture.” However, in much of the administrative literature devoted to the program, the terms “city of culture” and “capital of culture” are used interchangeably. For example, the first post-1999 European Commission final report on the project’s activities is entitled European Cities of Culture for the year 2000. 8 The nine cities of culture in 2000 employed one of two models for administration. Avignon, Krakow, and Santiago de Compostela relied on direct administration through existing government and council structures, while the others (Bergen, Bologna, Brussels, Helsinki, Prague, Reykjavik) established independent organizations responsible for planning ECOC events. 9 See Philippe Poirrier’s (1998) study of Avignon’s experience as host of the “Rencontres (Meetings) d’Avignon,” a gathering of mayors and other municipal leaders along with artists and administrators between 1964 and 1970 during the Avignon Theatre Festival. Also, Avignon’s long experience with the inter-municipal competition centred on arts festivals is discussed by Serge Proust (2002) who draws on records of Avignon municipal council meetings in 1948 to show that Avignon’s Theatre Festival owes some of its early support to the desire to gain a step on nearby Aix-en-Provence, which, in 1948, was discussing the creation of its own choral music festival. 10 The architect’s plan met with heavy criticism. For many, this was the ultimate in “festivalization”: the appropriation of a local heritage in the service of a purely promotional campaign centred on the mayor’s office and local business interests. (For an analysis of “festivalization” with respect to Weimar’s experience as a cultural capital in 1999, see Roth and Frank 2000.) The mayor’s office dropped the idea, and the architect left, taking his plans. 11 Total visitors in 1999: 285,481 (avg. 630 visitors/day), 2000: 338,310 (avg. 702 visitors/day), 2001: 334,723 (avg. 687 visitors/day); these statistics are from the document “Evolution du Service Accueil” published by the Office de Tourisme d’Avignon. 12 The RPR has since merged with members of right and centre-right parties to become the UMP —Union pour un Mouvement Populaire. 13 There are many terms used to refer to the Romani, Roma, Traveller, and Gypsy peoples in Europe. As Alaina Lemon states, In English, Roma and other groups, such as Irish Travellers, are lumped together under the name “Gypsies,” the English term being a derivative of “Egyptians.” Roma who arrived in Western Europe in the fifteenth century were mistakenly thought to come from Egypt; the fact that Romani is an Indic language had yet to be discovered. Roma in East European countries only began to name themselves “Roma” in public in the late 1980s, and the mass media switched only in the mid-1990s from variations of “tsygane.” (Lemon 2000:5)

In 1995, the Council of Europe created a group of specialists on Roma/Gypsies, which is today known as the Committee of Experts on Roma and Travellers. While the word “Gypsy” is sometimes discouraged as a derogatory outsider label, Gypsies in Avignon told me that “Roma” was a term for groups in northern Europe and that they, linked

118 rites of the republic to the Catalan part of Spain, referred to themselves as gitans. I have accordingly chosen the common English translation of gitan (Gypsy) to refer to them here. 14 An HLM (habitation à loyer modéré) is a form of subsidized housing in France. 15 The term “pied-noir” refers to French citizens of European descent living in Algeria who moved to France after the Algerian War. 16 The “Marseille-Provence” area of the bid is not the same as the Provence–Alpes–Côtes d’Azur region. The former is an area of 2.2 million people that includes, to the west, the Camargues area with Saintes Maries de la Mer and Arles, to the northwest, the Alpilles area including Saint Rémy de Provence and Salon de Provence, to the north, the Pays d’Aix including the Mont Sainte Victoire and Aix-en-Provence, and to the east, the coastline cities stretching as far as Hyères. Other notable cities and towns within this range include Istres, Martigues, Gardanne, Aubagne, Cassis, Bandol, and Toulon. Avignon is outside the 2013 ECOC area. 17 In describing Marseille-Provence 2013, I draw primarily on analysis of the 2007 preselection file (Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2007), the 2008 selection file written after the ECOC designation (Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2008), and interviews with representatives of the ECOC committee and selected participating artists. 18 The European Union Culture Programme 2007–2013 was created in 2006. It has a budget of 400 million Euros and is administered by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA ). According to the Europa website, The aim of the multi-annual Programme is to encourage and support cultural cooperation within Europe in order to bring the European common cultural heritage to the fore. The Programme proposes funding opportunities to all cultural sections and all categories of cultural operators contributing to the development of cultural cooperation at European level, with a view to encouraging the emergence of European citizenship. The programme mainly promotes: — trans national mobility of cultural players; — trans national circulation of artistic and cultural works and products; — intercultural dialogue and exchanges. (EACEA 2009)

19 The Urban Community of Marseille-Provence-Métropole is an intercommunal organization joining the municipality of Marseille with eighteen of the small towns surrounding it, including, for example, Cassis, La Ciotat, and Marignane. 20 The selection file notes that these have been subsumed within one line because neither source “can be approved or even negotiated before the jury’s decision is reached. Furthermore, Lille 2004’s experience revealed that a certain amount of financing is mixed” (Association Marseille-Provence 2013 2008:268). 21 The three main elements of partnership outlined in the Barcelona process are first, political and security; second, economic and financial; and third, social, cultural, and human. 22 Minna Sif is best known for her remarkable autobiographical novel Méchamment Berbère, the story of a Moroccan family making its way in Marseille in the 1970s, much as her own family did. 23 The Le Canet neighbourhood is within a ZFU (Zone Franche Urbaine), an area identified within a ZUS that is in special need of jobs and economic development. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees that move into the area receive special reductions in taxes and other fees provided that at least one third of their hired employees are residents of the ZFU area. The Place des États-Unis had also received special funding for renovation through the ANRU (Agence Nationale pour la Rénovation Urbaine), an agency within the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (Ministre de la Ville et du Logement) that carries out urban renovation policies.

“Unity in Diversity” in EU and municipal cultural policy 119 24 According to Le Breton, the explanation for the car burnings such as those that rocked France in 2005 is not a specific social, political, or economic demand. Rather, he argues, such acts are motivated by a “symbolic quest for recognition and affirmation of self” within a code of honour for young men (Le Breton 2008:123). If symbols of the Republic—schools, libraries—were especially targeted, it is because they are viewed as a seductive mirage. 25 For the town crier project, these include (among others) the Social and Family Centre of Saint Gabriel (Centre Social et Familial Saint Gabriel), Le Canet, the Association of Sports and Culture for Marseillais Youth (Association Sportive Culturelle Jeunesse Marseillaise or ASCJM ), the La Patate day-care centre in the Joliette neighbourhood, and the Baussenque Social Centre (Centre Social Baussenque) in the Panier neighbourhood. 26 In a 1993 article in Foreign Affairs, Samuel Huntington argued that a new post–cold war phase in global politics would be marked by a “clash of civilizations.” Although several “civilizations” are considered, the conflict between Islam and the West is described as most important.

5

Performing “citizens’ theatre” RITES OF THE REPUBLIC BETWEEN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN

In this book, I have used “republican universalism” as a convenient shorthand term to describe the ideology promoting the general good over the particular aims of interest groups and “communitarian” identities in France. This ideology has often been identified as particularly French, at least in comparison to the American political model, which generally recognizes ethnicity and religion as legitimate bases for political mobilization, seeing nothing objectionable, for example, in the idea of voting blocs based on such criteria. Nonetheless, as much recent scholarship has emphasized, the universalist ideals of French republicanism have been variably interpreted over time, appeals to a “timeless” republican tradition by its defenders notwithstanding. In recent years, the issues of national identity, in general, and the legacy of the colonial era with regard to it, in particular, have become subjects of heated public debate in France. These debates have brought forth sharply opposed perspectives on how the republican tradition should be interpreted today. The theatre artists considered here have proposed their own approaches to these issues. In this chapter and the next, I examine the ways their theatre practice has served to articulate understandings of citizenship and belonging in a newly European and post-colonial era. In Chapter 6, I discuss two concepts central to the theatre practice at the Friche and the TRAC—“prise de parole” and an “embodied mode of being”—and investigate how these link theatre artists’ lives inside and outside the theatre. In this chapter, I focus primarily on the aesthetic choices made in the staging of three recent productions of the TRAC : eXX iL s, Les Colporteurs d’Histoire, and Mon Théâtre d’Ombres. All of these productions illustrate the kind of collective solidarity cultivated in the rehearsals and touring of 120

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the troupe. In addition, the content of each production illustrates themes especially important within a national discourse on republican identity. In crafting its own version of “culture,” the troupe has also presented its own perspective on how the French republican tradition should be recast in a new era.

Immigration policy (2002–2008) and debates about national vs. republican identity in France In recent years, issues of immigration and national identity have been the object of political initiatives and broad public debate. In the 2002 election, the presidential candidate of the xenophobic National Front party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, gained the second-highest number of votes in the first round, which allowed him to face off against Jacques Chirac of the rightist UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) party.1 Voters on the left rallied behind Chirac, who was re-elected by a landslide. In the 2007 presidential election, the National Front party earned only 11 per cent of the vote, but this was in part because the eventual winner, Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP ), was able to steal its nationalist thunder. Shortly after his election, Sarkozy created the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development (Ministère de l’Immigration, de l’Intégration, de l’Identité Nationale et du Développement Solidaire). This linked the administration of immigration to the promotion of national identity for the first time in France, an act that was widely criticized, including by prominent members of Sarkozy’s own party. For many, this was a rejection of the universalist democratic values that should be recognized as the true heart of French identity (Duclert 2008). A petition signed by several prominent scholars and artists entitled “No to the Ministry of Immigration and National Identity” demanded that the president return to “choices more consonant with the democratic traditions of the French Republic” (GISTI 2007, quoted in Duclert 2008:40). On 25 October 2009, the minister with this portfolio, Éric Besson, announced the launching of a nation-wide discussion about national identity involving public meetings to be organized by regional officials and a website to be set up to gather the opinions of the French public. In response, political scientist Patrick Weil, director of research at the Centre d’Histoire Sociale du XX e Siècle of the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) stated that it is “intolerable” that Besson is trying to “direct the definition of something that has always been very

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diverse and fluid. . . . It is not up to the political authorities to decree what it is to be French” (quoted in Agence France-Presse [AFP ] 2009). President Sarkozy has been a key figure in these debates. In response to critics, he has stated that it has been necessary to rehabilitate the nation precisely because neglect of it leads to a weakened republic and the impossibility of integrating France’s immigrants.2 As Minister of the Interior between 2002 and 2007, Sarkozy has had a central role in state immigration policy since 2002. He has sought to limit immigration in several ways, not all of them successfully. His goal has been to change the mode of immigration that has been dominant since 1974 legislation, which is to say, that driven by the goal of family reunification—the motive of 65 per cent of French immigrants in 2004 (Murphy 2006). Sarkozy believes that the shift from work- to family-driven immigration has contributed to high unemployment and a lack of integration. He argues for selective immigration (immigration choisie) based on the needs of the French economy. French reforms passed since 2002 have pursued this goal. Current law includes new requirements such as knowledge of the French language and a “demonstration of integration.” A November 20, 2007 law also tightens control of illegal immigration.3 In the summer of 2008, Sarkozy failed in his effort to massively limit immigration to EU member states by restricting immigration to economic need. The interior ministers of the EU ’s member states voted to continue to issue residency permits based on both economic and humanitarian need. Sarkozy also failed with other immigration initiatives, including the creation of two police forces destined to patrol EU borders for the European Union’s border authority, Frontex (Der Spiegel 2008). Sarkozy is also associated with his reference to the 2005 rioters in the French banlieues as “racaille” (scum, riffraff) and “voyous” (thugs, hoodlums), made when he was Minister of the Interior. For many, France’s current president represents a hard-line approach to immigration that views the problems of immigrants and their descendants in France as due to their unwillingness or inability to “integrate.” At the same time, Sarkozy has also directed the process of the RGPP , which weakens funding for voluntary associations who often work with these populations and, in the arts, provide a greater voice to them. Historian Vincent Duclert has stated that the above-mentioned petition against the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development did not go far enough because it assumed that French democratic traditions are so obvious that just by referring to them in a petition, one can keep them alive. Rather, he argued, these traditions need to be publicly affirmed, and his collection of key speeches

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and texts from this tradition, La France: Une Identité Démocratique (2008) was published with that goal in mind. Here, I address the many settings of theatrical practice that have also served as sites where French democratic values are affirmed—where they are negotiated and enacted in settings that we do not usually consider political—in settings such as the urban neighbourhoods of Marseille or the tiny town of Saint Geniez in the mountains of Haute Provence, where each of the plays discussed in this chapter was performed.

Themes in the TRAC repertory The heart of my perspective is that one cannot create a work of culture in the abstract. We are not part of that world. For us, one must be somewhere. People who have their problems: They belong to society. And they want to have this bond—to go on to the act of creation. It is what makes the specificity of the amateur. Links with the mayors, the winemakers—for me, the cultural act cannot float above that. But one must also have the desire to develop the sphere of the imaginary, the paths of creation. (Vincent Siano interview, 2008)

In this statement, when Siano speaks of origins—the idea that one must be “from somewhere”—he is speaking primarily about acknowledging the social identity of participants in the arts practice of amateurs. It is through recognition of these identities that performances are conceived of as a bridge between the different starting points of performers and spectators. This attention to origins also includes a focus on social geography, on the ways social relations are inscribed in particular places, and on the ways cultural traditions have come to be associated with particular regions. In contrast to a nativist or “integralist” (Holmes 2000) conception of place and culture, theirs is not a narrow celebration of the parochial but a recognition that social relations are inscribed in space and that any representation of culture must acknowledge this. One way TRAC productions have done this is through historical and geographical setting, especially in the rural themes of the troupe’s early years. In addition to Fontamara, ou les oubliés de l’histoire (1982), there was Les Vilains (1979), an adaptation of work by the sixteenth-century Italian playwright Ruzante, as was La Fiorina (1989). TRAC productions have also brought attention to place through an emphasis on the folk traditions of a particular region, chosen because

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they are held to be most representative of popular identity. “The setting is Naples,” Molière tells us at the beginning of Les Fourberies de Scapin (which can be translated as “Scapin’s Deceits”). After this, with the exception of references to offshore galley ships, the play could take place anywhere. The TRAC production (1993) highlighted Naples through folk music, costumes, and staging components (including a wooden boat and a painted backdrop). These elements were central to the shifts in tone and mood in the production. For example, a southern Italian ballad and mandolin music accompanied a scene on a stage lit only by a tiny spot on the two young lovers. The goal was both to remain faithful to the spirit and efficacy of the play as comedy and to create a unique perspective on it by emphasizing popular and, where possible, rural themes. In many other TRAC productions of classics of the French canon, the geographic setting of the play has been highlighted. In the 2008 adaptation of Monsieur Chasse! (Monsieur Goes Hunting!), a play by Georges Feydeau, the troupe set the play in Marseille and performed it there (it was originally set in Paris although the specific setting is not usually highlighted). The TRAC ’s production, set in the late nineteenth century when the play was written, includes cabaret music of the era. Another important way that the troupe has addressed place in the content of its theatre is through language. The La Fiorina production that I accompanied on a tour to Hungary in 1992 included short passages in Spanish, Italian, German, Provençal, and one phrase in Hungarian. Many recent productions, including the Feydeau play (Monsieur Chasse!), have included passages in Provençal. Some of the current troupe members were part of an all-Provençal troupe in the 1970s, Lou Viro. My friend Aline had performed with them. Some, such as Coco Bonzom and Eliane Goudet, also occasionally perform stories in Provençal as part of the folk tradition of contes and conteurs in France. The TRAC has staged many classics of the theatre repertory often performed in France. These include several Molière plays in addition to Les Fourberies de Scapin: L’Avare (The Miser, 2003), Dom Juan (2005), and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman, 2009). The troupe has also performed Brecht’s Mother Courage (1984), Hamlet (1986), Beckett’s Endgame (1988) and Waiting for Godot (1996), Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard (1994), plays by Labiche including Un Chapeau de Paille d’Italie (The Italian Straw Hat, 1997), and Com’médiévale based on Mistero Buffo by Dario Fo (1999). The troupe has also adapted many novels for the

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stage; some of the resulting plays include Robinson ou la Femme Île (1981) and Mon Ami Pierrot from works by Michel Tournier, Alexis Zorba (1987) from a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza (1992) from Cervantes, and Le Premier Homme (The First Man, 1998) based on an unfinished novel by Albert Camus. The troupe has also created two works entitled Prova d’Orchestre (1991) and Hommage à Fellini (2000) based on films by Fellini, a trilogy of plays based on works by Jean Giono (1995), and Le Rapport (2001), a play about the inequalities engendered by globalization based on a book by Susan George. The TRAC repertory includes plays by regional authors such as Serge Bec’s Le Bouc de Monsieur le Maire (1994), La Chichòla (1996) by Roger Pasturel, and Mon Théâtre d’Ombres (2003) by Pierre Magnan. Chivau Frus (2007) is an original play by Siano about medieval jousting performances between neighbouring towns in the Comtat Venaissin part of Provence that took place up until the nineteenth century. The Visites en Scène program that the TRAC has taken part in has involved staging aspects of the history of some of the small towns in the area for tourists and other spectators. There has also been an explicit focus on aspects of nature and geography in the area, with works such as Le Ventoux par Mots et Musiques (1997), a play about the Ventoux mountain based on music and literature devoted to it, and Entrelacs (2008), a play about the social importance of grapes and olives in the Mediterranean region. Generally, historical plays have been an important part of the TRAC repertory. These include, for example, Louise Michel ou la Révolution Généreuse (Louise Michel or the Generous Revolution, 1989), the TRAC ’s production commemorating the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Of the three productions I discuss below, the first two illustrate the TRAC emphasis on history and are both large productions that incorporate a broad range of amateur participants. These are Colporteurs d’Histoire III (2007) and eXX iL s (2007). The latter addresses immigration to the area while the former is the third part of a series devoted to “the singers of freedom,” the travelling salesmen who carried information and music to isolated parts of rural France, especially in the nineteenth century. The third play, Mon Théâtre d’Ombres (2003) is a smaller production that has toured more. It is a play by a regional author that includes many passages in the Provençal language. In all three, music is an important component of the overall production and has served, more or less depending on the play and song, to signal historical and geographic setting.

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Colporteurs d’Histoire III : Les Chansonniers de la Liberté (Bearers of History III : Singers of Freedom) — From the Revolution to the Commune Staging French history: A TR AC perspective Bringing the colporteurs back to life is to revisit history through the images fluctuating between myth and reality; it is to follow, step by step, the wandering parole [spoken word] on the roads of nostalgia; and it is also to perform and sing with the ghosts of the past without which human reason cannot get by. (Vincent Siano, Colporteurs program)

This description draws out two key themes of the play: 1) popular song as an alternative mode of expression and intervention into national politics and society, a voice distinct from more official and accepted media for the expression of political views, and 2) the history of France as a struggle to achieve freedom of expression. As a review in the regional newspaper Vaucluse Matin described it, The play represents a century of history, with multiple twists and changes of regime, where the fight for freedom is omnipresent in spite of censorship, absolutism, and repression. (Vaucluse Matin, January 26, 2008)

The term colporteur refers to a peddler, especially between the Middle Ages and the end of the nineteenth century. Initially, it referred to itinerant peddlers who carried their possessions on their backs and travelled from town to town where they hawked their goods in the street. They were an important source of information in rural towns. Each trade had an identifying cry—a combination of words and a distinctive tune. In the nineteenth century, the term came to refer to peddlers in general and, by extension, to the poor and “dangerous classes” (Boutin 2005).4 A focus on popular song5 rather than on written accounts by historians is the means for Siano to recount the history of France from a grassroots perspective. Parts I and II of Colporteurs addressed the period between the year 1000 and the French Revolution. Part III begins with the Revolution and continues up to the events of the Siege and Commune of 1870–71, when a revolt in Paris established (briefly) a revolutionary government in the city. The play includes more than 30 songs written between 1730 and 1871, put into historical context through staging and scenes written by Siano. The cast was made up of 30 participants, ranging in age from 10 to 74. Eight ten-year-olds from the Beaumes de Venise

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elementary school were part of the cast. Siano’s staging of the play was less elaborate than in other productions, in part because of the great number of participants and in part, too, because there were many specialists participating, each of whom contributed something to the acting, singing, and choreography onstage. In the following discussion of the play, I focus primarily on Siano’s original text and the words of the songs in the play. I then turn to a consideration of the attitudes of the performers toward their participation and to the ways this production worked to create social solidarity and a sense of belonging. The musical focus on the colporteurs and popular song was intended to bring history alive in a way not possible through simply reading the words of the songs or hearing recordings. By staging the songs, they were put in their historical context and given an immediacy through performance. By “performing history,” to draw on the formulation of Freddie Rokem,6 the troupe both created a public engagement with a national political heritage and presented its own perspective on it. The play begins and ends with a focus on fear. The very first line of the play asks “Could fear be the subterranean motor of history?” In this brief prologue, fear is presented as a means of control for the powerful, whether conceived in terms of politics, religion, or wealth. People of small towns, people of cities, people of the Earth and of the Moon, when you feel fear coming, ask yourselves who profits from it. Let’s shake ourselves out of it, damn it! (que diable)

Although the link to the present is not made explicitly in the play, fear of insecurity was a central concern in the presidential campaigns of 2002 and 2007, when media depictions of violence and instability in the banlieues contributed to anxieties about security in French cities (Body-Gendrot 2008; see also Body-Gendrot 1996). The fear of terrorism and the fear of fundamentalist Islam must also be considered part of the recent context of fear to which this play makes a veiled reference. After speaking against the manipulation of fears, the play turns to the fear of alternative voices felt by those in positions of authority and asks this question: “Based on what legitimacy have the censors and fear mongers asserted their power?” In the rest of the play that follows, two themes emerge as central: the history of France as the progressive gain in freedom of expression and the distinctive perspective on history voiced in popular song. It is important to note here (as Daniel Giusiano, one of the cast members, did in describing the play) that popular song is not presented solely as

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a medium of expression for a leftist perspective. It is presented rather as a site of expression for opposed views, a site of debate at times, during an era when literacy was not widespread and censorship was often strictly enforced. What the play highlights is the battle between freedom of expression and censorship for the “songwriters of freedom,” as the play’s subtitle refers to them. It is specifically focused on the history of France and, where possible, emphasizes local parts of this national narrative. Siano’s text underlines the power and multiple voices present in popular song. The songs about the French Revolution, for example, begin with the pro-monarchy “Lament for Louis XVI ,” sung in alternation and in confrontation with a parody of the same song, both written in 1793. Another song from the Revolution (“Le Départ,” 1794) was a battle hymn written to commemorate the taking of the Bastille. The spoken text introducing a song about two revolutionary heroes points to the local identity of one of them and the fact that his acts of heroism occurred nearby. A stone’s throw away from you, the little Avignonnais Joseph Agricole Viala holds firm, all of 13 years old, against the counter-revolutionaries from Marseille who are trying to cross the Durance River.

After recounting Joseph Viala’s exploit (cutting the ropes of a pontoon that would have allowed the Marseillais to cross the river), another line points to the role of popular song in shaping a national narrative about revolutionary sacrifice: “What good is a sacrifice if the martyr doesn’t have his song?” The play also touches upon the role of song in battle, as “the true patriot fights on all fronts and marches sometimes to the sound of a cannon, sometimes to the refrain of a song, or both at the same time.” The song “Le Départ” represents the official voice of the revolutionary government in 1794 seeking to establish legitimacy for the new republic in the face of domestic and foreign enemies. Other songs in the play present other perspectives. “Le Directoire,” for example, criticizes the government of five directors (1795–99) that took power after Robespierre was executed. The song begins by celebrating the government and calling for applause because it has brought forth something previously unknown to history: “five new kings who govern the French.” But the song is not anti-revolutionary; it claims rather that the people have been deceived and that the five kings have turned France away from the ideals of the Republic. Another song, “Les Patentes” by Louis Ange Pitou (1797), is

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decidedly royalist and resulted in Pitou’s deportation from France to Cayenne (he was pardoned in 1803 under the Consulate, headed by Napoleon). The song addresses “Republicans, aristocrats, terrorists,” and “drinkers of blood,” saying they will all be perfect democrats if they “give us back our money.” An important part of these songs (and emphasized in the text written by Siano) is the censorship these songwriters faced, regardless of their political position. One song “Le Roi d’Yvetot” (“The King of Yvetot”), popular after it came out in 1813, was a veiled critique of Napoleon in which the praise of a relatively obscure king of the past describes qualities at the exact opposite of Napoleon’s reputation. He is “not well known in history” and “sleeps well without glory,” and he was crowned by a peasant girl (rather than by the pope). Given that the songwriter (Pierre-Jean de Béranger) was well known, the song risked incurring the wrath of censors. The play also draws attention to the relationship between government control of public speech about sex and political dissent. Mentioning the threat of political censorship, one actor prepares the singing of the song “Lisa,” written by Emilie Debraux (1823), by describing it as an homage to the “bonnet” (a slang term referring to a condom). The play underlines popular song’s importance as a medium of free expression, notably with reference to the goguettes (coffeehouses) in Paris and other cities. It also emphasizes the role of the colporteurs as a crucial link between urban and rural life in the nineteenth century. We cry, we laugh in the goguettes. What moving melodies, what biting irony too! What problems for the owners of the establishments. And for us, the colporteurs of songs, who carry them outside Paris. How else could they become popular without us as intermediaries?

The production also included a feminist version of the French national anthem. Sung to the same tune, “La Marseillaise des Cotillons” (“The Marseillaise of the Petticoats”) was written in 1848 during the days of revolt leading to the establishment of the Second Republic. “Man,” the words say, “this wild despot” took care to proclaim his rights: “let us create rights of our own.” Colporteurs also includes the pacifist song “Le Conscrit de Languedoc” (“The Conscript of Languedoc”), which was sung in the Occitan language in the play. The song dates back to 1810, the period of the Napoleonic wars. It was still sung by soldiers in World War I. The song underlines the anti-war attitudes often repressed by government censors during World War I (see Rearick 1997). The play returns

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Scene from Les Colporteurs with red, white, and blue banners echoing the colours of the French flag. Photo by Daniel Giusiano.

to the theme of fear at the end when the actors arrive at the Commune, noting the rush of support for it in Paris “but also in Lyon, in Marseille”: The government and the bourgeoisie fear the overflow of the starving poor. Even under enemy fire, it is once again the “populace” they fear. . . . The curtain goes up on a deliberate tragedy. And we lower ours . . . with the poet worker Jean-Baptiste Clément, who dedicated this song to an ambulance driver of the Commune and who, in his poverty, gave up his copyright in exchange for a heavy coat.

The play concludes with one of the most well-known songs in the production—“Le Temps des Cerises” (“The Time of the Cherries”)—performed by the entire cast filling up the stage and singing, chorus like, on graded platforms. Much of the text of this play was sung with most of the cast members on stage. One of the more striking visual tableaux was the unfurling of banners at certain points in the play. A white banner was brought out during the song devoted to Louis XVI , as the white flag was traditionally associated with the Bourbon dynasty, and blue and red banners were brought out and unfurled along with the white one during the singing of the “La Marseillaise des Cotillons.” These three horizontal banners suggested the French tricolour flag. Much of the play was a series of powerful set pieces of choral singing. Although there were acted scenes in which actors sometimes performed recognizable figures from

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history, the primary emphasis was not on individual characters but on collective solidarity. The same actor did not perform Napoleon in two succeeding scenes about him, for example. There was no continuity with actors and the characters performed from one scene to the next. There was no painted screen behind the actors: all was done to put the emphasis squarely on them. At the performance in a field on the middle of a high bluff in Redortiers, there was nothing but black sky behind the singers. Between songs, individuals would take turns stepping forward to provide narration about a particular period and introduce the next song. In each of these introductions, the given actor took on the role of narrator, thus constantly moving the spectator back and forth between the historical moment and our perspective on it today. Drawing on the ideas of Brecht and Mnouchkine in staging plays about history, the TRAC here focuses on the participation in history of popular song and amateur theatre practitioners today. A direct parallel is drawn between the colporteurs, bearers of an alternative mode of expression about current events, and amateur theatre practitioners today. These latter, too, are taking hold of an alternative mode of communication, contributing to a broader sphere of free public expression, and refusing to accept passively the diverse messages of fear that serve to mobilize political opinion. Colporteurs presented amateur theatre participants as bearers of history, with the performance setting a site for the enactment of a TRAC perspective on national history and its implications for conditions today. Social solidarity through theatre practice in Les Colporteurs de l’Histoire The above section describes the content of one TRAC production and depicts amateur theatre practitioners as actors collectively presenting a perspective on politics and history. I do not pretend here that each of the participants held exactly the same interpretation of the texts performed or even necessarily understood them in the same way. But they do all participate in a public forum for the expression of democratic values, and they also contribute to a shared sociability that extends beyond the theatre and into their daily lives. Much of their theatre practice is devoted to building “symbolic consensus” rather than “cultural consensus” to draw on the distinction succinctly captured in James Fernandez’s 1965 article on religious ritual among the Fang peoples of northern Gabon. Fernandez noted that all those who danced and took part in other collective rituals believed that their participation led to a state of nlem mvore (one-heartedness). Because it was established through a particular ritual, Fernandez sees nlem mvore as a case of symbolic consensus and notes

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that it indicates a high degree of social solidarity among participants. But this did not imply a common interpretation of the symbols used in the rituals: “what we find, ideologically . . . is a congeries of purposes” (Fernandez 1965:906). Indeed, he describes a resistance to exploring differences in interpretation and the feeling that doing so might undermine the social solidarity sought. Similarly, I often found TRAC members reluctant to go too deeply into disagreements about the meaning of key shared terms such as popular education or cultural animation. Asked why he thought popular education was important, one man shook his head and smiled, saying, “You’ll have to ask Vincent.” What was deemed most important was the social unity, the “doing together.” Although leaders elaborated a description of their work that articulated with a national discourse on culture, most participants were happy to simply take part. This does not mean that social solidarity was the only aspect that was important. As noted in the introduction, one musician told me that the theatre was a pretext for him: “For me, it is the people.” But when I followed up and asked whether it would be the same if he were involved in sports or hiking, for example, he stared at me and said, “You’re joking, right?” Yes, he was there for the social aspect, but it would not have been meaningful to him had it not been part of an arts project. What troupe members appreciated about the TRAC was its engagement with a creative arts tradition and its broader social mission, even though they did not always agree on the details of how that tradition and that mission should be interpreted. What joined their enthusiasm for creating a work of art together and their belief in a social mission for the troupe was a vision of arts practice as a medium for cultivating social solidarity. In their descriptions of the Colporteurs production, the participants move between the aesthetic and social aspects, often integrating the two in their accounts. As a Ministry of Youth and Sports production workshop,7 Colporteurs included outside specialists who were brought in to work with the cast members. Ivo Mentens, a professional with international experience, was responsible for the direction of the actors. Sylvia Cimino was responsible for movement and choreography. Elisabeth Meunier directed all music, including individual and choral singing arrangements. Two specialists in acrobatics also took part. All of these specialists contributed to the learning experience for participants, as did the input of Siano, who wrote the text for the dramatic sequences and was the overall director making staging decisions. The specialists all emphasized the importance of working with others, each one underlining aspects of this with regard to his or her area of expertise. Silvia Cimino spoke of her responsibility for the

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body (a theme pursued more fully in Chapter 6) and everything concerning physical movement and gestures. The goal is for a person to feel their body, to know their body, and to get to the point where they can draw on the things that come from the body. And then I work a lot on the group with respect to listening: the act of performing together, listening to one another —to start and finish together. And then, too, the work between and across bodies—to touch one another, to lean on another body. To be able then afterwards to find things, to produce things. So, in the end, it is really work that goes from the individual to the group, to the collectivity.

Both the specialists and the participants often drew connections or distinctions between the stage experience and life off stage. Ivo Mentz described the challenges of performance and underlined the differences between “performing” at home in one’s kitchen and on stage, noting that, in this production, the actors would have the additional challenge of acting some scenes with masks. He added that the main goal was that the participants take away something of the experience beyond the stage. Because for them this is after all a learning experience. Because these are small discoveries that will open doors for them. And I think in daily life, too. That is why I believe this work is so interesting. It is not to create a “super show” but to open those small doors.

Many of the participants emphasized the confidence they had gained. Véronique, for example, a young woman in her thirties, described her fear of not finding the right note to begin her flute solos. At the beginning, you tell yourself, “I’ll never get it.” And then, in the end, we have a tremendous capacity. It comes to you of its own accord.

Two retired women, Florence and Nicole, were lucid about what they were able to achieve on stage. Florence said that the biggest challenge for her was developing the theatrical techniques so that she could bring out the text in the most fitting (juste) way possible. “And well, we don’t always get there,” she said, smiling. But she seemed clearly proud of what she had done, as did Nicole, who added, “It’s true that here we are

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doing things that we never thought we were capable of before.” Lou, a teenager, saw his progress in developing theatre skills as directly linked to his self-assurance. You have to learn how to breathe well and to control your emotions. You have to meet the gaze of the audience. I think that the more I meet challenges, the more I will learn and thus the more I will gain confidence in myself.

The performers emphasized the importance of the audience. It is what brought Daniel Giusiano back to the TRAC . In the 1970s, he acted in many amateur productions and was part of Fracasse and the creation of the TRAC in 1979. He stopped performing to devote himself to his work as an elementary school teacher. Retired in 1999, he has returned to the TRAC , where his excellent singing voice has been especially appreciated in productions such as eXX iL s and Colporteurs. “In general,” Daniel explained, “as soon as there is an audience, it becomes magic. Otherwise, we just wouldn’t do theatre.” One teenage girl emphasized how special it was to meet the audience and speak with audience members afterward. We say to ourselves after the show sometimes “It’s not very good, et cetera,” and then at the end people tell us “it was super, you did good work!” and all. And then, you feel like you come alive again. It’s good.

All of the “Youth and Sports” production workshops were, of course, intended for young people, but TRAC productions have been especially focused on intergenerational exchanges, as was Colporteurs in particular. As Siano noted in a newspaper article about the production The idea for us was to realize an intergenerational cultural adventure. All ages are represented in this creation, and the participation of the primary school children was a highlight of this creation. (Vaucluse Matin, January 26, 2008)

Just as Silvia Cimino emphasized the progression from the individual to the collective in her movement work, many of the participants in Colporteurs spoke of a gradual movement toward social cohesion within the production. According to TRAC president Jean-Luc Blatière, Sometimes, it was a little bit like each one was trying to find their way, especially the young people. They were coming into the group

Performing “citizens’ theatre” 135 [many of the older cast members had already performed in Parts I and II ], so they wanted to know where to situate themselves. But afterward, there is a complicity that took shape—and after 10 rehearsals, it was complete osmosis for everyone.

Teenagers Prune and Soline echoed this view. Prune, who already had theatre experience, said that it was good to work with different people, not just among teenagers. Soline explained: Because it teaches us tons (vachement de choses). They explain things to us—well, like from their experience and all—so, yes, myself, I prefer it.

Soline added, “We are integrated—well the little ones—it’s a lot better. It’s very diverse. It’s super nice, I find.” She nodded and smiled and repeated again, a little softer, “It’s super nice.” There is a key difference between the younger and older members in discussing the unifying quality of TRAC practice. For the older members, this was familiar territory. They describe the younger members needing to “find their way” before things jelled. This is testament to the existence of a shared set of understandings about working together toward a common goal in the production workshop process. Although the cross-generational exchanges were highlighted in the Colporteurs production, these have also been important in other TRAC productions. The cultivation of collective solidarity in the arts practice of TRAC members has also been important more generally, as has the acknowledgment of the influence of this practice beyond the world of the theatre.

eXXi Ls Like Colporteurs, eXX iL s was created during a Ministry of Youth and Sports production workshop.8 Emerging from, as the program put it, “our reflection on migratory phenomena,” eXX iL s was composed of two parts. The first part was written by Vincent Siano and was entitled “The Train and Bread.” It addressed the first half of the twentieth century (XX ème siècle), which is why the word “exiles” is spelled the way it is in the play’s title. As noted earlier, Siano grew up in southern Italy in a small town close to Naples. Until the age of nine, he took the train to travel in the summer to stay with his father who lived and worked in France in the Alps of Haute Provence, and it is this train ride that inspired the first half

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of the play. The second half of the play is called “A sort of trench.” It is a staging of a text by Italian poet and writer Erri de Luca from the French translation (En haut à gauche) of his book In alto a sinistra (which means, in English, “up above on the left”). The story is based on de Luca’s experiences as a political refugee working in Paris. eXX iL s presented a perspective on migration and immigration centring on the tragic condition of people led to take great risks and face humiliation in order to escape poverty. “We began,” Siano has said, “with the case of these Chinese immigrants in England.” He referred to the deaths of 58 Chinese people in the back of a truck in Dover in the summer of 2000. The truck driver had closed the air vents during the five-hour ferry crossing. The truck driver was part of a worldwide people smuggling operation, and the immigrants had each paid 20,000 pounds to “the Chinese criminal underworld” for the opportunity (BBC 2001). Although the case is not explicitly mentioned in the play, its influence is present in the emphasis on the broader economic relations shaping conditions for migrants and immigrants. In the program, Siano states that these conditions have become especially precarious in recent years and asks, Aren’t they the “playthings,” the victims both of the sellers of illusions and of global economic stakes, the mastery of which escapes all migration policy?

The play includes many themes common to other portraits of immigration, such as the conflict between the older generation still attached to the country of origin and a younger generation that sees the new country as a place of opportunity for change. “They don’t have to accept and tolerate the whims of our old people,” says one young man. And, when he is told, “Our traditions don’t concern them,” he replies, “They aren’t ours anymore. At least, not mine.” The efforts by the older generation to control the younger generation are also evident in the relationship between a young man and the woman he loves, a relationship shown in the first part of the play. She rejects him because of the eyes of all of those in the train with them, but it is the eyes of her family that concern her most. One of the clearest expressions of the older generation is the Grandma Proverb character, who slips in a proverb “pretty much whenever I can,” as the actress playing the role noted. These proverbs are the expression of a rural fatalism, which Eugen Weber (1976:18–19) describes as common in France in the nineteenth century. This character’s aphorisms include the following:

Performing “citizens’ theatre” 137 To be a boss, you have to be born a boss. Money makes money, fleas make fleas.

This is the same kind of fatalism described by Siano in his thesis, a fatalism he associates with the lack of encouragement given to young people in their education. The underlying message is that one should make do and cope the best one can rather than try to reach beyond what is possible, as shown in a few more of Grandma Proverb’s phrases: If the bed is narrow, sleep in the middle. Don’t act like the donkey who wants to resemble the horse.

This same fatalism is often a part of the experience of first-generation immigrants. In Yamina Benguigui’s sweeping portrait of post–World II North African immigration to France, Immigrant Memories—The North African Inheritance (1997b), one of her interviewees recounts one of his father’s favourite expressions: “Open your mouth, and you’ll catch flies.” A similar message is voiced in eXX iL s. Stay in your place, and do your work; that’s what guarantees our freedom. If you have the pretention to ask for more than is your due, people will make you feel that you’re not at home.

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Immigrants on a train in the first part of eXX iL s, “The Train and Bread.” Photo by Daniel Giusiano.

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In the case of both this and the “open your mouth” line, the message is not just a warning about the futility of complaining; it concerns the dangers of attracting unwelcome attention. What emerges most strongly from Benguigui’s account of generational conflict between the “fathers,” who had to fight racism and poverty to establish a foothold, and their children is the refusal of the younger generation to accept the routine racism, insults, and degradation suffered by their parents. They refuse to remain quietly on the fringes of society, fearful that protest or complaint will exclude them completely. The TRAC’s view of immigration differs from that portrayed in many fictionalized treatments in that it is not centred on one group defined by ethnicity or national origin. Instead, it emphasizes the shared economic hardships facing migrants and immigrants. The play includes songs from many countries and in many languages (although most of the “foreign” songs performed include both original foreign language lyrics and some lyrics translated into French). Some of these songs are from Italy, Romania, Greece, Spain, and Armenia, and there are songs in French about the Comoros Islands, Argentina, Algeria, Turkey, Portugal, Bulgaria, Mali, and France. The play describes the dangerous situation of migrants today as due to global economic inequalities. After the times of the adventurous migrations of pioneers and of a desired immigration inserted into the machinery of industrialization, comes the time of clandestine workers more or less necessary to the development of unregulated globalization. (TRAC 2006)

Watching the play, the spectator is frequently reminded of the paradoxes and effects of this broader context. Talking about the sun, one character speaks of the bad reputation it gives to those living in the south. To hear them talk, when it doesn’t make us lazy, it drives us crazy, no? It’s jealousy on the part of those who don’t have any sun. Don’t worry about them; they have the means to buy it for themselves. You go up there and cripple yourself at work or blacken yourself at the bottom of mines; they come down to our place to tan their backsides on the beaches.

Although much of the play clearly echoes the experience of Vincent Siano himself, the intent was to make reference to the inequalities of north–south relations more generally and to situate these with respect to:

Performing “citizens’ theatre” 139 universal themes linked to economic migration: uprootedness, abandonment, nostalgia, fear, hope, difference, tradition, change, identity, work . . . without forgetting the whims of life and the sense of humour! The characters, émigrés from a South (real and symbolic), tell about themselves in the corridor of a train car, in conversation and songs. Songs, languages of the émigrés of the world, on their way to a dream that could be . . . France. (TRAC 2006)

Here, the specifically national experience of immigration to France is portrayed as part of the broader historical conditions dividing a wealthy north and poor south. In the text for the first half of the play, Siano underlines this theme in a key passage. One of the characters refers to the national border those on the train are getting ready to cross and ends up saying (in spite of the stated fears of all on the train) that it is of little importance compared to another, more enduring border. Why cross this goddamn (foutue) border? Today it is there; tomorrow it will be somewhere else. And as long as there is a goddamn line of demarcation between wealth and poverty, as long as there will be people from the wrong side, as long as there will be human beings who are victims of this impalpable trace that people are ready to kill one another over, well, there will be crazy people like us who will make our way toward this elusive wire in the hope of reaching it and especially going beyond.

Immigration here is viewed primarily in economic rather than ethnic terms.9 What distinguishes immigrants from others is poverty rather than an identity based on race, religion, or national origins. It might be argued that, if the goal were to create a depiction of immigration particularly meaningful in France today, it would make sense to focus more on the singularity of North African immigration. But the point was precisely to show the latter as part of a much broader phenomenon, to show the commonalities between those of North African descent and those of the many other origins that make up the French population as a whole. Specialists brought in to discuss immigration with workshop participants included Abdellatif Dehy (of Moroccan heritage) and Sahouda Maallem (of Algerian heritage). By presenting the problems of immigrants as an experience shared by many, the TRAC ’s portrait of immigration to France expresses solidarity with those in France (of North African descent) most commonly labelled “immigrants,” even

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if they were born in France. The TRAC ’s approach also undercuts the argument that recent immigration from North Africa represents a fundamental departure from the immigration of earlier groups. The idea that this latest group cannot or does not want to integrate into French society because of cultural differences too great to overcome is often cited by the National Front and those sharing that party’s views to justify the conclusion that those of North African descent in France are not really French. As Gérard Noiriel has noted, the theme of the “radical foreignness of the newcomer” has a long history in France. Before World War II , it was Italians who were often considered impossible to assimilate, in contrast to Belgians who where held to have the same culture as the French (Noiriel 1985:143). Since the nineteenth century, Noiriel notes, there has always been a “second generation,” a group considered problematic in its ability to adapt to French culture. And, of course, first generations continue to arrive, the primo-arrivants of the Théâtre de la Mer project described in Chapter 4 being part of one recent wave. Although the TRAC ’s production was not set in present-day France, there were references to recent events. At one point in the play, one of the characters calls out “We are not scum!”—using the same term (“racaille”) employed by Nicolas Sarkozy in referring to the rioters of 2005. There is very little in the way of celebrating the ongoing memory of distinctive groups defined according to immigrant origins in this production. The primary vector of such memory is song—it is in the different songs, sung in their original language as much as possible, that these diverse origins are most powerfully present in the play. The program included the names of each song in French and in the original language, as well as each song’s country of origin. But the great majority of the songs are sung chorally by all the actors. They are not, in other words, a means of marking difference within the group but are rather a collective acknowledgment and performance of the rich diversity of cultural influences shared by the group as a whole. As in Colporteurs, the pursuit of freedom is an important theme. The first half of eXXiL s ends with one of the characters calling out “To liberty!” before the lights drop. The staging of the play, with its choral arrangements and ensemble acting, emphasizes the shared experience of all rather than the different origins of the immigrants or the identity of the individual alone. “Alone, I am nothing,” says one character in the “Train and Bread” part of the play. Here, it is the universal conflict between wealth and poverty that is emphasized, with social solidarity promoted as the only possible response.

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Social solidarity through theatre practice in eXX iL s Like Colporteurs, eXX iL s was created through the support of a Ministry of Youth and Sports production grant and involved a period of preparation (singing and movement workshops and rehearsals) that lasted a little over a year. Two of the specialists who contributed to Colporteurs also worked with the actors and musicians of eXX iL s: Elisabeth Meunier for music, especially choral arrangements, and Silvia Cimino for movement. Twenty-eight people participated as actors and musicians. I first saw the play performed at the Social and Cultural Centre of the Barbière neighbourhood.10 This is one of the peripheral neighbourhoods outside Avignon’s walls, areas inhabited by a high proportion of immigrants and those whose parents were immigrants. These big productions of the TRAC are especially illustrative of the broadly inclusive goals of social and cultural centres like the one in the Barbière. Anyone who wants to participate can—as Elisabeth Meunier noted with regard to the singing workshops: “The only prerequisite is to want to sing.” Actors who demonstrate a willingness to try are especially encouraged. “I do not have the skill of a singer,” said Eric Burali with a smile. “But I give all that I have to give, and I try to get through it the best I can.” As with Colporteurs, there were participants of many ages, but there were also many relatives involved in eXX iL s. Cathy Arnaud’s daughter, Laure, worked with her on the make-up. Joelle Arduin and her 10-yearold daughter both performed, as did Mario Leccia and his father, Marcel, who noted, “It is through my sons that I came, strangely enough, to the theatre. One learns a lot from one’s children.” For many of the participants, the production was a way of honouring a relative. Kheira Soufi and her son Belkhacem both participated as actors: “It stirs up interior memories, and it is a true story with our family—his grandparents,” she said, pointing to her son. Stéphanie Morel spoke of the challenges that the play represented but then explained with reference to her family and their Armenian origins that it was worth it. I really wanted to do it but was afraid that it wouldn’t come out or that it would come out badly or that it would come out in squawks, and each time I do it I’m still afraid but also very happy because it is a story for me, a way to rediscover my roots and to speak of a person in my family who has disappeared—who is my grandmother.

There was, then, for many of the participants a deeply personal resonance in the play, something that they both acknowledged and needed

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to step back from in order to work with the others. Actor Aude Laine explained that it was challenging because each person must find his place, and you have to succeed in doing it with everyone and make sure that everyone manages to be satisfied (trouver son compte) at the same time, and it’s true that it’s difficult.

Many aspects of the staging reinforced the collective aspect of the singing and acting. Almost all of the actors were on stage most of the time. In the first part of the play, the train was symbolized by a line of lights downstage, close to the audience. Behind this line, the actors sat or stood or moved down the “corridor” when they were not all singing together. There were many scenes in which several actors performed with synchronized motions. At the beginning of the second part of the play, for example, several men act out workers digging in a deep trench. They wear light work clothes and are barefoot, holding wooden poles, and each is lit in soft light leaving shadows. In front of each is a round flat “drum” that resounds as they periodically pound in unison between the lines spoken alternately by the men. A lone flute plays a haunting tune, and the music, movements, and spoken lines are all carefully coordinated. In the second part of the play, the characters are no longer on a train, but there are frequent tableaux in which huddled people (mothers and children, men hunched over) spread out upstage and form a backdrop to songs or action taking place downstage. The effect of so many people on the stage and of the settings, such as the men in the trench with “just enough room to turn around in,” creates a powerfully claustrophobic impression. As Daniel Giusiano notes, We are shut in both in the sense that the immigrant worker is stuck in his trench and in the way other characters are shut in, women are shut in. . . .

Here, as with Colporteurs, the music helped enormously to brighten the mood, to balance things, as Siano put it in the program. Accordion, guitar, flute, and mandolin were played, and many of these songs were upbeat choral pieces. The eXX iL s participants were especially enthusiastic in describing the group dynamic of this play:

Performing “citizens’ theatre” 143 It is truly an enormous pleasure for me to work in this climate, let’s say amateur, but there is truly something, an ambiance, something that I haven’t found elsewhere up to now. (Mario Leccia) I have never had an experience like that, with 28 people, and it’s true that it’s pretty interesting after all; one learns a lot about oneself and about others. It’s enriching. (Actor Elsa Kmiec) It is a human adventure with different ages, people who come from everywhere, and I learned a lot of things. I find that there is a richness in this group that is enormous—we all go toward the same goal. I think we share the pleasure of being together for this goal, and that is what dominates. (Actor Stéphanie Morel)

In the latter two statements, we see the integration of learning in the artistic project linked to the process of learning about others. Stéphanie Morel sees the common goal and working toward it as responsible for the unity within the group. As with nlem mvore (one-heartedness), this is not an ideological unity but a social unity obtained through collective performance. Most troupe members did not readily speak of specific French policies regarding immigration, although Mourad Fodal noted, One has to say that France is a welcoming country. You have to say that first—it’s a welcoming country, a place of mixing. There is something extraordinary in this country.

Although the unifying quality of this TRAC production is not to be found in consensus about political ideology, the ideas expressed in the play nonetheless provoked a powerful public reaction from at least one of its audience members, who was, albeit, an involuntary spectator. Daniel Giusiano told me about a performance of eXX iL s in Saint Geniez, a tiny town high in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department. While most of the audience received the play enthusiastically in the public square where it was performed, one man who owned a bar-café on the other side of the square came out and yelled several anti-immigrant comments during the show, among them “Go back home!” and “Don’t we have enough?” The show was warmly received by most of the residents, and this has not occurred in returns to the town. Saint Geniez is one of many new sites where the TRAC has increasingly performed in the last few years, especially with small touring productions such as Mon Théâtre d’Ombres.

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Mon Théâtre d’Ombres (My Shadow Puppet Theatre) The “Magnan plays,” as the performers sometimes referred to them, are not in the least bit explicitly political or educational. The program of the play includes a brief paragraph from the preface to a 2001 novel in which Pierre Magnan describes himself in the third person: “He is apolitical, asocial, atrabilaire (irritable), agnostic, and, if one may dare to write it, aphilosophical.” But the touring of the TRAC with plays such as Mon Théâtre d’Ombres is nonetheless very much related to the troupe’s broader project of popular education. Magnan is an author of detective stories set in the towns of his native Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region, such as Forcalquier, Sisteron, Digne, and Banon. As with many works of detective fiction, there is great attention to place in Magnan’s work. We see in this production the TRAC ’s focus on the social environment in which it performs, especially on the singular qualities of rural Provence. And, although quite different in content from plays such as Colporteurs or eXX iL s, the Magnan plays were performed in some of the same small towns where these other two plays were performed. Vincent Siano had long admired the work of Magnan and wanted to either stage a play of his or adapt one of his novels for the stage. He contacted Magnan, who came to a performance of the troupe in July of 2002. The show was in Redortiers, one of the tiniest places I had ever seen the TRAC perform. Redortiers is in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department. It sits on a bluff high in the middle of lavender country and, in the right season, is surrounded by the scent and colours not only of that flower but also of thyme, rosemary, and other herbs as well. The first time I arrived there in a car with Vincent Siano, he told me to look at the road sign announcing the town. Nothing but green fields rolled by until 50 yards later, when we passed another sign with the name on it crossed out—indicating that we were now leaving Redortiers. In fact, the “town” is really more a collection of people surrounding the territory designated as the municipality. According to the 2006 census, there are 80 inhabitants, 9 more than there were in 1990, but 5 fewer than there were in 1975.11 In the summer of 2002, the TRAC performed Colporteurs d’Histoire I (from the year 1000 to Joan of Arc) in Redortiers. After he saw the show and met the actors, Pierre Magnan told them he would be happy if they would stage some of the radio plays he had recently published. In a short description for the show’s program, Pierre Magnan described his meeting with the troupe. Last year, in the freezing cold at 1,200 metres altitude, on the plateau of the Contadour one night in July, I met Vincent Siano and his troupe,

Performing “citizens’ theatre” 145 and I was immediately won over by their enthusiasm and their skill. The “house” was packed: understand by that a broad meadow of 500 metres square filled with more than 150 people dressed like freezing mountain climbers but captivated all the same and who laughed at the right times even though their teeth chattered as they did. A monumental bubbling soupe au pistou, prepared according to the techniques of the art and presented as a welcome to the troupe, finished off this fine performance. Right away I said to myself that, if these actors full of the fire of inspiration truly wanted to do me the honour of performing my work, I would be extremely pleased. And now, dramatic author, I am like a poor beginning writer who has just published his first book. Audience, have pity on me! (TRAC 2007)

I was in Redortiers in 2003 for the first performance there of the Magnan plays. I remember the bubbling soupe au pistou, and it was indeed extraordinary. Before the show, I went inside a kitchen at a nearby house, and the women preparing it in huge cauldrons showed me how they did it. The basil they used for the pesto sauce that goes on top of the soup was almost oily it was so pungent, and the garlic was piercingly fragrant. This was my first visit, but I returned in 2007, when I saw Colporteurs II , and in 2008, for III . In 2008, a huge thunderstorm rolled in, and lightning started to flash on the opposite side of the valley as the troupe was performing. They hurried to get through in time but didn’t quite make it, and, when the skies opened and began to pour, everyone ran for cover and yelled to each other over the wind as we tried desperately to get the lights and electrical equipment in out of the wet. Later, over a meal of hot soup, with everyone seated at tables in a former barn, the troupe performed the last song of the show “Le Temps des Cerises” since their hosts hadn’t had a chance to hear it during the show. Mon Théâtre d’Ombres shows the TRAC interest in the singular qualities of place, of terroir. In the program notes, Siano mentions that Pierre Magnan wrote a work in honour of Jean Giono and adds that “we cannot help making this symbolic reference, which suggests the links between a work of art and a territory, ‘Haute Provence’ and the universal imagination!” (TRAC 2007). These are detective stories, and the main goal of the production was to entertain and also to capture the poetic qualities

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of place evident in Magnan’s work. But, within the play, there is also this respect for terroir in a social sense, the respect for the distinctive cultural traits of small communities, and this respect has been a crucial part of TRAC practice from the beginning of the troupe. The way Magnan signals place most strongly is through language. The plays are filled with expressions that reflect an agricultural way of life in Provence from the past. “To kill someone through tobacco is like wanting to kill a donkey by throwing figs at it.” Sometimes an entire phrase is included in Provençal (“faguès pas lou couilloun”) and followed by the same phrase in French: Ne fais pas l’imbécile, or “Don’t act like an idiot” (Magnan 2002:36). Other Provençal words are sprinkled throughout the plays: “espincher” for “to spy on,” for example (Magnan 2002:15). Whether or not a given character has an accent (of rural southern France) is specifically noted alongside the general description of the character at the beginning of each play. Other descriptions draw on local characteristics to paint the singular qualities of the character. Magnan refers to the powerful wind of Provence to describe one “Mother Teste.” We are told that she speaks at the top of her voice as if she were arguing with someone: “capable of holding her own with the mistral.” The TRAC ’s production of Mon Théâtre d’Ombres (Magnan 2002) included three short plays: “Qui a Tué la Mairesse?” (“Who Killed Mme. the Mayor?”) , “Le Secret de la Mère Imbert” (“The Secret of Mother Imbert”), and “Le Poteau” (“The Post”). These plays treat universal themes such as anger, greed, pride, jealousy, and cowardice, but in the context of issues especially meaningful in rural France in the early to mid-twentieth century. The time period of the play is also signalled by the importance of a bicycle-riding postman. For the “Who Killed Mme. the Mayor?” play, Magnan sets the scene in the following way: The story takes place in Provence, in that hallowed time when the gendarmes, postmen, and other low-ranking civil servants travelled from town to town on picturesque bicycles. (Magnan 2002:10)

Because these plays were originally written for the radio, there are extensive directions concerning sound. Many of these refer specifically to Provence. In “The Post,” for example, the sounds for scene 6 include “Sound of the Provençal night: fountain, crickets, owls, frogs.” The kinds of problems underlying the motives for the different characters as suspects illustrate sources of conflict in rural areas in this period. Among many others, these include struggles for control over water, revenge because of gossiping in a small-town environment where there are few secrets, and

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Hervé and Coco Bonzom in Mon Théâtre d’Ombres in Clamensane, 2008. Photo by François Vachet.

ongoing disputes about property boundaries. Each character is out to fool the others in these plays, and the murders to be solved always have several suspects because of the malicious nastiness of the victim toward his or her neighbours. Part of the humour in the play comes from the hidden cleverness of the characters who, in spite of their seemingly innocent “country” ways, are deeply involved in long-term machinations to win advantage over the others. In contrast to Colporteurs and eXX iL s, Mon Théâtre d’Ombres is an example of a play with a smaller cast designed to tour frequently. The show was created in 2003 and was still being performed in 2008. In contrast to the 28 participants in Colporteurs, there were only 15 actors in the original version of Mon Théâtre d’Ombres, including eight who were also musicians. In addition to this, there were two other musicians who only played music. I saw the show in 2004 and also in 2008, when there were only 11 actors (3 of whom were also musicians) in addition to one other musician. The musical instruments included saxophone, string bass, flute, drum, and tambourine. The music in the show was one of the most important innovations in the staging of the plays. Although, the staging directions include many references to sound, there is no mention of music except in “The Secret of Mother Imbert,” which includes the information that a song on a transistor radio should accompany scene 2. The TRAC included an old radio as a key prop on stage, and, for some of the scenes, a screen on three sides is lit so that it shows the shadow outline

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Musicians for Mon Théâtre d’Ombres. Mario Leccia is farthest to the left. Marie-Madeleine Martinet is to his right. Photo by the author.

of the musicians playing inside (as a nod to the shadow puppet theatre referred to in Magnan’s title). The 2008 tour in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence In the summer of 2008, I accompanied the cast on its trip to three towns “in the 04,” as TRAC members sometimes refer to the Alpes-de-HauteProvence department. In recent years, the TRAC has performed more frequently in the 04, and, in fact, the department and the municipality of Redortiers contributed to funding the creation of Mon Théâtre d’Ombres.12 We left Saturday morning and travelled to Clamensane, a town of 150 people, for an evening performance. After spending the night in nearby Gigors, we then travelled to Saint Geniez, where the troupe performed Sunday night. Saint Geniez is a town of 104 (in 2008), located 16 kilometres from Sisteron. The two technicians drove up in the troupe’s well-travelled truck while the actors drove up separately. The work necessary for an amateur troupe to install its production in a different site each time was clearly evident on this trip. After arriving in Clamensane, the actors needed not only to help set up the lights and screens that make up the décor for this show but also to make sure that there was enough room on the outdoor stage in Clamensane, a square concrete block roughly three feet high facing a field. This was particularly important for the two actors who ride bicycles in the show, especially as in one scene they circle and nearly run into one another. During the afternoon,

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Mon Théâtre d’Ombres in Clamensane. Actors are “backstage” behind the TRAC truck, where the make-up station is located. Photo by the author.

the actors also went over their lines, something particularly necessary given that the show had not been performed in months (and never with this particular collection of actors). It was also important to find the right locations to place props. In the midst of all this activity, the mayor of the town stopped by to say hello, which led to a photograph of him with the troupe on stage. When make-up artist Cathy Chiron arrived, the truck was rolled in behind the stage so that a make-up station could be set up out of the view of the audience. Closer to the time of the show, some women from the town showed up to set up a concession stand for food and drinks before and after the show, and two others set up a table to sell tickets. As with all TRAC productions, tickets were not expensive compared to theatre prices generally in France. Daniel Giusiano mentioned this as one of the ways the troupe seeks to make its works available to as broad an audience as possible. For the Magnan plays, the cost was 5 Euros for adults, 3 Euros for children under 12. There were roughly 150 people (including the mayors) at both the Clamensane and Saint Geniez shows. After the show in Clamensane, we all ate with roughly 30 people from the town. We were seated on long benches in a community activities hall, and the troupe members were largely mixed in with the people from Clamensane. Late at night, after the meal, we all climbed into cars to make our way to nearby Gigors,

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Actor Hervé Bonzom at the make-up station. Photo by François Vachet.

where we stayed in bunks in a youth centre. The next morning, we had breakfast and lunch there and toured the town hall with the mayor (at the request of one of the troupe members) before driving on to Saint Geniez in a drizzly rain to set up for the Sunday evening show there. Although larger than some of the other places where the TRAC had performed, Saint Geniez seemed to have more of a small-town and rural feel to it. As we tried to set up in the drizzle, an older man leaned up against a parking barrier and stared at us. “Oh yes, that’s ‘the monitor’ (surveillant),” said a resident of Saint Geniez whom I later talked with at dinner. The monitor kept a close watch on us until we gave up because of the rain and sat under the covered bleachers, trying to wait it out and not knowing whether the troupe would be able to perform or not. The rain finally did stop, and the troupe was able to get the set in place in time for the show. For a wet and chilly Sunday night, it was a good crowd of about 120 people, but it seemed more sceptical, less enthusiastic, as it waited for the show to start. And, in the very first scene, there was a challenge to the troupe from an unexpected party. After the lights dropped and a hush settled in, Gilbert Chiron came out ringing a bell, as if he were calling in the sheep. A mangy-looking sheepdog, hearing these familiar sounds outside the usual schedule, charged the stage barking ferociously and then walked menacingly toward Gilbert. The crowd quieted and waited to see what would happen. Gilbert stayed in character and faced the dog down, yelling at him to go home and waving the bell at him. The dog

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slunk off, and the members of the audience laughed, finally ready, it seemed, to give their full attention to the troupe. On the surface, a play like Mon Théâtre d’Ombres seems much less crucial to the popular education goals of the TRAC than eXX iL s or Colporteurs d’Histoire. Image Not Available But the play speaks to goals important to many of the troupe members, Siano especially, in presenting a rural perspective in its theatre. Many of the cast members of the Magnan plays, such as Gilbert Chiron and Eliane Goudet, were children of small farmers and had lived a strongly Actor Gilbert Chiron just before agricultural life as children. And curtain. Photo by François Vachet. a sensitivity to specifically rural conditions was an important part of their working lives. Gilbert now works for the Ministry of Agriculture, while Eliane worked for many years for the FNFR , which oversees youth centres in small towns (foyers ruraux), and she now works for the state agency responsible for determining the level of social benefits for French citizens, the CAF (Caisses d’Allocations Familiales). Both Gilbert and Eliane have also presented stories in Provençal as part of evenings devoted to the genre of storytelling (les conteurs) popular in many parts of rural France. Coco Bonzom noted how this play, and especially performing it in the Alpes-de-HauteProvence region, brought back her childhood growing up not far away in a small town near Sault. The stories of the play were “very close to my life, my lived experience (mon vécu), my childhood.” She told of how people would come up to her thrilled to tell her about the play: “I recognize my neighbour!” And she felt that, in making a link with her own past, she had also given them a portrait of something close to their own lives. Eliane Goudet echoed this sentiment in talking about the audience members who had come up to talk to her: Many of them recognize themselves on stage. We’re a little bit a mirror for them. They are surprised that we are so close to their concerns.

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Make-up artist Cathy Chiron prepares Eliane Goudet. Photo by François Vachet.

The Magnan plays were a celebration of a rural heritage without condescension and against nativist assertions of identity (as made by the National Front, for example). The economy of Saint Geniez is, as the town’s website says, essentially based on two things. The first is agriculture and livestock (especially sheep), and the second is tourism. As the TRAC tried to do when it was founded, it has sought to show rural life as a dynamic source of innovation, especially in places where the vitality of schools and the ongoing life of a town’s sociability are at risk. After describing the town’s twentieth century, one Saint Geniez resident, “Joelle,” described the current situation on a website (no longer active) devoted to the town: Today, there are no more than 12 students at the elementary school and still no store, just a bar and the main square and some tourists during the vacation months because Marseille is not far (150 km) who are attracted by the beauty of the countryside and by the hiking trails. If you pass nearby Sisteron . . . make a detour and come see Saint Geniez.

The goal of the plays was to bring to the stage Magnan’s work, especially his sensitivity to the rhythms of rural Provence, “with a little poetry,” as Siano put it. He didn’t mean that the play’s setting lacked poetry in the first place but rather that he wanted to recast it in the language of the theatre, remaining true to both the spirit of place present in the work and to the conventions of the stage. By enacting the play with people who spoke with the familiar rhythms of Provençal speech but who also presented

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an innovative, imaginative staging, the troupe shows the dynamism of a rural way of life and also presents its own argument for greater participation in the arts to an audience that might not otherwise hear it. It is also important to note that the Magnan plays are part of a larger repertoire of plays presented to audiences such as those at Saint Geniez. The TRAC ’s success with the Magnan plays encourages those who enjoyed them to come to other TRAC productions in the future.

Conclusion Consideration of the productions discussed in this chapter shows how the version of culture crafted by the TRAC constitutes one response to national debates about national and republican identity. It does so primarily in three ways: through the articulation of explicitly ideological content in some of the troupe’s plays, through building social solidarity in its theatre practice generally, and through the extension of its influence outside the world of the theatre proper. With regard to ideological content, a key theme running through all of the plays considered here is a respect for the cultural distinctiveness of place. This respect is reflected in the inclusion of folk music traditions and regional languages. In Colporteurs, Siano’s text celebrates alternative perspectives on history drawn from the popular music of the period described. Although the play is ostensibly about the past, the concerns about manipulation through fear also speak to contemporary France and echo the warnings of scholars such as Sophie Body-Gendrot (2008). Colporteurs thus encourages a critical scepticism toward the discourse of political authorities. Colporteurs also draws a parallel between the colporteurs of the past, who were a medium for an alternative mode of expression, and amateur theatre artists today. By taking part in the production, the TRAC participants also became “bearers of history,” presenting their own perspective on French history and the lessons one should draw from it today. In eXX iL s, Siano drew on his own experience to present a TRAC perspective on immigration to France. This play emphasizes the diverse origins of immigrants to France, placing North African immigration within a broader context and showing it to be part of a widely shared experience. But it also focuses more on economic inequalities than on national origin, religion, or ethnicity in describing the most important factors shaping the immigrant experience. Here, place is important (and referenced through music and song from diverse national traditions), but the emphasis is on how place-centred identities are mediated by broader

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north–south economic inequalities. In Mon Théâtre d’Ombres, the troupe sought to portray distinctive aspects (terroir) of the rural areas in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence written about by Pierre Magnan. Although lacking the explicit engagement with issues of political history and immigration present in the other two, Mon Théâtre d’Ombres is part of the ongoing series of TRAC performances that includes the first two productions. As noted here, this touring includes meals and meetings with people living in the towns where the troupe performs, something that is part of the social solidarity cultivated within the troupe in its practice among members as well as between troupe members and “hosts” in the towns where they perform. Within the troupe in the rehearsal process, this solidarity includes cross-generational bonds and is based on shared work toward a common goal rather than on ideological unity. With eXX iL s in particular, the intergenerational exchanges included bringing together members of the same family. The comments of TRAC participants (both amateur actors and professional teachers in the workshops) illustrate some of the ways this practice in rehearsals and performances is viewed as impacting life beyond the theatre as well. Participants spoke of how their work in the theatre led to greater self-confidence, self-assurance, and, possibly, to “opening doors” in their everyday lives. Presumably, also, the emphasis on (and skills developed through) working collectively, which was noted by several of the participants, also carries over to life outside the theatre. In these ways (the content of its shows, the cultivation of social solidarity in its practice, and the extended influence of its members’ work beyond the theatre), TRAC theatre practice shapes a sense of belonging, an understanding of citizenship within a national context that has been marked recently by sharp debate about national and republican identity. The next chapter continues discussion of these issues for artists at the Friche and at the TRAC , with greater attention to the international and post-colonial dimensions of their work.

Notes 1 The National Front party’s official name is the Front National (FN ), and the UMP party’s is the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire. 2 “By dint of weakening the nation, it is the Republic that we hurt, it is democracy that we put in danger, it is solidarity that we destroy” (from Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign website, quoted in Duclert 2008:29). 3 This law adds four requirements: “The future immigrant must have a certain level of income . . . to be considered eligible for family reunification. He must pass a test on the

Performing “citizens’ theatre” 155 French language level and values of the Republic. . . . He must ensure the integration of his or her children under the ‘Reception and Integration Contract for Families.’ He must undergo genetic testing (DNA ) for citizens of countries where there are serious doubts as to whether birth and marriage certificates are authentic” (Embassy of France in Washington 2009). 4 “By the eighteenth century, colporteurs were viewed with increased suspicion, because they sold goods illegally, sold defective merchandise, or spread malicious and subversive information, and laws were created to regulate hawking. The evolution of street criers’ representation parallels the sedentary bourgeois’ increased suspicion toward lower-class transience, marginality and criminality. Street cries eventually become a metonym for the working class as a whole, now defined by raucousness and criminality as opposed to bourgeois silence and respectability” (Boutin 2005:68). 5 What defines these songs as popular is not the socio-economic background of the songwriters (although where possible, this is underlined, as with the “poet-worker” who wrote “Le Temps des Cerises,” Jean-Baptiste Clément). It is rather that they are songs that were widely sung and appreciated by people in working-class or rural settings, such as the goguettes (amateur singing clubs and coffeehouses) of the early nineteenth century. 6 “Collective identities, whether they are cultural/ethnic, national, or even transnational, grow from a sense of the past; the theatre very forcefully participates in the ongoing representations and debates about these pasts, sometimes contesting the hegemonic understanding of the historical heritage on the basis of which these identities have been constructed, sometimes reinforcing them. By performing history, the theatre, at times even more forcefully than other discourses about the past like historiographic writing or novels about historical events, engages in such ideological debates, frequently intervening in them directly. What may be seen as specific to the theatre in dealing directly with the historical past is its ability to create an awareness of the complex interaction between the destructiveness and the failures of history, on the one hand, and the efforts to create a viable and meaningful work of art, trying to confront these painful failures, on the other” (Rokem 2000:3). 7 In discussing the Colporteurs production workshop, I draw here on interviews with actors and a film produced for French regional television (http://www.ventoux-tv.com/ frameset_01_culture.html). 8 Following the re-organization of this ministry as part of the RGPP initiated in 2008, the TRAC expected that the final two production workshop grants would be those that sponsored a children’s play, Le Murmonde (2009) and a theatrical adaptation of the music of Camille Saint-Saëns, Carnaval des Z’animaux (2009). 9 Some recent anthropological studies of immigration to Europe centre analysis on economic factors, arguing that a focus limited to studying immigration from one sending country to one host country misses the broader factors that shape conditions shared by immigrants of diverse origins in one receiving country, and the movement beyond the initial receiving country of those employed in the most vulnerable and least profitable sectors of the economy (Cole and Booth 2007). 10 The Social and Cultural Centre of Barbière was a site for arts and other organized social activities in one of Avignon’s poorest neighbourhoods. Founded in 1971, the centre was administered by the city of Avignon, and it was decided in May of 2009 that the centre would close because of budget deficits. The centre employed 11 people and nearly 500 families were members. In April of the same year, the Maison des Jeunes et de la Culture in the Croix des Oiseaux was demolished. The MJC was for a long time an alternative arts centre in another poor neighbourhood (Croix des Oiseaux) outside Avignon’s walls. It is here that Avignon’s premier dance festival, Hivernales, was founded.

156 rites of the republic 11 Redortiers is said to be the inspiration for the town of “Aubignane” in Jean Giono’s novel Regain. In the nineteenth century, the town counted 500 inhabitants due to its important geographical setting as a stop for herds of sheep along the trails of transhumance. 12 Others supporting the production workshop that led to the creation of the show include the PACA region, the Vaucluse department, the municipality of Beaumes de Venise, and the Ministry of Youth, Education and Research (as the Ministry of Youth and Sports was called in 2003). Also listed as having provided financial assistance to the program are Le Foyer Rural de Redortiers; Le Fédération Départementale des Alpes-de-HauteProvence, Les Foyers Ruraux; the APRECA (a popular education association supporting arts projects); Le Foyer Rural de Beaumes de Venise; and Aubignan’s Maison des Jeunes et de la Culture.

6 “Citizens’ theatre” in

post-colonial Europe NEW FOUNDATIONS FOR THE POLITICS OF CULTURE?

We need to invent a new tradition for the future, a way of living together . . . this time it will be on a planetary scale. François Cervantès, Program for 2008 season of L’Entreprise Theatre Company

In pursuing the sociopolitical aims of their theatre, the artists of the TRAC and the Friche have sought to integrate the universalist ideals of the French republican tradition with the universalism of art. While the French republican tradition has emphasized the common good over the interests of distinct groups within the citizenry, the interpretation of what represents the common good and what the dangerously “particularist” and “communitarian” interests of one specific group has varied over time and among diverse partisans of the republican tradition.1 In recent years, the debates about immigration, the legacy of the colonial period, and the place of Islam have been some of the most public and caustic sites in which issues of universalist versus particularist interpretations of the republican tradition have been addressed, both in France and within Europe as a whole. But in addition to discourse by politicians and other public figures, these debates have also been pursued in a range of other sites and practices. In the case I consider here, they are evident in the practice of theatre artists, both in their performed work and in the ways they apply the lessons of that work to their broader lives outside the theatre. In this chapter, I examine the post-colonial and European republicanism of TRAC and Friche artists, identifying the limitations and points of conflict in their work as they confront republican ideals within diverse settings in France and abroad. A key focus here is the ways these artists conceive of 157

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the political dimension of their work, i.e., the ways their theatre practice is held to extend beyond the domain of the arts proper to realize democratic goals in society at large. Two concepts are particularly important to their specifically theatrical approach to these civic goals. The first is the idea of theatre as an act of prise de parole (which I translate here as “asserting one’s voice” in order to capture the active and participative qualities of speaking emphasized). The second is the idea of theatre as an embodied mode of being, held to be more capable of direct and meaningful interpersonal communication and to be distinct in some ways from contemporary modes of social relations increasingly mediated by electronic media, advertising, political campaigning, and interstate political alignments. With the aid of these concepts, these artists have interpreted republican ideals in ways that seek to address both the legacy of the past and the contemporary social divisions of post-colonial Europe.

Post-colonial republican universalism The question of how to interpret and acknowledge France’s colonial heritage has been at the centre of the recent French reconsideration of national and republican identity. Recent studies have underlined the extent to which the colonial project in France was intertwined with republicanism, with the subjugation of colonized peoples justified as serving the common good of the Republic (Bancel, Blanchard, and Vergès 2006). Some scholars (Bruckner 2006; Lefeuvre 2008) have defended the French republican model, arguing that an obsession with repentance about the colonial period has led to an abdication of responsibility for upholding republican ideals today. Others have argued that the point is not whether or not to reject republicanism in toto but to recognize the inequalities perpetuated in its name and to see the settings where the colonial heritage is operative and influential today (Blanchard 2001). The unstated questions underlying this debate are these: Is a post-colonial republicanism possible, and, if so, what should it look like? A recent book by Tzvetan Todorov (2008) is in part a series of answers to these questions.2 Todorov argues for recognizing French cultural diversity today while also avoiding the “communitarian” logic by which individual identity is defined through one’s belonging to a distinct cultural group within the citizenry as a whole. According to Todorov, communication and discourse have been obstructed by a fear of others and a Manichean division between the East and the West, exemplified by Samuel Huntington’s thesis in The Clash of Civilizations (1996). He notes

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that this global dichotomy is often enacted within Western countries, as, for example, in debates about acceptable ways of being French involving children of former immigrants (Bowen 2007). One cannot, Todorov states, ignore the centuries of history during which the “countries of fear” dominated the current “countries of resentment.” A precondition for Western political and intellectual elites wishing to further this dialogue “would be that they stop considering themselves the incarnation of right, of virtue and universality, proven by their technological superiority, in other words, above the laws and judgements of others” (Todorov 2008:285). Todorov argues that it makes much more sense to seek out the points of agreement in the traditions of others and build on these rather than to assume from the outset that one’s own voice is the only possible expression of a demand for justice or a recognition of cultural pluralism. In his view, this approach is most needed in discourse about Islam, where a narrowly reductionist view has prevented real dialogue about its place in Europe. He is speaking of a reduction with three stages. First, the vast Muslim population, composed of people living in many different countries, is reduced to Islam, as if all their acts could be explained with reference to this religious tradition. Second, Islam is reduced to islamisme, which is to say the politically motivated project of particular groups of Muslim activists today. Finally, this politically motivated Islam is reduced to terrorism, thereby ignoring the many Muslim groups with political interests working legally within the existing political order. The problem here is not only that this reduction is a false view of the diversity of Islam; it is that identifying and treating all Muslims as terrorists encourages European Muslims to see themselves in these terms. Proponents of terrorism could not wish for more. This reductionist view of Islam is seen in recent works by Christopher Caldwell (2009) and Bruce Bawer (2006, 2009) that present Islam as inherently un-European and impossible to integrate within European society. In a positive review of Caldwell’s book, Fouad Ajami has noted that Islam “is in no sense Europe’s religion and it is in no sense Europe’s culture” (Ajami 2009:BR 1). In a response to this review, political scientist Martin Schain (2009) has noted that there are now about 15 million people from Muslim countries in Europe, roughly 3 per cent of the population, and that this is a highly diverse population, both ethnically and religiously. Very few, he notes, are Arabs, and, by most estimates, fewer than half are practising Muslims. Referring to recent violence in French cities that has contributed to a fear of Islam in Europe, Schain states that the young people who rioted in 2005 and since “were not demanding ‘their right to wear the burqa in Paris’ (they have this right—and

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generally don’t), but rights that are more familiar to American readers: education, jobs and dignity” (Schain 2009:BR 5). Schain also points out that the abhorrent violent attacks in Madrid and in London are unfortunately not as “un-European” as we might wish. They follow upon and coexist with violent class and nationalist movements with a long history in Spain, Germany, and France.3 The opposition between alarmist portrayals of Islamic influence and calls for greater inclusion highlights the stakes underlying the interpretation of republican universalist ideals in post-colonial Europe. The role of theatre artists in the TRAC and at the Friche in this context is not that they address Islam explicitly in their work. It is that they propose a model of creation, collaboration, dialogue, and exchange in shaping a Europe more inclusive of those of immigrant descent in France today. An example at the Friche is the work of the Compagnie L’Entreprise (the Entreprise Theatre Company), which centres on exchanges between the Comoros Islands and those of Comorian descent in Marseille. On the one hand, these artists are performing republican ideals and rejecting the divisions between “communitarian” groups. In this respect, they further the ideology of republican unity guaranteed by a strong state. On the other, they are working to modify and recast these ideals in ways that further dialogue and exchange. As theatre artists, they bring a distinctive approach to these goals, one marked by their emphasis on the body as a vector for the transmission and transformation of memory and the theatre as an artistic medium capable of effecting social change through recognizing and providing expression to alternative voices.

An embodied mode of being and the political dimension of theatre practice The key to understanding the universalist aims of these artists is in their pursuit and promotion of a particular embodied mode of being in the world. I refer here not simply to the physical portrayal of characters in theatre practice but to a way of interacting with others that extends beyond the frame of the artistic performance proper. In her discussion of Moroccan Gnawa trance, Deborah Kapchan notes its resistance to the disembodied ways of being associated with capitalism. She draws on Pierre Nora’s distinction between true memory, which has taken refuge in gestures and habits, in skills passed down by unspoken traditions, in the body’s inherent

“Citizens’ theatre” in post-colonial Europe 161 self-knowledge, in unstudied reflexes and ingrained memories, and memory transformed by its passage through history, which is nearly the opposite: voluntary and deliberate, experienced as a duty, no longer spontaneous; psychological, individual, and subjective; but never social, collective, or all encompassing. (Nora 1989:13, quoted in Kapchan 2007:187)

What distinguishes history, for Nora, is its mediation of experience, in which memory is no longer directly embodied but understood solely through a process of abstract reasoning in a political and economic context that challenges the sharing and reproduction of collective memory. Kapchan argues that “the popularity of forms of trance on the aesthetic market may be seen as a reaction to these disembodied ways of being, a way to return to flow and the body. Here, trance does resist capitalism in the very fact that it persists” (Kapchan 2007:187, italics in original). But, she notes, trance is also quickly interpolated into history in the form of “narratives of epiphany” that interpret the embodied experience. This suggests that the before and after chronology of Nora exaggerates the end of embodied modes of memory and being today and perhaps, too, their incompatibility with the indirect mode of “history” deemed dominant currently. The embodied nature of theatrical practice in France, be it by amateurs or professionals, is not the same as that described by Kapchan for Gnawa trancers. It is not part of a religious tradition; there is no belief in the supernatural that motivates these artists. And yet, their approach to embodied experience shares certain features with religious practice. Theatre practice constitutes one particular discursive “formation of the secular” (Asad 2003) that helps to sustain the republican tradition in France. Attention to bodily experience is also viewed as central to the way that a quasi-sacred sphere of “culture” is preserved at a personal level and protected from the influence of a market economy. Essential to both the TRAC and the Friche artists is a combination of, on the one hand, attentive listening and, on the other, speaking as an active appropriation of communication—a “prise de parole” or “taking of the word (or the floor).” This is often presented as a way of affirming a voice independent of the influence of advertising or other political and economic agents that seek to shape public opinion. A good example is François Cervantès’s introduction to the 2008–09 program for the Entreprise theatre troupe. In this text, Cervantès describes language as fundamental to the understanding of self and the other in the contemporary economic context.

162 rites of the republic At this moment of globalization, and of threats to languages, it is urgent that each person find his or her own personal language, and plunge within it: it will be for that person the way to be understood, because he or she will begin by understanding him or herself by him or herself. (Compagnie L’Entreprise 2008:3)

It is the active pursuit and appropriation of a singular voice (conceived of both in terms of individuals and linguistic minorities) that provides the solution to the menace of uniformity and passivity accompanying globalization. The emphasis here is on linguistic exchange as an expression of culture rather than as a medium for economic transactions. We must take care of our language, to not cut ourselves off from our thoughts, to not exchange words like merchandise. . . . (Compagnie L’Entreprise 2008:5)

These exchanges carry within them the heritage of the past. By attending to this heritage, one can best master the problems of the past that remain with us. Ignoring them, Cervantès implies, leads to a passive participation in cultural currents determined ultimately by economic factors. Language belongs to everyone, dead and alive. It is made for attempting this face-to-face encounter between two people. If we renounce the possibility of two people speaking to one another, exchanging thoughts through language, if we renounce this interior dialogue with the dead, with the past, with our history, with the history of our body (our cells are filled with it), if we renounce all that, then we are ready to become merchandise ourselves. Each person must find his or her language: enter into contact with his or her dead, with his or her skin, with the history of his or her body. . . . To recover la parole is maybe to come back to life. (Compagnie L’Entreprise 2008:5)

Here, Cervantès is calling for the cultivation of a particular kind of “embodied mode of being.” As with Kapchan’s statement that trance resists capitalism in the very fact that it persists, the “interior dialogue” celebrated by Cervantès is a means of asserting autonomy from the logic of economically interested exchanges. But the goal here is not to link

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people with spirits. It is also not a purely individual phenomenon. With la parole, the focus is on communication and exchange with others. Even though Cervantès speaks of the recovery of la parole as something that each individual must undertake, it is ultimately the intensely social stakes underlying this process that he emphasizes most. There is nothing more difficult or more rare than to prendre la parole. Each time someone tries to do it, life gains ground, there is a victory against the mechanisms of power, there is a slight turning of history, there is a tiny step toward a possibility of living together. (Compagnie L’Entreprise 2008:5)

It is as though individuals are establishing contact with an underlying current of humanity that has been hidden and silenced. It is the goal of the Entreprise company to re-establish contact with this current through theatre: “We seek a form of theatre that can recount the world today, which is moving increasingly fast, which is increasingly difficult to grasp (saisir), and thus to humanize” (Compagnie L’Entreprise 2008:6). This process of “humanization” involves attention to individual memory and, through it, attention to the memory of past conflicts that threaten to make it impossible for us to live together in the present. We are disconnected little by little from our personal, intimate, organic histories, from our physical memory. When this memory disappears, culture is no longer good for anything; it is an encumbrance; it crumbles under references that we can’t do anything with. We are in a time of history where there is a distance so great between the broader social history and our individual histories that we need to put them together again in order to avoid a totalitarian situation or a situation of generalized insanity. The memory buried in our body helps us to understand better what is occurring, what is already happening. We are in a world . . . where the conflicts of the past come back up to the surface, and therefore have a new chance of being pacified, or else thrown forward into the future once again, in a way still more violent, more destructive. (Compagnie L’Entreprise 2008:8)

The “conflicts of the past” Cervantès refers to include the conflicts of the colonial era. Sharply opposed perspectives on the legacy of this era have surfaced in recent years in France in debates regarding, for example, the teaching of history in French public schools. Partly in response to the critical perspectives of this era presented on television and radio and in

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the press, a law was passed on February 23, 2005 expressing the desire that public school instruction about the colonial era impart in a positive way the achievements (l’oeuvre coloniale) of administrators and others involved in the French colonial project.4 It is worth noting here that public criticism of French colonialism has a long history within France. In an 1885 speech in the Chamber of Deputies, the author of French decisive laws on republican education, Jules Ferry, described “the civilizing mission” toward the “inferior races” as both a right and a duty for the superior ones. But Ferry’s speech was answered by Georges Clémenceau, who strongly criticized the hypocrisy of claiming a benevolent civilizing mission after the violence employed in the conquest of French colonies.5 In the current post-colonial climate in France, French colonialism and its heritage continue to be debated in parliament, but these issues are also being addressed in myriad other settings, including in the work of TRAC and Friche artists. These artists assert that the conflicts of the past remain with us today, and they promote a particular way of attending to them: one centred on the kind of dialogue and exchange called for by Todorov. Although it has been difficult to establish a field of public discourse in France concerning the Algerian War, in particular, theatre artists (as at the Theatre of the Sea) have done their part by bringing the topic into the public sphere. While the legacy of colonial conflict is particularly important in Marseille, Cervantès also views the quest for dialogue as especially necessary in France as a whole. In 2006, an interviewer for the Friche online magazine talked with Cervantès about the role of culture in this post-colonial dialogue: Culture, which should be the medium of exchange, has become instead a way for people to become frozen in their separate identities (un objet de crispation identitaire). In France, in any case, cultural difference is experienced primarily as a danger for the unity and cohesion of society. (Cervantès 2006)

Cervantès replied: I have the impression that we are confronted with a situation of [cultural] mixing unknown in the history of humanity and with which France has not been able to come to terms. (Cervantès 2006)

Here, the interviewer frames contemporary social diversity in terms of republican universalist ideals (the fear of divisions between people based on identity politics), and Cervantès argues that France has failed to find

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a way of adequately accommodating cultural difference. Cervantès sees artists contributing to finding solutions through their theatre practice, especially in their cultivation of an embodied mode of being that puts them in touch with their own bodily history and allows for more openness to dialogue and exchange with others. The notes to the 2008 program quoted previously follow the statement about pacifying past conflicts with a description of the best response. “We need to invent a new tradition for the future, a way of living together,” but one that is not limited to local, national, or other kinds of regionally specific patterns of social relations: “this time it will be on a planetary scale.” These goals have been pursued by Cervantès not only with the Entreprise company but also with an acting workshop (the Garage) that draws on participants from outside the company. His description of this workshop uses terminology that suggests a kind of ideological commitment similar to that of religious groups. I wish to form a professional alliance across coteries (chapelles) and aesthetics. The actors are ambassadors who can disseminate an ethics and a demand for high standards. (Compagnie L’Entreprise 2008:55)

In interviews, members of the Entreprise and the Garage workshop (Le Garage) echoed these themes and often described them in ways that extended beyond the theatre into their daily lives. A key theme in this regard was the importance of more attentive listening. This was especially important in the summer of 2008 because the troupe was working on a play about music and relationships among musicians (Le Dernier Quatuor d’un Homme Sourd). The play centres on four actors working together in a quartet, so working as an ensemble and cultivating sensitivity to other performers on the stage were especially important in this production. But “listening” was a more general priority as well, and this theme was emphasized to me in interviews with other actors associated with the Entreprise who were not involved in the Dernier Quatuor production.

“Listening” and theatre practice as model for social relations “One must work on listening, ” noted Dilia Gavarrete-Lhardit, an actress in the Garage acting workshop organized by Cervantès. Dilia is a woman in her late thirties who emigrated to Marseille from Honduras. In addition to acting, she writes and directs her own productions, but not as part of the Entreprise company. Dilia considered herself an outsider in some ways (both as an immigrant to France and, at the Friche, as someone

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working with L’Entreprise who was not actually a member of the company). She recognized the distinctiveness of many of the ideas about acting that the others seemed to take for granted. She said that her work with the Entreprise and in the Garage workshop had thrown light on her daily life, “outside of any work concerns.” Her theatre practice had changed her daily life and her rapport with others. Her style of life had changed—the way that she “listened, looked, saw, took things into account.” A few months ago in Paris, I was staying at a friend’s place. I got back late and couldn’t open the door with the key I’d been given. It didn’t work. The next day I looked, and there was a little incrustation on one of the grooves of the key. I cleaned it off and afterward the key worked. When I began this theatre work, I wanted to get better, but I had to learn more than just acquiring a technique. I needed to relax, to reach inside my body, to integrate the text. This episode with the key—it reminded me that there is already a knowledge (savoir faire) inside me. In order for the key to work—beyond appearances and beyond insisting on making it work as I expected it to—I needed to look at it more closely. The fact of seeing the key the next day reminded me that I need to be more attentive, more open, more humble.

Dilia’s story emphasized sensitivity to one’s physical surroundings—a sensitivity implying greater attention to the existing environment rather than a self-centred pursuit of one’s own goals and efforts to impose one’s will on that environment. Much more frequently, this same kind of sensitivity was encouraged with respect to one’s relations with other people. In rehearsals and discussions with the actors in the summer of 2008, Cervantès emphasized the importance of being attentive to the energy of other actors on stage. With regard to Le Dernier Quatour, Cervantès often used musical metaphors. He encouraged actors to pay attention to the vibrations of others and the resonances that occur between people. Sometimes, he made reference to “the vibrational universe.” At one rehearsal, during a group discussion in which each member of the troupe described his or her relationship to music in their lives, the actor Stéphane spoke of the importance of feeling part of a group through music. He meant this in a very physical sense—what struck him was “une vibration d’ensemble.” But he emphasized that it was a meeting of individuals who joined for a group sound without losing their individual voices. It was, he stressed, “a meeting, not a fusion.” Stéphane himself did not view this coming together yet remaining individual in political terms, but it parallels the rejection of “communautarisme” by Friche leaders.

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Here, in the way that theatre skills and attitudes are embodied, one sees a preference for avoiding the loss of individuality assumed to be part of a “communitarian” way of life. Of course, the Entreprise itself might be considered by some to be a kind of communitarian group in that there is a shared ideology and way of life promoted in part through the compagnonnage pursued by Cervantès with the Garage workshop. The difference, for these artists, is in the extent to which this community is either closed in on itself or open to dialogue and exchange with others. “We are not in a monastery,” actress Catherine Germain told me, something that reminded me of what a person critical of the TRAC had once said about them: “They are too much like a clique (chapelle).” For Catherine, the social dialogue that countered “monastic” parochialism was most evident in the increasing importance for the Entreprise of developing a close relationship with the audience. Catherine Germain is the Entreprise actor who has the longest working experience with Cervantès (since 1986). She spoke of a close relationship between performers and audience as crucial to the artistic project of the Entreprise. She emphasized the importance of presenting to the public more than a purely aesthetic creation. It involves, she said, revealing your own life to others (“une mise à jour de votre vie”). The act of performance is an act of direct transmission. . . . This contact is a place where one receives from the other, where each one is responsible for who he is. Where one answers for oneself, where one is intimately accountable.

It is, paradoxically, precisely through this personal intimacy that one is able to create art that communicates with others and achieves the universalist aims of art. In Germain’s description, the artist represents others in the same way that political figures in the republican tradition are held to represent the general good of all citizens while respecting individual differences. The actor establishes a profound link with the community where he is; he knows that he can touch things, in a way so intimate that he touches something universal. He speaks so much about himself that he speaks of everyone.

Catherine Germain’s words about the act of performance as “an act of direct transmission” reveal an assumption common to many of these theatre artists: a belief that the craft of acting allows for a kind of personal

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immediacy and direct social communication that, in contrast to electronic and other arts media, are “unmediated.” This view understates the artifice sustaining the theatre (its dependence on lighting, make-up, staging, and costuming, for example) and the fact that the theatrical text is most often a key intermediary between audience and performer. Nonetheless, by virtue of the fact that all actors embody the work they are presenting, there is an intimacy in the artistic encounter of the theatre, one that these actors choose to highlight. Catherine viewed the theatre performance as a site of social communion. She quoted Cervantès saying that “theatre is not the play but the evening spent together.” When it worked, she said, there was a palpable entente: “We know that the people participate. They vibrate in empathy.” “Listening” from the perspective of the actors involves sensitivity to the reception of their performances by audiences and the creation of a shared openness to others, experienced physically as a kind of vibrational harmony. Catherine also considered the site of the Friche as important in encouraging greater exchanges and dialogue among artists. She described these exchanges using the same term (vibrer) that she used in speaking of relations between performers and audience: “Things mix, they move (ça vibre); we are not isolated. We’re aware of the cultural work that goes on here.” Within this broader community of artists, leaders such as Cervantès and Foulquié have been most responsible for defining the political dimension of arts practice at the Friche. In part, this practice has involved creating a more inclusive environment for the expression and recognition of individual and minority voices. But it has also been about countering dominant discourses that limit the possibilities for self-expression. “Prise de parole” and the political dimension of theatre practice Generally, the arts leaders with whom I spoke—Siano, Foulquié, Cervantès—were more than happy to articulate the political dimension of their work, whether in writing or in interviews. Indeed, inasmuch as they were involved in the process of seeking grants and public funding, this articulation was an important part of their job. Each of these leaders has developed a singular vision of his arts project’s value and place in public life, skilfully framed in the terms of cultural policy discourse in France. But many of the other artists I spoke with began by refusing to categorize their work as political. When I asked Catherine Germain about cultural policy, she said “the words send shivers up my spine.” Still, these artists often reached a point in our conversation where they asserted a broader social role for their work, often after discussing and rejecting one or more conventional ways of framing the political dimension of

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theatre. This was the case, for example, with Christian Carrignon, one of the founders of the Théâtre de la Cuisine, a company based at the Friche. The work of Carrignon and his wife is devoted to “the theatre of objects (théâtre de l’objet),” a genre of theatre that involves taking everyday objects—matchsticks, for example—and using them to tell stories, as with marionettes. This kind of theatre demands much from the imagination of the audience and plays on the contrast between the functional qualities of these objects in everyday life and the intimate, personal qualities that they are portrayed as enacting onstage. Like most of the artists, Carrignon did not want his work to be defined as solely “sociocultural,” as a pedagogical project limited in its range to the communication of an educational message. He stated nonetheless that he had done “sociocultural” work when he lived in Pau, but that this quality of his work was really defined more by where he had performed and the goals of those organizers who had invited him (arts and recreation centres in small towns) than in a particular method he employed. He also spoke of a program that he had been involved with in Marseille that had a political goal. It was called the “keys of theatre,” and it involved bringing theatre to schools as a way of encouraging kids to come to the theatre. He said that the school’s population was very populaire and that the goal was to give to kids from all backgrounds a chance to appreciate, understand, and perhaps take part in the theatre. He described one particular moment as an especially good example of what they had tried to accomplish. He and his wife gave the kids a pile of pieces of wood and cloth and asked them to put them together. It took the students a while, but, when they finally got them all assembled, the whole structure suddenly rose up and it was a theatre, red curtain and all, right in the middle of their classroom. He said that it radically transformed the space, and this is what excited him most about working on the project with the kids. While Carrignon initially rejected the “sociocultural” label he did end up portraying his work as protecting and promoting a sensibility threatened by dominant discourses. His theatre, he explained, involved presenting a perspective that was radically opposed to the consumerist logic so prevalent today. It took banal, everyday objects and made something magic out of them, or, rather, it encouraged people to make something magic out of these objects through the work of their own imaginations. Through his theatre, he encouraged the possibility of a more active and critical perspective, of doing more than passively accepting objects as items to buy, sell, and consume, as they are presented in mass media and other advertising. Other artists echoed this theme of cultivating an active and critical perspective through the arts, especially in

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discussions of “culture.” Asked to define the term, TRAC actress Eliane Goudet did so in a way that emphasized its importance in fostering a dynamic engagement with the world, and she also (consonant with French republicanism more generally) called on the state to recognize and support culture: It is our little part against the mind-numbing degradation of daily life. We are not animals. The state must take into account not just the economic well-being of people but the social and cultural as well.

Catherine Germain echoed this view that the theatre is an effort against the “mind-numbing ” qualities of everyday life. She stated that, in cultivating an intense awareness of one’s “absolute co-presence” with others, theatre was “a form of resistance to this sort of accumulation of information.” In a similar vein, Entreprise actress Nicole Choukroun added that culture was essential to the fulfilment (épanouissement) of individuals, “so that people don’t follow like sheep. It is indispensable that people not be shut in, closed in on themselves (enfermés).” There is a close parallel here with the views Cervantès expressed when speaking about the challenges of working in a multicultural Marseille, where “people stay closed in on themselves.” Cervantès was speaking in terms of insular groups defined according to national origin, ethnicity, or religion, but the essential goal is the same: to encourage an active engagement with others and to avoid, on the one hand, a passive acceptance of the dominant discourses of public culture and, on the other, or a narrow parochialism defined by localist or otherwise communitarian affinities. One significant way that the concept of prise de parole has been important in the political dimension of these artists’ work is in multilingual productions that acknowledge linguistic minorities in France. The work of Dilia Gavarrete-Lhardit is especially noteworthy in this regard. In addition to creating such productions, she has been very active in organizing visits to schools in which her own troupe (Las Méninas) performs readings of theatre texts in Spanish, English, Arabic, and French. She said that this multilingual work is very important to her because of her own background: “I have two or three ‘cultures.’ I lived in Honduras for 20 years and in the United States for 10 years before coming here.” She also said that language is crucial to one’s cultural identity and that, in France, the slightest accent marked one as an outsider: I am constantly reminded of my status as a foreigner. Not a week goes by that someone does not ask, “Where are you from?”

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As with the Arabic theatre project at the Friche and the eXX iL s and other productions at the TRAC , Gavarrete-Lhardit sees theatre as a means of encouraging broader acceptance of, and arts opportunities for, linguistic communities often ignored in France. Like Cervantès’s efforts more generally, Gavarrete-Lhardit’s work in schools aimed at getting students to communicate better but was focused specifically on students cut off from their native language. She said that she had worked in the disadvantaged neighbourhoods of northern Marseille and had tried to ensure that the children were “capable of getting out of their shell. My work addresses how the native language surges forth at times. I wanted to propose work on a text that would speak to them.” This recognition of linguistic minorities speaks to the first assumption underlying dialogue noted by Todorov: that the different voices of the parties must be acknowledged, without assuming in advance that one of them constitutes the norm and the other is a deviation from it due to slower development, bad faith, or an unwillingness to adapt. The work of Las Méninas welcomes a broader number of voices into the public sphere in a way that accepts the language of origin as a legitimate means of expression. In contrast to many of the other artists, Gavarrete-Lhardit did not hesitate to define her work as political. “I think that theatre is political because politics is part of life—we are political beings.” She spoke of a production she had just finished performing (Profession: Mother) in which family relations were influenced by powerful institutions such as the Catholic Church. The play centres on one family in which communication is impossible. She said that the family members have a strong and violent relationship with one another, but, finally, “they end up clarifying something that had been blocked from them.” She described this resolution as an explicitly political act and linked it to her discussion of “listening,” noted previously in this text. In her view, the work with L’Entreprise on developing better listening and communication is not only about encouraging better relations in one’s personal life. Rather, it is through developing a greater awareness of others and one’s relationship to them that political change is effected and social progress is achieved.

Amateur theatre approaches to the concept of prise de parole At both the TRAC and the Friche, one finds a strong desire to see arts practice as a means of defining and expressing independent voices. But there is an important difference in the way the role of the artist is conceived among the professional artists of the Friche, on the one hand, and

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the amateur artists of the TRAC , on the other. At the Friche, there has been a clearer distinction between audience and artists. As have those attending the Garage acting workshop, Friche artists have viewed themselves more as professional specialists. Because of this, they have borne a special responsibility, and ability, to embody a certain ethical commitment and discipline, as called for by François Cervantès in the Entreprise program for the 2008–09 season. The TRAC , on the other hand, has promoted an alternative to the common understanding of the artist as a professional specialist. This does not mean that TRAC members are against professional artists (whose work they very much appreciate at venues such as the Avignon Festival, and on whom they frequently depend for workshops and training). They propose, rather, that the amateur quality of theatre has its own distinctive aesthetic value, and such theatre is not simply a less fully realized version of work by professional artists. In addition, statements by TRAC leaders often draw a parallel between “leaving things to the specialists” in the world of the arts and doing the same in civil society. Active participation in the arts is held to promote a more active citizenry. The importance of broadening participation in the arts is well expressed in Vincent Siano’s description of the main goal of the recent creation of the Pôle de Développement Culturel des Pratiques Amateurs de Beaumes de Venise: We want to ensure that there is not only a cultural consumption but a politics of participation—through amateur theatre especially.

In the rest of this chapter, I discuss the aspects of the TRAC perspective on republicanism that stem from its identity as an amateur theatre troupe. Its approach to prise de parole and an embodied mode of being reflect this identity. I begin by discussing the promotion of an amateur integrity distinct from professional theatre before turning to the influence of the TRAC ’s touring abroad on its interpretation of republican ideals. In interviews, TRAC members often expressed a commitment to the autonomy of amateurs vis-à-vis professional artists. For Siano and many others, it was not enough that amateurs participate in artistic work directed by professional artists; the singularity and purity of the amateur contribution needed to be acknowledged and encouraged. Not all TRAC members agreed, as became evident in debates about amateur participation in a professional production of the official 2007 Avignon Theatre Festival (designated as the Festival d’Avignon “In” as opposed to the “Off” festival, which developed as an alternative to the official

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event). As part of the repertoire of that year’s official festival, the director Frédéric Fisbach included amateur performers in a production based on the writings of poet René Char. The production was staged in the most prestigious setting of the festival: the Courtyard of Honour at the Palace of the Popes (La Cour d’Honneur du Palais des Papes). Among the amateur participants were members of the TRAC , including Eliane Goudet. She found the process to be fascinating and beautiful, but she also said that others had reacted differently. During a dinner at her house, an epic argument broke out over the value of the show. Hervé Bonzom, one of the elder statesmen of the TRAC actors and also the director of his own quite active troupe in Pernes les Fontaines, found the whole project insulting to amateur theatre. He said that, in his view, the amateurs had only served as extras, moved around like scenery without any input or recognition of their talents whatsoever. For Bonzom, the project was guilty of a kind of exploitative appropriation (“récupération”) of amateurs that I had heard mentioned before with reference to a production by Armand Gatti in Avignon.6 In Bonzom’s view, the integrity of amateur practice is defined in contradistinction to a kind of official professional culture (sometimes referred to as “le culturel,”; see Lepage 2009). It expresses the strong desire for establishing an independent voice similar to the way that Carrignon emphasizes encouraging a perspective outside consumerist logic. For Bonzom, theatre practice is not just about working collaboratively to create a work of art that transcends the input of the individual participants (as it was for Goudet in this project). It is about defining and expressing a singular voice closely linked to the daily lives of the participants. The feelings expressed in this argument were so strong that, months afterward, when I asked the two to tell me about it one night at Eliane’s home, Hervé politely declined: “It’s better not to get into all that again.” Because they depend on the energy and commitment of volunteers at all levels of theatre production, TRAC members have struggled with the question of how invested participants are in the project. In many cases, there has been a gray area between the disinterested ideals of the troupe and the practical necessities of making a living in the arts. The position of Mario Leccia and his companion Marie-Madeleine Martinet illustrates this gray area. Having earned the status of professional musician-actors, they are paid by the TRAC , but they perform along with participants who are volunteers. At the same time, their contributions to the troupe include hours of work that are not compensated—they adhere fully to the troupe’s social ideals and its commitment to artistic integrity. For Mario and Marie-Madeleine, this combination of ideals

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and commitment provides an artistic experience they find particularly rewarding, all the more so for being rare in their work with other artists in the area. This view was evident in Marie-Madeleine’s description of her participation in a professional theatre project associated with the Avignon Theatre Festival the same year as the Fisbach production. The show was entitled Cargo and was created under the aegis of the National Theatre of Cavaillon (Scène Nationale de Cavaillon). A mobile production centred on truck driving, the show brought together amateur and professional actors. The audience climbed aboard a truck and saw things performed both within the truck and outside it. Marie-Madeleine’s part included singing and playing music on a traffic island. When I asked for her reaction to the show, she said that it was “mixed (nuancée). People did not invest themselves enough (s’impliquer).” She said that it was a shame that more had not been done with the truck drivers to give them more training beforehand—that they told their stories in a monotone with very little modulation of their voices. She also said that it felt as if she were just going to the office—there wasn’t a lot of contact with the others in the show before or after the performances. What also made her feel uncomfortable was the fact that she and the others were shown all kinds of praise and recognition, which she felt was undeserved, at least in her case. She had been much more committed and involved in TRAC productions without all the fuss made. There was something dissatisfactory about the whole experience—it didn’t provide the gratification of a job well done or the assurance that what was necessary for the job to be well done was recognized. Mario Leccia, in his discussion of the commitment to amateur theatre in the Vaucluse, also emphasized the importance of the investment (implication) of people. As a musician and member of the group La Bande à Koustik, Mario had worked on many theatre productions, both amateur and professional, and he enjoyed the serious approach of the TRAC . He also appreciated the participation of amateurs from a broad range of backgrounds, which “creates a kind of unity.” He viewed voluntary associations such as the TRAC to be key intermediaries for cultural policy, for “initiatives decided on at a higher level.” Although he regretted that associations did not have the funds to realize this goal, he also identified the motivation of people as the crucial variable: “What is important is the investment of people.” Like Marie-Madeleine, Mario considered this involvement as being partly about a kind of social bond with the other performers, but it also included a serious commitment to artistic quality. Describing a medieval festival for which his band had played, he said

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there was a lot of food and a lot of money behind the organization, but it was all show and no substance: “nothing happens—it is the art of fireworks, as Vincent would say.” There is, then, for these amateur artists a sense in which the prise de parole is also about asserting a distinctively amateur voice—closer, in some ways, to the voices of daily life. This everyday quality is viewed as a positive trait. The lack of formal training for most participants is acknowledged, although it must be said that many of these amateur artists have many, many years of performing experience and also many years of both taking and leading acting workshops. Sometimes, a lack of training and professional style is portrayed as responsible for more genuine acting. Like professional artists such as Cervantès, the amateurs view art and culture as a means of finding and expressing one’s own voice—an active means of engaging the world that is an alternative to the passive reception of a public culture communicated through electronic media and shaped largely by political leaders and advertising interests. But they also consider amateur practice to have an inherent purity apart from this larger public culture. In addition, as is evident in Mario’s words, they recognize and valorize voluntary associations as a key node in the development and implementation of cultural policy. In many ways, the voluntary association is a model for the kind of active engagement with society (rather than the “cultural consumption” noted by Siano) sought by these amateur artists. The voluntary association, as a whole (with its democratically elected council of administration and its annual general assembly where the year’s program is presented to the entire membership), also depends on the “investment” of participants to make it work. Beyond its role as an administrative structure, the voluntary association is, as we see here, a medium for the expression of the singular democratic vision of amateur theatre artists.

Europeanization and TRAC touring International touring has been important to the TRAC since the troupe was founded, with the number of sites abroad visited truly staggering. Nonetheless, the international dimension of the troupe’s project has gained increasing importance in the last 20 years as the number of international exchanges has grown. In addition, the significance of this touring has received a boost because of state and European encouragement of international arts exchanges (as, for example, in the 1992 “Europe on

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Stage” festival hosted by the TRAC that drew participants from Crete, Belgium, Northern Ireland, and Spain or, more recently, the 2008 touring of Eastern Europe with a Molière play). The TRAC ’s international touring has been integrated within and has sustained the local network of municipalities that constitute the troupe’s local performance circuit. In the case of the TRAC , then, this touring has paradoxically reinforced a specifically national discourse on culture in France and support for the institutional bases that sustain it at the local level. At the same time, the evolution of the troupe’s project in the context of European integration and post-colonial debates about the bases of national belonging in France shows the growing importance of Europe and the Mediterranean as broader frames for its work. After many years in which the main focus of European integration was the creation of interrelated political and economic institutions, efforts to foster Europeanization through cultural policy (including the creation of symbols such as a flag, anthem, and slogans) became especially important in the wake of chronic low participation in European Parliament elections and the extremely close passage of the Maastricht Treaty on European Union in 1992. It was evident that there existed a gap between the understandings of Europe employed by EU elites and those of other Europeans. Anthropologists examining Europeanization have studied the agents of European Union policy making (Abélès 1993; Bellier 1999; Holmes 2000; Shore 2000) and subjects of Europeanizing EU initiatives (Zabusky 1995). They have drawn attention to the ways that Europeanization has occurred parallel to and sometimes counter to the aims of EU policies (Wilson 2000), ways that sometimes create new possibilities for the expression of identity and that also reinforce ethnic and national divisions (Asher 2008). Such studies broaden our knowledge of the disjunctures between EU policies and understandings about Europe at the grass-roots level. For example, in a study of Council of Europe recommendations on reforming state cultural policy in Moldova, Jennifer Cash underlines the difference between the council’s view that the cultural policy goal of “cultural diversity” should reflect political, ethnic, and artistic plurality and the view of the artists she worked with who insisted that “artistic activity, ethnic relations, and politics should not intersect” (Cash 2007:1409). Other studies have identified settings for Europeanization where one might not expect it. Karanovic´ (2010) argues that the European activist movement against software patents has served to mobilize and bring together new actors across national boundaries and to “Europeanize” them, as they have learned to work within the structures of European governance in pursuing their cause. It is, in short,

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“an instance of contentious Europeanization around a newly emergent pan-European cause” (Karanovic´ 2008:6). The artists of the TRAC have only been the intended agents of EU -directed Europeanization periodically (through, for example, the 1992 “Europe on Stage” festival the troupe organized and which was partly funded by the European Union, and through the EU -supported TRAC tour of Eastern Europe in 2008). Generally, TRAC touring has been organized in an informal way, with very little help or direction from the institutions of the European Union. But “Europe” has been an important theme, both in the content of certain productions and in TRAC members’ interpretations of the political dimension of their touring. My aim here is less to assess the degree to which “Europeanization” may or may not be said to characterize TRAC touring (although I will comment on this point) than to contribute to the literature on Europeanization by highlighting the extent to which these artists’ understandings of Europe are shaped by the same approach to the political dimension of their work described previously, an approach that involves an emphasis on prise de parole and an embodied mode of being. Thus, just as the twin cities and other municipal initiatives they have contributed to have reinforced and extended the structure of their local performance network, the “Europeanizing” cultural exchanges TRAC artists have engaged in have reinforced and extended their understanding of the social role of artists in France. Perhaps, not surprisingly, their interpretation of their experiences abroad has highlighted those aspects most meaningful within their own approach to culture in France, and has downplayed aspects that contradict this. Europe has been a focus of TRAC productions for many years. One of the best early examples is a 1985 production created with an explicitly European staging: the medieval rural farce (“farce paysanne”) La Fiorina. La Fiorina was an adaptation of texts by the Italian medieval dramatist Ruzante. It was important to troupe members that their European priorities have a rural focus. In this way, the troupe communicated its own vision of an emerging Europe as one that would include a “popular” focus and not be simply a creation of European Union “technocrats.” The production La Fiorina is a good illustration of European themes also evident to a greater or lesser degree in other touring shows such as Till l’Espiègle, Alexis Zorba, and Molière’s Les Fourberies de Scapin. Although one troupe member who had voted against the Maastricht Treaty on European Union in 1992 commented to me that “before, La Fiorina was a farce—after, it became ‘Europe,’” the original poster for the play was in the blue and yellow colours of the European Union. The

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The European backdrop of La Fiorina performed in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary, 1992. Photo by the author.

set was small and lightweight; it was intended to tour and be adaptable to a broad range of settings. The set included, as a backdrop, a map of Europe in nine pieces that was gradually put together between acts until a complete and united Europe stood behind the actors at the end of the show. It was designed to reach a broad range of audiences across Europe: in addition to the broad physical style of comedy the actors employed, it included passages in Spanish, German, Italian, English, Provençal, and Neapolitan in addition to dialogue in its primary language, French. La Fiorina in Hungary in 1992 In the fall of 1992, I travelled with the troupe and the production of La Fiorina to the small town of Botfa near Zalaegerszeg in southwestern Hungary. I also returned to Botfa in 2004 with a different production, Les Colporteurs II . The differences between the two experiences highlight certain singular aspects of the TRAC approach to Europeanization through theatre. As with many of the exchange relationships of the TRAC, the Hungarian connection was the result of informal, personal contact rather than an institutional arrangement. Vincent Siano was a tourist in Hungary in the late 1980s when he stopped to listen to a zither group performing in a park. In spite of the language barrier, he struck up a conversation with the organizer of the group, which led to a long evening of eating and drinking and, eventually, to the invitation that brought the troupe to this tiny rural town in 1992. Because of the debates about

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the Treaty on European Union (the vote was held on the Sunday of the TRAC ’s return to France after the 1992 performance), Europe was very much discussed between the troupe members and their hosts, to the extent that this was possible given that none of the French spoke Hungarian. Somehow, between the discussants’ combined knowledge of English, French, Italian, and German, communication was achieved. The troupe’s European message was received with ambivalence by its hosts, who had recently seen the departure of the Soviets and the end of Hungary’s domination within another “transnational” bloc. The Hungarian organizer was sceptical about the changes occurring in the economy since the era of the Soviets and felt that the introduction of capitalism was mostly to blame. The Hungarian hosts, like the country more generally, seemed divided between a desire to celebrate the new Hungarian nation, on the one hand, and to pursue integration within Europe, on the other. In spite of the pro-European content of the play, troupe members themselves were ambivalent about an emerging “new Europe.” The cast members of La Fiorina were very concerned to get back to France in time for the Maastricht vote, even though, as with the French population more generally, they split roughly 50/50 in their voting to approve or not the Treaty on European Union. Some members felt that new attention to Europe was displacing an earlier emphasis on the Mediterranean, a focus evident, for example, in the troupe’s long-running production of the 1980s, Alexis Zorba, based on the novel Zorba the Greek. These people, including long-standing member Jean-Luc Violet, felt that these aesthetic changes in their productions echoed a broader movement that increasingly associated France with the European countries of the north (in part through the Maastricht treaty) rather than emphasizing solidarity with the countries of the Mediterranean rim. In spite of the linguistic challenges, the troupe was warmly and enthusiastically received by its hosts. One of the performances was in a field (the troupe integrated bales of hay into the set) on a beautiful evening, with the audience sitting in chairs in front of the stage. The show was preceded by a short presentation by the zither group so that the evening was a kind of artistic dialogue between hosts and guests. I had seen the play many times already, and I noted that the audience followed the play and laughed at the same times as audiences in France. One scene was usually the first truly comic moment, and I could often judge how an audience would react to the play as a whole on a given night based on response to this scene. A heartsick young paysan is outside the high wall of the house of his beloved (who has rejected him in favour of a wealthier man). He calls out that he will kill himself if she doesn’t see

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him, and the reply he receives is a huge noose that flies over the wall and lands with a loud thud at his feet. The Hungarian audience didn’t need to understand the words of the performers to know what was happening, and people laughed just as the Vaucluse audiences generally did. In general, the play was very well received, and, as is often the case in France, the performance was followed by a dinner for the troupe and hosts, which was served on long tables so everyone could eat and drink and talk together. Many of the troupe members told me that this was the exemplary TRAC experience: a magical evening performance under the stars and a close bond created with their hosts through the performance and the many rituals (meals, organized visits to local sites, welcome and farewell ceremonies) that shaped the meaning of the experience for all involved. There were times when this sense of social unity seemed to transcend distinctions made back in France. Malika, for example, no longer felt marked by her immigrant descent as “the beur.” She was a particular favourite of the Hungarians. In some ways, by going abroad, she had become more French. Nonetheless, the French performers and their Hungarian hosts had ideological differences that bothered some of the TRAC members. A few reported hearing disturbing anti-Gypsy comments from some of the Hungarians. At the end of one evening, we all sat around a bonfire, and the Hungarians sang songs that some of the troupe members believed to have nationalist and religious themes. As one song ended, Siano quickly rose and announced, “Well, that will make for a fine closing song for the evening.” Then he thanked everyone and made it clear that it was time to call it a night. As with the rehearsal process for eXX iL s and Colporteurs, the overall goal was to create a common bond outside of political or ideological views. One of the musicians on the 1992 Hungary trip, Cris Carron, once told me about an earlier TRAC production that was filled with infighting: “For whatever reason, the mayonnaise did not jell.” He referred to the emulsion between oil and egg yolk that bonds mayonnaise, saying that this show lacked the connection among participants common to other TRAC productions. Les Colporteurs in Hungary in 2004 When the TRAC returned to Botfa in May 2004, Hungary had just become part of a newly expanded European Union of 25 members. This time, the troupe came with a production (Les Colporteurs d’Histoire II ) centred on the French Revolution. One of the troupe’s performances was preceded by a presentation of the European anthem “Ode to Joy” by the host zither orchestra. In the town of Csespreg, the troupe sang songs

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from its production at an annual summer festival. Behind troupe members were three flags (one for Csespreg, one for Hungary, and one for the European Union). The organizers added the French flag in honour of the troupe. As with the first trip, there was a close bond forged between hosts and guests. The nature of this experience as an exchange rather than just a visit from a touring group of artists was reinforced by a gift from the mayor of Zalaegerszeg. During a presentation to the troupe, he spoke of the industrial and touristic appeal of the area almost as if he were speaking to potential investors. Siano jokingly responded, “We are just poor actors. We hope to make our own fortune here. We hope one day we can afford a tie as nice as the mayor’s.” At the dinner after the show later that night, the mayor gave his tie to Siano. As happened during the first visit, strong opinions were voiced that did not accord with the stated ideals of the troupe members. I interviewed one of the Hungarian hosts who was born in 1939. He very much welcomed the troupe and was clearly pro-European in many ways, although extremely disillusioned with the evolution of Hungarian society since 1989. “The Russian soldiers are gone, but the Russian mafia is still here,” he said. He also made comments critical of Gypsies and Jews— comments common to the views of extreme nationalists in Hungary. Ignoring the post-1989 violence against Gypsies in Eastern Europe, he gave this opinion: It has always been good for Gypsies because they always had privileges and never had work. They say you should never give a fish, but teach one to fish. Well, the Gypsies don’t want to learn to fish. . . . Nobody in the world hates without having a reason, so those hated have to look into themselves. Jews too need to look into themselves and ask “Why the hatred?” It is not just Israel. Our history proves that Hungarians have let any nation come into this country, but this is Hungary and . . . we shouldn’t let minorities take over.

Why, he asked, should we only talk about the tragedies of the Jews? Why not talk about the other victims of the Soviets? Why not talk about the Albanians? He noted that he was optimistic about the future because there were not so many minorities in Hungary. His daughter helped to translate the interview, and she appeared deeply embarrassed. She quickly passed over some things that were said, seeming to want to exercise editorial control. “He says things like that because he listens to this one radio program all the time,” she told me later. “Before, he used to have his own opinions, but now he has just taken on all the views of the

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radio show.” However that may be, during the 1992 tour, TRAC members, who had asked for help getting recordings of Gypsy music, had already noticed and discussed the anti-Gypsy views held by some of their Hungarian hosts. There were other aspects of these trips that did not really fit with TRAC members’ own understanding of their performances as artistic and cultural. During their 2001 trip to Hungary, they performed a play by Dario Fo, an outspoken Nobel Prize winner whose works often include topical political commentary. One of their performance sites was the tourist mecca Lake Balaton, which created a strange juxtaposition of, as one troupe member later put it to me, “tanned, halfnaked Germans and French actors in heavy peasant costumes.” To a certain extent, the same juxtaposition occurred during the 2004 tour, when the troupe performed its play about the French Revolution— Colporteurs d’Histoire II —(clothed in heavy Revolution-era costumes) at a tourist site with thermal baths and waterslides. Troupe members did not deny these discordant notes in their trip to Hungary. They acknowledged the anti-Semitic opinions of some of their hosts when we spoke of them, but they chose not to emphasize them, just as the translator-daughter did not. Instead, troupe members emphasized the direct, human contact—the “osmosis” described as ideal in the creation of the eXX iL s production. Their attention was on a direct, human contact consonant with the “embodied mode of being” important to their theatre practice more generally. But these encounters show the challenges for a project calling for greater dialogue while at the same time emphasizing a style of social interaction based on harmony and the acceptance of alternative perspectives. These uncomfortable encounters show the limitations of the dialogue and exchange possible in these kinds of cultural meetings. That they discovered racist and anti-Semitic voices in their touring is not surprising, but the question of how to address such views is important given the broader Europeanizing goals claimed for the troupe by Siano. For Siano, the Hungarian exchanges, like others in their European touring, were intended to create a kind of cultural “intermeshing” (maillage) and, in this way, encourage the creation of a “network of citizens of Europe,” as he put it in an interview in 2008. As with the voluntarism that underpins the TRAC association, that this intermeshing occur through the initiative of individuals rather than institutions was important to him. That is what is behind these cultural experiences. It is part of the idea that there will be no Europe without a reinforcement of cultural exchanges between people—exchanges that they create themselves.

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Generally, there were few moments when political views were explicitly expressed in the rituals and performances of these exchanges. But there were also times when TRAC members viewed this trip and others to Hungary in terms of encouraging a more open society there: an environment more open to the prise de parole of artists and others. In the 1992 performance of La Fiorina in the open field, Siano added to the usual first words of the play—“It is good to be back”—these words in Hungarian: “in free Hungary!” The crowd applauded and shouted its approval. He viewed the troupe’s visit as part of a cultural openness intended to contribute to the growth of democracy in Hungary. This was also part of the motivation behind a visit to Croatia and Bosnia that the troupe made after a 2000 trip to Hungary. The troupe performed in Sarajevo through contacts established because of a TRAC member’s involvement with the association Actions Civiles Internationales. This performance contributed to efforts to rebuild a public cultural life during what Vincent Siano described in the TRAC newsletter as a profoundly moving visit to “countries ravaged by war.” Siano also considered the ongoing exchanges with the Hungarians a case of encouraging a prise de parole in one other, very important way that goes beyond the troupe’s interest in Europe. Based in this small rural town, the zither group was an example of a place-based arts initiative worthy of support by virtue of its popular origins. This support of the parole of popular arts groups fit within his more general philosophy of the arts, which emphasizes the distinctive singularity of the history and social identity of particular rural sites. But it is important to note that this attention to place coexists with an inclusive cosmopolitan vision of European society that recognizes the rights of immigrant and other minorities. The tension between a pluralistic recognition of distinct communities and a cosmopolitan vision of democratic inclusion is especially important in the context of EU efforts to promote a “Europe of Regions.”7 The exchanges between the French and Hungarians and the troupe’s European touring in general have prompted a search for common ground concerning a new Europe. In this respect, the troupe’s touring has contributed to a growing Europeanist discourse across national lines. The troupe has succeeded in building ongoing exchanges at the grass-roots level, even if differences of opinion and the lack of discussion about them show the limitations of the TRAC’s cultural exchanges as tools for encouraging dialogue and exchange. In addition to its emphasis on Europe, the troupe has also, and increasingly, described its work as “Mediterranean.” As with its European touring more generally, the troupe has interpreted its experiences abroad in the Mediterranean world in terms of the key

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concepts already noted, concepts that have shaped its approach to art and society within the national discourse on art and culture in France. The Mediterranean and TR AC touring: Dom Juan in Algeria in 2008 As noted above with respect to Jean-Luc Violet’s views on Europe, there has long been a strong feeling of “Mediterranean” solidarity among members of the TRAC . The opposition of some TRAC members to the Maastricht Treaty on European Union was based on the opinion that this would align France more closely with the countries of northern Europe. The same reason was often given by troupe members opposed to the European Constitution referendum in 2005. But troupe members also expressed a more personal affinity to the countries of the Mediterranean rim based on a shared way of life. “I feel that I have a Mediterranean culture,” Eliane Goudet told me. In Barcelona, I feel more at home than in Paris. Living outside. There is a way of life—relaxed—but listen, it doesn’t prevent us from working either.

Eliane, who speaks Provençal, also spoke of “the language of the South— Latin—that we all carry within us, the legacy of the Romans.” Generally, this emphasis on the Mediterranean has been especially evident in three ways: in the thematic content of particular plays produced, in the way that international exchanges have been framed as “Mediterranean,” and in the self-identification of many of the people I interviewed. There are many examples of how these Mediterranean sympathies and affinities are reflected explicitly in the theatre and music of TRAC artists. One recent TRAC production (Entrelacs: Vigne et Olivier) was centred on the olive tree and the grape vine. As the program put it, “From these two plants that weave the imaginary of the Mediterranean soul are born myths and melodies, stories and poems, images and fantasies.” Another example is the group of musicians who perform regularly with the TRAC (which includes Mario Leccia), La Bande à Koustik, which describes its sound as “Mediterranean.” The group plays music and acts out roles in the “Staging Villages” program. This is a program intended for tourists and others who want to learn about the history of the small towns in the Comtat Venaissin (CoVe). These productions include local stories and scenes acted out, sometimes in Provençal but always in what might be expected to be a kind of localist, folkloric genre. The band members have also mixed in music on traditional instruments that is inspired by their travels to Algeria and Eastern Europe, most recently

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Poster of Entrelacs: Vigne et Olivier, 2008 by Gwendoline Dulat.

Bulgaria. In many ways, La Bande à Koustik combines the European and Mediterranean emphases in the TRAC project in its music.8 Asked about the importance of the Mediterranean to the troupe, Vincent Siano noted that he had learned only recently that he holds dual nationality in France and Italy. He stated simply, “I am Mediterranean. For our work, the axis even more important than Europe is the Mediterranean.” When I asked him why, he explained in a way that clarified and extended his views on the role of international touring with respect to the troupe’s broader goals concerning art and society: “We move from the terroir to the international. Our experience can serve as a model for others.” Speaking of the TRAC ’s touring to Morocco and Algeria in particular, he made these observations:

186 rites of the republic Those countries are very rural. We keep the two goals of cultural development; we try to hold on to the two ends. We have our eyes on traditions, the terroir, the architectural heritage (patrimoine), but it is not about closing one off from others (se replier). We don’t lose sight of tradition, but we put it in contact with innovation. That is what is revolutionary.

The touring to Morocco and Algeria reinforced Siano’s commitment to these ideals. He also noted the importance of the troupe’s Mediterranean touring with regard to an artistic prise de parole in these countries: Culture for them is a necessity—just as much in Kabylie as in Morocco. It remains an act of protest; it provokes a strong reaction.

He noted that the troupe’s presentation of Molière’s L’Avare (The Miser) in rural Morocco was provocative for a reason they hadn’t expected: its portrayal of a forced marriage. “The young people were very sensitive to that. They see a play like that, and it makes them reflect on their own experience.” The troupe was similarly surprised that their presentation of Molière’s Dom Juan in rural Kabylie was provocative not for the reason one might expect (its religious blasphemy) but because it included a scene in which a man and a woman danced a tango together. It is partly this kind of cultural contact that Siano refers to with the idea of moving “from the terroir to the international,” but the key is in the social dimension of the artistic exchange. This terroir must be put in confrontation with other places, other environments. It is not the work of art alone that can do that. The heart of popular education is a kind of exchange, a kind of contact, and one with duration over time.

As with the European touring of the troupe, it is important that the TRAC ’s Mediterranean exchanges have a voluntaristic energy independent from institutional structures and initiatives: In Morocco, we performed in Marrakech and a small village. Each time it was an association that invited us. We are almost never invited by official institutions. We are invisible to the institutions.

The 2007 trip to the Kabylie region in Algeria is especially interesting as an example of the way international exchanges have been framed as

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Poster for the “Berber and Mediterranean Resonances” festival, 2007. Drawing: D. Sennane; Design: LYBICA .

“Mediterranean.” In spite of Siano’s statements quoted previously, institutions of the state have often helped support TRAC exchanges, even if the initial impetus comes from individuals rather than institutions. The 2007 Algeria tour was part of a new arts festival at Beni-Yenni entitled “Berber and Mediterranean Resonances (Résonances Berbères et Méditerranéennes)” and was sponsored by several local associations but also by the French Embassy in Algeria. The festival was a setting for the assertion of Berber identity in Algeria. An indigenous people of North Africa, the Berbers are united mostly through language. Berbers are not Arab and not necessarily Muslim. Assertions of Berber identity have often been risky in Algeria in the tense

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political context there of the last 15 years. In the troupe’s newsletter, Vincent Siano described the trip in this way: Invited to the first edition of “Berber and Mediterranean Resonances” in 2006, we had to say no because of current events. Asked again in 2007, we thought it important to answer “Present.” These cultural meetings are a vital necessity for our Kabylie friends. . . . Imagine a village, Ath Yenni, composed of seven huts on rocky peaks, with the Djurdjura mountain chain as a backdrop. Imagine associations, young people, families with very little but with much good will who organize cultural activities in an extremely tense political context, with military blockades at the bottom of the village (a state of emergency in effect). Imagine a splendid countryside filled with people who are welcoming, aware, resisting, and gifted with an ancestral knowledge of artisan skills (this being a centre of Berber jewellery) but victims of an economy and environment degraded by 15 years of instability. Imagine a schoolyard, an old platform serving as stage, 3 projectors, and 1,000 spectators, packed tightly against one another, on the ground, on school benches, standing, all generations mixed together, curious to see a French troupe perform Molière’s Dom Juan. (Siano 2007)

Evident in this passage is the respect for place common to the TRAC project and also the fact that here, as elsewhere in its practice, the troupe sees its work as part of exchanges in a political sense. This political aspect of the TRAC ’s enterprise is not framed in terms of explicit statements of republican ideology. Rather, it is about building relationships with people across national boundaries and celebrating openness and freedom of expression in a closed society. The narrative tone of Siano in this passage (“Imagine . . .”) attempts to place the Vaucluse readers of the TRAC newsletter in the same position as the troupe members who travelled to Algeria. Here, Siano is also trying to get the readers to imagine the Vaucluse in a more “Mediterranean” way and to see those in Algeria (“our Kabylie friends”) as part of the larger TRAC community. In general, the Mediterranean has been an increasingly important context for the TRAC in two ways. First, it has provided a new way of emphasizing a more inclusive understanding of national community in their work. As Paul Silverstein has noted, the Mediterranean “has remained a prime category of transnational or, literally, international belonging for post-colonial migrants and minorities in France and North Africa” (Silverstein 2004:228). By embracing this category, this “liquid

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continent,” in the words of Gabriel Audisio (1935), these theatre artists are promoting an image of France as a place of multiple origins. Second, an emphasis on the Mediterranean also expresses the concern of many that the European Union will evolve in a way that is less attentive to the countries of the south than to those of the north. It is important to note that the TRAC is still emphasizing the singularity of local identities—its members are still talking about “terroir”; art has to be from somewhere. However, their exchanges with local groups in North Africa are becoming more important, and the Mediterranean provides a broader transnational frame linking the TRAC and the people of Ath-Yenni and Beni-Yenni in Algeria. In spite of these changes, and as with their “European” goals, they are still interpreting territory through the universalist principles of the Republic and opposing this to a nativist understanding of local or national identity. The same concepts they have employed in their local theatre practice (the importance of a prise de parole and an embodied mode of being) have been called on to interpret their international touring. Even as they are stretching the terms of French republicanism to fit changing political and economic conditions, they reproduce a national discourse on culture, whether in the Vaucluse; in Botfa, Hungary; or in the Kabylie region of Algeria.

Conclusion In adapting the ideals of a “citizens’ theatre” to the changing conditions of contemporary France, the theatre artists considered here have shaped their own European and post-colonial version of republicanism. In an historical context in which national and European identities are held to be threatened by the refusal of immigrants to respect universalist democratic values, these artists have created a “citizens’” theatre practice centred on dialogue and exchange. This project has been especially important given the climate of fear that has generated reductionist frames for understanding immigrants and their descendants in Europe today; in particular, it runs counter to the limited and oversimplified views concerning Islam discussed above. Two related concepts have been central to the way that these artists have shaped a distinctively theatrical approach to issues of national and European belonging. The focus on what I have referred to here as an “embodied mode of being” (Kapchan 2007) has allowed them to promote dialogue and exchange. In some ways, an embodied mode of being is, of course, central to all theatrical performance. What is especially

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distinctive in this case is the extension of the term to life outside the performance proper and its importance to the social and civic role of artists generally. Linking arts practice and everyday life involves the cultivation of skills that allow artists to become media for the expression of individual and social memory in a putatively disinterested way, unmediated by the “noise” of the politically authorized and economically motivated messages of public culture. It also relies on a belief in the ability of theatre artists to achieve a kind of independence from, or at least an alternative perspective to, the dominant discourses of society. This approach takes on special importance in contemporary France, where debates about the colonial era’s legacy for immigrants and their descendants today (and the relationship between the colonial empire and the Republic) often bring forth sharply opposed memories and interpretations of the past. Although such memories have sometimes been addressed explicitly in the work of the artists considered here, the most important feature of their practice relevant to this context is their emphasis on a mode of dialogue and exchange rather than on the paternalistic approach underlying the “mission civilisatrice (civilizing mission)” and some theatre decentralization initiatives of the past. This emphasis is evident, in part, in their international touring and in their hosting of artists from abroad. But it is also evident in an approach to theatre that, through the medium of the body, reaches across the boundaries between artistic performance and everyday life. It is through bodily “listening” and embodied performance that these artists see themselves contributing to creating a more cosmopolitan and inclusive society. The second concept is the “prise de parole,” which is related to the first in that the body is the medium for it. However, what is most important here is the expression of a distinctive voice. While “embodied” theatre practice emphasizes the importance of listening, prise de parole involves the articulation of a singular voice and the active participation of speakers in social dialogue. The distinctiveness of the voice in question is framed in different ways. It is, for Cervantès and Catherine Germain, at once both intensely personal and in communication with social memory. Here, theatre practice is a means of asserting an independent, individual perspective while, at the same time, addressing the unresolved conflicts of the past that continue to haunt social relations today. For both Friche and TRAC artists, there is an effort to recognize and promote the expression of linguistic minorities in France today, another way in which social diversity and inequalities are addressed through the theatre. For Siano, the prise de parole of the TRAC is a means of asserting a distinctively “popular” voice, more in touch with oral traditions grounded in locally

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based folk cultures. This assertion of the “popular” is also reflected in the musical instruments and genres chosen for TRAC productions and by the musicians working with the troupe. Siano and some of the other TRAC members also believe that the integrity of an amateur voice is compromised when amateur actors are incorporated in professional theatre productions in ways that minimized their creative contributions. The institutional organization of the TRAC (based on a voluntary association) is also viewed as important to the assertion and protection of a distinctively amateur mode of expression. Finally, the notion of prise de parole is also interpreted in terms of encouraging a more open society in places where doing so has been impossible in the past or remains so today. This chapter has also noted some of the challenges to and limitations of the cosmopolitan nature of the republicanism of these artists, particularly with regard to the TRAC ’s touring in Hungary. By emphasizing amicable social relations and seeking to build long-term exchanges, TRAC members minimized or ignored the exclusionary views of some of the troupe’s hosts. This is not to dismiss the benefits of such exchanges in the long term, but it does help define more precisely the nature of the approach. The “dialogue and exchange” in question here does not involve coming to a consensus or even, for the most part, exchanging views about sensitive issues of ideological disagreement. The key for these artists is a particular mode of interaction that contributes to knowing others better. In the case of the TRAC touring in Algeria, these exchanges, however brief, were a way of fighting the fear of abstract others discussed by Todorov (2008) and replacing it with concrete “embodied” knowledge of particular individuals. This work furthers the “Mediterranean” themes of the TRAC and the broader recognition of the Mediterranean dimension of contemporary France. The European touring of the troupe contributes to direct links between a network of local associations and small towns in other parts of Europe. In this way, the TRAC’s touring furthers the “intermeshing” that Siano has described as characteristic of the troupe’s approach to Europeanization. I have emphasized the contributions of the troupe in this regard while also noting the ways such exchanges have been pursued with the same approach to republicanism that has shaped the TRAC ’s local touring. The experiences abroad have been interpreted in ways that reinforce the republican values of the troupe and its members’ belief in the institutional structures that have sustained their citizens’ theatre in the past. In this way, one sees the ongoing relevance and importance of a national discourse on culture—this discourse is reproduced even in international touring specifically focused on European cultural exchange.

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Notes 1 For example, John Bowen (2007) has examined the tradition of French secularism (laicité) often invoked in debates about whether Muslim girls should be allowed to wear headscarves in public schools. While laicité is often presented as an unchanging value that founded the Republic and has sustained it since, Bowen shows it to be a contested constellation of meanings about the relations between religion and the state, and he argues that it is only relatively recently, because of the perceived threat from Islam, that it has taken on the meaning of a secularized public space. 2 Tzvetan Todorov, La Peur des Barbares: Au-dèla du Choc des Civilisations (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2008). This work builds on Todorov’s earlier work On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). 3 Schain concludes as follows: “There are now tens of millions of Americans who are a second and third generation removed from immigrants who arrived before World War I. Their parents and grandparents were also unwanted immigrants, against whom there was a huge political reaction. They, however, are Americans, even when they disagree with their government. Their counterparts in Europe are European” (Schain 2009:BR5). 4 “University syllabuses must grant the place that it deserves to the history of France’s presence overseas, particularly in north Africa. School courses must . . . recognise the positive role played by the French presence overseas, particularly in north Africa, and must accord the prominent position that they merit to the history and sacrifices of members of the French armed forces” (in article 4 of the law of February 23, 2005, quoted in Liauzu 2005). 5 “Look at the history of the conquest of these people you call barbarians, and you will see there violence, all crimes unleashed, oppression, blood flowing, the weak oppressed, tyrannized by the conqueror! That is the history of your civilization! . . . The conquest you are calling for is the abuse, pure and simple, of the power that scientific civilization has over rudimentary civilizations, in order to exploit man, torture him, take from him all the force within him to the benefit of the one claiming to be the civilizer” (Georges Clémenceau, Chamber of Deputies, July 28, 1885, quoted in Nguidjol 2008:30). 6 This production included out-of-work and other young people defined as “in difficulty.” Some of those who participated also participated in TRAC productions from time to time. The main criticism I heard was that some of the amateur participants felt that they had been led to believe that there would be many future opportunities after the production while, in fact, there was little follow-up. These participants noted the contrast between that production and the tremplin (trampoline) nature of the TRAC, which has maintained its stability over the years and has offered opportunities for training that have helped some members go on to professional careers in the theatre and to successful completion of programs in schools such as the state-run ISTS (Institut Supérieur des Techniques du Spectacle) in Avignon devoted to training technical staff for the theatre. 7 Douglas Holmes (2000) is one of many anthropologists who stress that the results of EU moves toward economic and political union have not always matched the goals of EU administrators. He argues that the EU emphasis on a “Europe of Regions” has severely weakened the political sovereignty of European states. According to Holmes, this decline, in concert with the weakened power of states to control national economies, has contributed to the rise in support for narrowly exclusionist groups such as the National Front (Front National) in France or the Northern League (Lega Nord) in Italy. 8 The band describes itself as follows: “The La Bande à Koustik is born of the meeting of musicians from the region of Mont Ventoux. Enthusiastic fans of traditional music and instruments, they explore a wide repertory, moving from festive themes of the Gypsies of Central Europe and the Balkans to the more eastern melodies of Greece and Turkey, picking up here and there popular songs from Italy, Spain, and even our own region, Provence” (Citizen Jazz 2008).

Conclusion THE STATE, THE ARTS, AND THE POLIS

In this one play, Vincent made a mistake in choosing one of the actors. Hugues [not his real name] was handsome but not a good actor. He didn’t perform with the others. It is very important to perform with the others. You’ve made me put my finger on something—you have to think of your role, but you have to go beyond it. You are with the others. There’s a reason we say “to play” (jouer) like children do. . . . There is always a sort of complicity between actors. We have memories in common, of the creation together, of incidents that took place. It can create friendships but that’s not all or even the most important. In the theatre, we meet up with one another again (on se retrouve). Hélène Boudier, TRAC actress, 1993 Simply to meet up again with one another (Pour se retrouver, tout simplement). Heading in the TRAC newsletter of a section devoted to the reasons for its theatre, TRAC -Écho, October 2009

The actors and actresses of citizens’ theatre whom I have described in this book have many reasons for performing. Here, I have focused primarily on the social and political meanings behind their participation—the ways in which their work is meaningful in local, regional, national, and more broadly European and Mediterranean contexts. Hélène Boudier, in the words quoted above, speaks of how in the theatre “on se retrouve,” a phrase that is difficult to translate. In addition to “meeting up with one another again,” it means “to find ourselves together again” and “to 193

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find our bearings.” All of these meanings are important in the value these people find in their participation in the theatre. Indeed, it is in large part through the social interactions of the theatre—the “meeting up again together”—that artists situate themselves as citizens within a broader social and political collectivity. Key to their understandings of citizenship is a national discourse on culture, influenced but not wholly directed by the Ministry of Culture. I am certainly not arguing here that a national essence (timeless or evolving) underlies the identity of French citizens and directs their conduct regarding culture. Rather, in explaining the “national” nature of these artists’ theatre, I have emphasized certain political traditions associated with the central state. These traditions have contributed to reproducing a specifically national frame for understandings of culture and for the policies derived from these understandings. Especially since Malraux’s administration of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs at the beginning of the Fifth Republic, state cultural policy has been an important site for debates about the political goals to be sought through the arts and the kinds of public support to be given them. Early initiatives of theatre decentralization contributed greatly to shaping a public discourse about culture that was influential in the demands sought by activists in May 1968. Especially following the election of François Mitterrand in 1981, the extension of state influence through decentralization succeeded in embedding a “political grammar” devoted to culture across the French territory. This process expanded cultural governance built on a long “polycentric” political tradition in which municipalities have acted as local centres of state power. Another key way that a national frame has been important for the work of the artists discussed here is in their engagement with decentralization. One of the most important goals of state cultural policy since Malraux, decentralization has been defined by the centre-periphery inequalities of a national social geography. I have also focused here on the history of state administration of popular education within France and on its importance in defining the political goals of amateur artists, as well as on how funding for popular education (through the Ministry of Youth and Sports) has supported amateur arts creation (through production workshop grants) and provided employment to animateurs and others working to further amateur arts creation. As with the national system of education, the administration of culture in France has been an important site for asserting the universalist values of the French republican tradition. In this respect, too, I have argued that the national context for issues of diversity and political belonging is essential to understanding the ideals and practice of these artists. We have seen how important this context is not only with regard to the rejection

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of “communitarian” appeals—in the Marseille-Provence 2013 program, for example, or in the goals of François Cervantès for his troupe as a whole—but also in the aesthetic choices made in crafting theatre productions. In the eXX iL s production, for example, Vincent Siano’s treatment of immigration focused primarily on the shared experiences and economic hardships of all immigrants rather than on the singularity of any one group in particular. Here, and in the work of the TRAC more generally, a focus on place and local distinctiveness has sought to acknowledge alternative perspectives to those views privileged in the media and in political discourse. The ruralist focus of the TRAC is not a traditionalist “back to the land” agenda such as that of the Vichy regime. In making a point of including folk music and dance traditions, the goal has been to promote recognition of diversity rather than to express an essential identity based on ethnicity, religion, or national origin. Although certain political traditions (state cultural policy, ideals of republican universalism, and a “polycentric” system of state and local governance) have been important in defining the national dimension of these artists’ practice, these have changed since the founding of the TRAC in 1979. These changes include the economic shifts that have led to “ glocalization strategies,” an expanded state administration of culture (and a recent loss of faith in the key Fifth Republic priorities of democratization and decentralization), and the reforms of state administration (RGPP ) taking place at the time of the writing of this book, which have the potential of ending or drastically cutting funding to many of the institutions and associations devoted to popular education in the past. These changes have not diminished the importance of a specifically national discourse on culture. Rather, the artists described here have recast enduring ideals in order to better address the changing political and economic conditions of recent French history. If the primary subject of this book has been “culture” as it is understood in Raymond Williams’s formulation, that is, an arts-centred response to changes in capitalism and democratic politics, the approach here has revealed more than the local and national interrelations that characterize the political dimension of these artists’ work. The ethnographic approach taken here has shown how aspects of theatre practice extend beyond the domain of the arts proper and, in this way, provide a means of making sense of the world and expressing a vision of social and political belonging. The personal immediacy of the theatre has contributed to the enactment of social and political belonging in forging links between actors (in the rehearsal process) and between actors and audience (at performances). These settings provide opportunities for “rites of

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the Republic” by enabling participants to interpret and enact the universalist ideals of the French republican tradition while remaining connected to diverse but particular localities, within France and abroad. Beyond the specific message conveyed in the content of each play, these artists express a belief in the value of pursuing a common purpose collectively and in finding a public discourse respectful of diverse origins and histories. Two recent works on arts policy in the United States provide a helpful contrast to the French context. In When Art Worked: The New Deal, Art, and Democracy, Roger Kennedy and David Larkin (2009) describe how state arts policies in the 1930s helped to create among Americans a sense of common purpose and solidarity with the poor, in addition to promoting awareness of the need for conserving natural resources. Arts policies helped to bridge social divisions not only by including the unemployed in public works projects but in strengthening awareness of the individual’s participation in a broader political community. What becomes clear in the story told by the authors is that this was a period when government art policies served, and were seen by many to be serving, the public interest, something that contributed to building faith in public works more generally. The collective spirit that informed new construction—schools, post offices, and other government buildings—is still present in the architecture that remains from that period. Unfortunately, as former director of the National Endowment for the Arts Bill Ivey1 makes clear in Arts, Inc., the twin developments of everexpanding control of cultural property rights by corporations and an increasingly diminished role for US arts policy has led to a situation in which we no longer “link our expressive life to America’s public purpose” (Ivey 2008:xviii). Ivey’s focus on “expressive life” includes a broad range of high cultural as well as vernacular art genres, and his broad-ranging essay argues that the arts can both revitalize social and intellectual life in the United States and contribute to American “soft power” (Nye 2004) abroad. Parallel to Williams’s conception of culture as a “rallying and mitigating alternative,” the view here is that this cultural renewal will help to turn citizens away from the degrading and dehumanizing effects of mass consumption. By adopting a new, comprehensive approach to our arts system and by coordinating cultural interventions so they serve the public interest, we can provide every American with the benefits of a vibrant expressive life—a reservoir of identity and spiritual renewal powerful enough to replace the fading allure of empty consumerism. (Ivey 2008:xix)

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Ivey’s mention of “coordinating cultural interventions” hints at his fundamental objective in this book: arguing for a much stronger role for public arts policy in the United States. His experience as director of the NEA provides him with a special perspective on the politics surrounding state arts funding and on the ways the NEA has come to be the quintessential example of “big government” for critics on the Right.2 His efforts at the NEA and in this book have been devoted not only to demonstrating the public value of the arts but also to showing how arts policy can exemplify government action as the expression of the citizens’ will—as in the New Deal policies described by Kennedy and Larkin. Here, government is not the authoritarian state limiting individual freedoms but the guarantor of “cultural rights” that protects individual citizens from the exploitative control of intellectual property and allows for broader accession to a shared heritage. At times, Ivey calls for a kind of ministry of cultural affairs in the United States, but he is careful to distinguish the American context from that in “France, China, and Germany, and in many former colonies of European powers” where “culture is ‘normative’—a standard against which authentic citizenship can be measured” (Ivey 2008:20). Ivey also notes the recent debates on citizenship and national identity in France during the 2007 presidential campaign: The campaign debate over culture and identity in France had as its backdrop suburban violence that underlines the difficulty of linking immigrants with the values of old societies in which a monolithic culture provides the only acceptable markers of belonging. (Ivey 2008:20)

With this reference to a “monolithic culture,” Ivey underlines the divide between a dominant discourse about citizenship and identity in France, on the one hand, and, on the other, immigrants and their descendants, who often find themselves on the outside looking in. But we should be wary of assuming an overly sharp division between state arts policy and citizens in France, or of assuming that state-sponsored culture there is a homogenous, singular whole. I hope that my book has helped to show that a diversity of approaches to this discourse about citizenship and identity belies the view that France has a “monolithic” culture. In many ways—bringing the history of immigration and colonialism into public discourse, performing in languages other than French, cultivating transnational exchanges that call attention to the diverse origins of local

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residents—the artists considered here are stretching the range of “acceptable markers of belonging.” In addition, we have seen in their work a focus on broadening participation in the national discourse on culture. Here, one may speak of a single nationally shared set of understandings about art, but we have also seen successful attempts to introduce new voices to this broader discourse. Attention to the uses of culture in the work of these artists, in other words, reveals this “monolithic” culture to be capable of change and diversification. If the “monolithic” nature of culture in France described by Ivey has been much exaggerated, the ideology of a culturally homogenous France has been enormously powerful. As an example of this power, Susan Carol Rogers cites Pierre Lamaison’s 1988 study of notaires charged with drawing up legal wills. Although his study clearly indicates a broad regional variation in inheritance practices, Lamaison also notes that all of the notaires believed themselves to be simply applying the national law in the same uniform way that all other French notaires did. Rogers argues that part of the power and legitimacy of the state derives from the illusion of national cultural homogeneity. Sociocultural specificities are reproduced in part via the local processing of national institutions and mandates which themselves operate to provide a sense of coherent Frenchness by masking those specificities. “France” is, in fact, a massive contradiction, a construct which, like the ostal,3 cannot work, but nonetheless persists. (Rogers 1991:198)

Published in 1991, Rogers’s book has prescient comments about contemporary EC initiatives toward European integration. Drawing on her analysis of France, she argues that the cultural homogeneity feared by many Euro-critics was unlikely. Indeed, international institutions may well operate as one of the mechanisms by which national specificities are reproduced. Already in 1985, she notes, Yves Mény (1989) described national variations in the implementation of a variety of EEC regulations. Similarly, Abélès (1993) notes national variation in the practices of European Parliament members. Rogers also argues that the maintenance of nationally distinct practices involving the implementation of EU policies will probably be more visible than the regional variation within France: “It appears unlikely that the reproduction of national specificities within the EEC can be as effectively masked as that of regional specificities within France” (Rogers 1991:200). We are likely to view European

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integration as less than complete given that our previous understandings of national cultural unity have been distorted by the modernist agendas of the nation state, particularly if we take France as our model. Shore argues, for example, that Europeanization will become a top-down propaganda effort: Just as the nation-state was forged by intellectuals and elites whose goal was to inject nationalist consciousness into the masses . . . so European consciousness is being developed and diffused from above by a vanguard of EU politicians, bureaucrats and marketing professionals. (Shore 2000:64)

But an approach to the processes of nation building that focuses too much on intellectuals and elites masks the involvement of amateur artists and other non-elite actors who have sustained state agendas in diverse local settings. Studies assuming national cultural homogeneity exaggerate the extent to which European states have achieved this in the past and set unrealistic expectations for European integration in the future. Abélès (2000) argues that a more realistic goal would be “harmonization.” As Jelena Karanovic´ (2009) has noted, the research in those settings where “Europeanization” has been most explicitly pursued—the European Parliament (see Abélès 1993, for example) and the European Space Agency (Zabusky 1995)—underlines the complex dialectic between national and European commitments in these settings. They are, on the one hand, sites of new European exchange and commitment to common purposes and, on the other, settings where national differences are reproduced in daily interactions. These studies open the possibility of “conceptualizing transnational European identities through reflexive practices that neither simply transcend nor extend national belonging” (Karanovic´ 2010:7). In their focus on work and other aspects of everyday life as sites of “Europeanization,” these studies also direct our attention to a wider range of settings for the study of this dialectic between the national and transnational dimensions of European life. In this book, I have argued that the practice of “citizens’ theatre” is one such setting. In certain respects, this theatre has contributed to more social interaction and exchange among Europeans—but in ways that illustrate the complex dialectic between national and European commitments, a dialectic described in the studies noted previously. The theatre artists considered here are reproducing and recasting the French republican tradition in their arts practice. In this way, similar to the artists operating under the New Deal arts policies, they are not only providing broader access to arts

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creation but are cultivating support for state and other governing bodies through public-spirited arts projects. At a time of profound national questioning of the French republican tradition, the study of these artists provides a window into the changing understandings of civic identity in contemporary France. In their work, artists of citizens’ theatre have engaged a crucial issue for defining difference and identity in France today: the memory and broader legacy of the colonial era. Patrick Weil concludes his book devoted to “the Republic and its diversity” with this statement: [I]n order for the French to be able to feel as if they all belong to the same civic community, each one must be able to understand and thus learn a little of the history of the others. The final and necessary requirement of diversity in the Republic is the perception of the history of others, and their integration into national history. (Weil 2005:109)

In the content of their productions, in their touring, and in the attentive bodily listening promoted in their acting practice, these artists have engaged other collective memories and sought to integrate them within a single republican vision. This is one of the ways that these artists are both shaped by a national politics of culture and provide their own distinctive contributions to it. One of the public arts projects funded during the New Deal in the United States was the Federal Theatre Project. Although the US federal government regularly contributed to the public art adorning post offices or schools, the idea, so common in France, that the theatre was a public work was unusual in the United States of the 1930s and remains so. Today, the architectural works of the New Deal are around us as material reminders of the spirit that motivated their creation. But the theatre is an inherently ephemeral art—while the texts remain with us, the spirit and social energy conveyed by performances do not. And yet the social interactions and the knowledge that each performance is ephemeral contribute greatly to the theatre’s singular power in joining social and artistic goals. This power is evident when one considers the individual and collective stories of the TRAC and Friche theatre artists. “Culture” is a tool that these artists draw on as they define the broader public value of their theatre. It is a way of situating the local social relationships they forge within a broader social and political frame. As they create and discover meaning with and through others in their theatre practice, they also “find their bearings” as citizens in national, European, and Mediterranean

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terms. At the heart of their work is this act of meeting and finding meaning together: “se retrouver” through “citizens’ theatre.”

Notes 1 Bill Ivey, who was appointed by President Clinton, held the position between 1998 and 2001. 2 Ivey describes his presentation of the NEA Challenge America initiative to a seemingly sympathetic chief of staff for John Shadegg, Republican congressman from Arizona. Asked if his boss would support the initiative, the chief of staff replied, “You’re doing a great job, but we’re still going to oppose you: you’re just too good an issue for us” (Ivey 2008:241, italics in original). 3 The ostal is the family-owned farm that the eldest son inherits. The son’s wife comes to live with his family so that what remains constant across generations is the ostal. Rogers’s ethnography is a study of an Aveyronnais community in which the patrilocal inheritance patterns of the local ostal system not only did not disappear but actually grew stronger during the “thirty glorious years” of French economic expansion and state-directed “modernization” in the early post–World War II era.

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INDEX

Abélès, Marc, 42, 198–99 Abirached, Robert, 19, 23n6 Acsé (l’Agence Nationale pour la Cohésion Sociale et l’Égalité des Chances), 114–15 action culturelle, 7–9, 40 Action du Théâtre Vauclusien (ATV ), 30 Actions Civiles Internationales, 183 Aillagon, Jean-Jacques, 19 Aix-en-Provence, 6 Ajami, Fouad, 159 Akian Akel, 111 Albanel, Christine, xv, 19, 21 Alexis Zorba (TRAC production), 36, 47, 125, 177, 179 Algerian War, 111, 164 alienated youth, xxi. See also economic inequality; rioters in the French banlieues (2005) alienation, xiv, xxix, 11 in peripheral neighbourhoods, xxxii, 88 Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department, 32, 144, 154, 156n12 TRAC tour (2008), 148–53 amateur participation in professional productions, 172–73, 191 amateur theatre, 2, 7, 58, 131, 171–75. See also TRAC confidence from performing in, 154 following May ’68, 30 integrity of, 172–73 and popular education, 5 prise de parole, 171–75 Siano’s emphasis on, 29 animateurs, 11–12, 28, 194 animation, 2, 11, 38

animation culturelle, 2, 12–13, 72 animatrice, 39 Apt region, 55 Arabic-language theatre, 81–82, 171 architectural patrimony, 53 Arduin, Joelle, 141 Armengol, Luis, 96, 103 Arnaud, Cathy, 141 “art and history” program, 54 artist-citizen relationship to the state, 70 Artpress, 98 arts. See also culture civic dimension, 88 commercial dimension, 13 complicit in displacement of workingclass residents, 75 Arts, Inc. (Ivey), 196 arts creation combining with urban renewal, 73 arts decentralization in France. See decentralization arts events important media for city promotion, 91 arts heritage, 3 “Arts Practice, Culture and Popular Education” (protocol agreement), 17 arts-centred corporatism, 20 Association of Gypsies and Travellers of Avignon, 99 Association of the nine European Cities of Culture, 2000 (AECC ), 92–93, 101 Association Rencontre et Loisirs pour Tous, 38 ATV (Action du Théâtre Vauclusien), xxvi Aubert, Jean-Marc, 25

223

224 index audience, 35–38, 109–10 importance of, 134 politicization of, 8 recasting passive role of, xxv relationship between performers and, 167–68, 195 audience makeup, 15 failure of postwar policies to broaden, 19 tourists in, 46 Audisio, Gabriel, 189 “autonomization,” 83 L’Avare (Molière), 124, 186 Avignon, xix, 26–27 Gypsy community, 98–102, 115 Avignon ECOC project, xxxii, 87–88, 101, 103 “Art and Creativity” as theme, 93 Beauty exhibition, 94 enhanced city’s architectural heritage, 95 European Portrait (photography exhibition), 95 handled by mayor’s office, 92–93 in keeping with decentralization in state cultural policy, 96 new technologies and, 98 opportunity to build communication across social divisions, 98 promoted city as tourist destination, 95 Restitution of Beauty (visual art exhibit), 95 theme of bringing people together, 96 Yvon Lambert Centre for Contemporary Art, 94 Avignon Theatre Festival, xxv, 5–8, 30, 41, 103, 172–74 example of postwar “decentralization,” xxiii–xxiv major international event, 93 Avignon Theatre Festival (2000) emphasis on artists and playwrights from Eastern Europe, 94 AVIGNONumérique (Digital Avignon), 94, 98 Ayad, Ziani Chérif, 81 Babel de Mai, 74–75 Balance neighbourhood, 99–100 Bambuck, Roger, 17 Les Bancs Publics, 74 La Bande à Koustik, 56, 174, 192n8 combines European and Mediterranean emphases, 185 in “Staging Villages” program, 184 banlieues, 38, 66, 98, 122, 127

Barcelona Process, 79, 86n17, 104–5, 107, 115 Barrault, Jean-Louis, 7, 9 Bartolone, Claude, 79 Bawer, Bruce, 159 Beaudouin, Patrick, 52 Beaumes de Venise, xvi, 1, 26–27, 54–55 Beaumes de Venise elementary school, 126–27 Bec, Louis, 98, 101 Bec, Serge, Le Bouc de Monsieur de Maire, 125 Beckett, Samuel Endgame, 124 Waiting for Godot, 124 Bédoin, 54 Béjart, Maurice, 8 Belle de Mai, xviii EU urban renovation program, 63, 73–74 unionist and socialist identity, 73 ZUS in, 73 Belle de Mai district, xviii, xxi Belle de Mai factory, 67 Belle de Mai middle school, 76 belonging. See national belonging Benguigui, Yamina, 138 Immigrant Memories, 137 Béranger, Pierre-Jean De, “Le Roi d’Yvetot,” 129 “Berber and Mediterranean Resonances” (arts festival) assertion of Berber identity in Algeria, 187 Besson, Éric, 121 Blatière, Jean-Luc, 134 Body-Gendrot, Sophie, 153 Bonzom, Coco, 124, 151 Bonzom, Hervé, 173 Botfa, Hungary, xix Le Bouc de Monsieur de Maire (Bec), 125 Bouchain, Patrick, 74 Boudier, Hélène, 193 Bourdieu, Pierre, xxii Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Molière), 124 Brecht, Bertolt, 23n6, 131 Mother Courage, 124 Brenner, Neil, 50–51, 59 Brook, Peter, 31 Buffet, Marie-George, 17 Bulgaria, 185 Burali, Eric, 141 Cadenet, 47, 55 Cadenet, Bernard, 73 Cahiers de l’Atelier, 12

index 225 Caldwell, Christopher, 159 Camus, Albert, 125 Le Canet neighbourhood, 108 Le Capitain Fracasse (adaptation by TRAC ), 25–27 capitalism, xiv–xv, xxvii, 10, 160, 179 Cargo, 174 Carpentras, 52–53 Carrignon, Christian, 169 Carron, Cris, xxix, 180 Cash, Jennifer, xxiii, 176 Cassandra, 72 Catallan, Étienne, 30 Catholic Church, 20, 171 censorship, 128–29 centralized model of arts governance, 2–3. See also state cultural policies Centre Social de la Reine Jeanne, 38 Centres Dramatiques Nationaux (CDN s), 9–10 Centres for Popular Education and Sports, 18 Cervantès, François, xiv, xx–xxi, 71, 88, 161–62, 164–68, 170, 172, 175, 190 rejection of communitarian appeals, 195 theatre production in a Belle de Mai middle school, 76–77 Cervantes, Miguel de, 125 Cesari, Jocelyne, 85n4 Chaban-Delmas, Jacques, 11 Un Chapeau de Paille d’Italie (Labiche), 124 “charter of objectives for culture and popular education” (agreement), 17 Chekhov, Anton, The Cherry Orchard, 124 Chéreau, Patrice, 13–14 Chevènement law, 52–53 La Chichòla (Pasturel), 125 Chirac, Jacques, 19–20, 70, 97, 121 Chiron, Cathy, 36, 149 Chiron, Gilbert, 35–36, 40, 150–51 Chivau Frus (Siano), 54, 125 Chouaki, Aziz, 111 Choukroun, Nicole, 170 Christianity, xxvii Cimino, Sylvia, 132, 134, 141 cities, xxxii, 103. See also ECOC program; postindustrial cities importance in glocalization, 50, 59, 87 importance to new patterns of governance, 51, 65 international exchanges between, 82 new emphasis on, 82 cities and regions of art and history (Villes et Pays d’art et histoire) designation, 53–54

“Cities on the Edge” exchange network, 82 citizens’ theatre, xxii, xxiv, xxxiii, 57, 111– 12, 199–200. See also Friche; TRAC centred on dialogue and exchange, 189 “se retrouver” through, 193, 201 citizenship, xxxi, 70, 93, 113. See also immigrants; national belonging debate on, 197 participatory model of, xxv, 5 understandings of, xxii Clamensane, 148–49 The Clash of Civilizations (Huntington), 158 class-based nature of arts appreciation, 71 Clémenceau, Georges, 164 Cocteau, Jean, 46 Cogliandro, GiannaLia, 92 Collardelle, Michel, 78 collective solidarity, 120, 131. See also social solidarity colonial legacy, 81, 120, 157–58, 164, 200 civilizing mission, 164 intertwined with republicanism, xxxii, 158 teaching in public schools, 164 Les Colporteurs d’Histoire I (TRAC production), 144 Les Colporteurs d’Histoire II (TRAC production), 145, 178 in Hungary (2004), 180–83 Les Colporteurs d’Histoire III (TRAC production), 120, 125–31, 134, 145, 153 cast, 126 focus on fear, 127, 130 outside specialists, 132–33 social solidarity through theatre, 131–35 Comédie Française Theatre, 21 Com’médiévale (TRAC production), 124 Communist Party, 74 communitarian appeals, xxi, 160, 167, 195. See also withdrawal into communities (le repli communautaire) rejected by Friche leaders, 166 “community of municipalities,” 52, 59 Comoros Islands, 81, 160 Compagnie L’Enterprise. See Entreprise theatre troupe competitive ethos of selling places, 82, 91, 103. See also cities; tourism Comtat Venaissin, 53 confidence (from participating in theatre), 133, 154

226 index “Le Conscrit de Languedoc” (pacifist song), 129 consumerist logic, opposition to, 169 contes and conteurs, folk traditions of, 124 Corazon Gitano (musical group), 100 Cordellier, Blandine, 74–75 cosmopolitan democratic inclusion, 115, 183 cosmopolitanism, 90–91 Council of Culture and Popular Education (Conseil Culture-Educaton Populaire), 17 CoVe (Communauté d’Agglomération Ventoux-Comtat Venaissin), 52–55, 58–59, 184 CRAC (regional committee for cultural affairs), 15 création, 8, 14. See also theatre artists La Criée, 70 Cristofol, Jean, 73, 86n13 cultural animation, 2, 12–13, 72 Cultural Centre of the Barbière, 26 cultural development, 10, 13 cultural development centres, 54–56 cultural difference, xxxii cultural exception for the arts in trade agreements, 13, 20, 24n11, 71 cultural heritage, 4, 7. See also patrimoine and social change, xxx cultural identity importance of language in, 170 cultural “intermeshing,” 182 cultural memory, 100 cultural pluralism. See pluralism cultural policy in France. See also state cultural policies in France challenges to globalism and market economy, 3 fighting dehumanizing effects of capitalism, x, xv, 10–11 local control, 52 monarchist cultural policy, 70 national discourse on culture, xx, 2, 22, 191, 194 special relationship between state and society, xv taken seriously as an affair of state (or nation building), xiv cultural property rights control by corporations, 196–97 The Cultural State (Fumaroli), 19–20 culture, xx, 170 arts-centred response to changes in capitalism and democratic politics, xiii, 195 as essential to the fulfilment of individuals, 170

ethnographic approach to, xix–xx governmentalisation of, 65 importance in lived experience of civicminded artists, xv importance in understanding society and citizenship, xxxi medium for transcending particular interests of specific groups, xxi mitigating alternative to harmful effects of rapid economic change, xiv, 196 as a political project, xxiv, 2 quasi-sacred realm, xiii, xiv, xv territorialization of, 16 as tool for promotion of town identity, 46, 82 culture, access to guaranteed to all citizens by constitution, 5, 197 culture and economic growth need to reconcile, xxvi, 11 culture and social solidarity. See social solidarity Cyrano de Bergerac (TRAC production), 124 De Gaulle, Charles, 6 De Luca, Erri, 136 Le Débat, 19–20 Debraux, Emilie, “Lisa,” 129 decentralization, xvi, xxiii–xxv, xxxi, 2–5, 9, 13, 22, 42, 49, 51, 63–65, 71–72, 79, 96 associated with the Left in France, 4 efforts to provide broader access to works of art, 3 in the Lang years, 15–17 promise of national unity, 4 regional councils gained power through, 15 renewal of the theatre and the Republic, 4 deconcentration, 49, 51 Dehy, Abdellatif, 139 democracy, 84, 183 cosmopolitan democratic inclusion, 115, 183 French democratic values, 122–23 democratic deficit, xxxii, 108 democratization, xxxi, 12, 20, 22, 63 broadening access to and appreciation of the arts, 3 Lang’s approach to, 13 “demotic” cosmopolitanism, 91 “Le Départ” (song), 128 Dernier Quatuor, 165–66

index 227 désétatisation, 83 devolution of responsibilities to local levels of governance, 51, 88. See also decentralization Digital Avignon, 98, 101 addressing diversity and inequalities within cities, 102 “Le Directeur” (song), 128 Direction de l’Éducation Populaire, 5, 7 Direction Générale des Arts et des Lettres (DGAL ), 5 Dom Juan (Molière), 124, 186 Don Quixote (TRAC production), 33–34, 40, 125 bringing together people of different educational backgrounds, 29–30, 38 Don Quixote workshop (1992–93), 22n1 Donnedieu de Vabres, Renaud, 19, 21 Douste-Blazy, Philippe, 19 DRAC (Direction Régionale d’Affaires Culturelles), 16 Dubois, Vincent, 71, 83, 85n10, 86n11 Duclert, Vincent, 122 La France: Une Identité Démocratique, 123 Duhamel, Jacques, xxvi, 11 Durkheim, Émile, 5 Durkheim’s organic solidarity, xxviii East/West division, 158–59. See also north–south economic inequalities ECOC program, xxxii, 82, 87, 94. See also Avignon ECOC project; MarseilleProvence 2013 cities redefining themselves through culture, 88 contribution to Europeanization, 89 goals of, 91–92 means of bringing about greater social unity, 93 opportunities to kick-start sluggish economies, 92, 114 urban renovation and local development, 92 economic downturn (1970s), 25, 51 economic inequality, 50–51, 66, 88, 114, 138, 153–54. See also poverty éducation populaire. See popular education El Gosto Theatre in Algiers, 81 Eling, Kim, 3, 10 elitist avant-garde, 19 embodied mode of being, xxxiii, 120, 158, 160–64, 168, 172, 177, 182, 189 allows for openness to dialogue and exchange with others, 165

embodied performance, 190 “emploi-jeunes” contract (CEJ ), 57–58 enchantment, 33 Endgame (Beckett), 124 Entrelacs (TRAC production), 125, 184 Entreprise theatre troupe, 88, 160–61, 163, 165–67, 172 ethnic identities, assertion of, xxviii ethnographic approach to culture, xix–xx Euromed, xviii, 68, 104 Euromed urban renovation plan, 63, 68, 79, 82 Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area, xviii Euro-Mediterranean Workshops, 105–6, 115 ideals of the French Republican tradition, 107 model for European cities, 107 “The Radiant City (La Cité Radieuse),” 106 “Sharing the South (Le Partage des Midis),” 106 Théâtre de la Mer (Theatre of the Sea), 108 “Europe of Regions,” 183, 192n7 Europe on Stage festival (1992), 47, 175–77 European activist movement against software patents, 176 European Capital of Culture program. See ECOC program European Constitution referendum (2005), 184 European distinctiveness and superiority, 89, 159 European integration, xxvii, 4, 51, 83, 88–91, 199 EC initiatives toward, 198 as frame for state cultural policy, 20 Hungary’s changing perspectives on, xix European Parliament, 199 European Space Agency, 199 European Union, xvi, xviii, xxvii, xxx, 21 changes in governance, 65 initiatives to promote a “people’s” or “citizen’s Europe,” 93 less attentive to south than north (possibility), 189 objective of “unity in diversity” through culture, xxxii weakening the sovereignty of European states, xxviii European Union cultural policy, 88, 116. See also ECOC program European Union Culture Programme 2007–2013, 104, 118n17

228 index Europeanization, xvi, 63, 79, 82, 89, 116n4, 199 intermeshing (as described by Siano), 191 reinforcing ethnic and national divisions, 176 eXX iL s (TRAC production), 120, 125, 134–40, 171 anti-immigrant comments during showing of, 140 emphasis on shared experience of all immigrants, 140 intergenerational exchanges, 141, 154 languages in, 138, 140 Ministry of Youth and Sports production grant for, 141 Ministry of Youth and Sports production workshop, 135 music in, 142 outside specialists, 139, 141 pursuit of freedom theme, 140 rural fatalism, 136–37 social solidarity through theatre practice in, 141–43 staging of, 142 treatment of immigration in, 136, 140, 153, 195 treatment of intergenerational conflict, 136 Fabiani, Jean-Louis, 80 “fast capitalism,” xxvii fatalism of social class, 29, 136–37 fear, 130, 158 climate of, 189 of Islam, 127, 159 manipulation through (in contemporary France), 153 replacing with concrete embodied knowledge of particular individuals, 191 of violence and instability, 127 Federal Theatre Project (US ), 200 Fédération des Foyers Ruraux (Federation of Rural Centres), xx Fédération des Oeuvres Laiques de Vaucluse (Federation of Secular Works of Vaucluse), xvi, xx Fellini, Federico, 125 Ferguson, James, 64 Fernandez, James, 131 Ferry, Jules, 164 Festival Les Hivernales, 94–95 Festival of Nancy, 13 Feydeau, Georges, Monsieur Chasse!, 124 Fiesta des Suds (music festival), 67

Fifth Republic (1958–), xv, xxi, xxxi, 6, 10 administration of culture (grand ambitions unrealized), 21 arts decentralization policy in, 16 “the popular” in French cultural policy during, 2 La Fiorina (TRAC production), 123, 177, 183 in Hungary, 178–80 languages in, 124 Fisbach, Frédéric, 173 Fo, Dario, 182 Mistero, 124 Fontamara (TRAC production), 31, 123 Foucauldian concept of governmentality, 84n2, 86n11 Foulquié, Philippe, xiv, xx, 67, 69, 72–73, 82, 168 criticism of the Ministry of Culture, 70 negotiated place for the Friche in the city’s planning, 68 on state cultural policy, 71 visionary thinker about the place of arts in society, 68 voice of republican universalism, 81 Les Fourberies de Scapin (Molière), 33, 124, 177–78 Foyers Ruraux, 47–48 Fracasse, 30 Fraissard, Sylvie, 98–100, 102 La France: Une Identité Démocratique (Duclert), 123 freedom of expression, 128–29 history of France as struggle for, 126–27 French chanson, 13 French colonial legacy. See colonial legacy “French Connection” years, 86n14 French DATAR , 50 French republican tradition, 4, 77, 157. See also republican universalism model for post-colonial Europe, 108 questioning of, 200 Friche, xxi, xxxi–xxxiii, 62–84, 169 challenging and re-articulating statecentred French cultural policy, 64 critique of state as dangerous actor, tempting and co-opting theatre artists, 72 cultural intermediary for 2013 European Capital of Culture program, 84, 88 cultural intermediary for EuroMediterranean initiatives, xviii, 64, 68, 82 events and visitors per year, 62

index 229 founding principle, 62 interaction with local people, xviii, 62, 73–76, 78, 83 international exchanges, 81 network of transnational institutional partners, 83 new status as an SCIC , xviii, 63, 74–76, 83 part of broad arts renaissance in Marseille, 67 privatization of a public enterprise, xviii, 63 professional artists, xviii, 172. See also theatre artists promotion of linguistic minorities, 190 rejection of “communautarisme,” 166 republican universalism, 84 troupe members, xiv “From the terroir to the international,” 60 Frontex (EU ’s border authority), 122 Fumaroli, Marc, xv The Cultural State, 19–20 Fuzibet, Frédérique, 110–13, 115 Ganzl, Serge, 25 the Garage (acting workshop), 165–67 Gard department, 44 Gatti, Armand, 40–41, 173 Gaudin, Jean-Claude, 85n3, 85n9 Gautier, Théophile, 25–26 Gavarrete-Lhardit, Dilia, 165–66, 170–71 Gdan´sk, 81 gender inequalities, 102 General Council of the Vaucluse, 55 gentrification, 75 George, Susan, 125 Germain, Catherine, 167–68, 170, 190 German Turks, 90–91 Giono, Jean, 31, 125 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry, 10 Giusiano, Daniel, 127, 134, 142–43, 149 Glasgow (1990) (European City of Culture), 91, 93 redefined as place of art and culture, 92 tourists fell after initial year, 95 global economic inequalities, 138, 154 globalization, xvi, 3, 20, 63–64, 78, 82–83 impact on cultural integrity of the nation state, xiii, xxii uniformity and passivity accompanying, 162 glocalization, 51, 59, 87, 195 cities as important sites of, 50 economic inequalities and, 50 Goetschel, Pascale, xxiv, 9–10 Gontard, Lucas, 37

Goudet, Eliane, 124, 151, 170, 173, 184 Grémion, Pierre, 42 Grimaldi, Mylène, 35–36 Guesde, Jules, 73 Guigou, Elisabeth, 97 Gupta, Akhil, 64 Gypsy community in Avignon, 98–99 children’s performance in education system, 100–101 deep roots in Avignon, 100 relocated outside the city, 99–100 “Gypsy Women of Avignon” project to counter negative stereotypes, 99 giving voice to a marginalized community, 97 intended to include European links (but did not happen), 102 long-term benefits, 102 “Gypsy Women of Avignon” website, 98–102, 115 expression of cultural memory, 100 failure to last, 103 showing Gypsies involved with broader Avignon community, 100 Hamlet (Shakespeare), 124 harmonization, 199 Harvey, David, 49 Heikkinen, Timo, 91 Heinich, Nathalie, 19–20 heritage, xxxi, 3 Herzfeld, Michael, 89 history, 161 “art and history” program, 54 historical plays (or staging French history), 125–27, 131 as living heritage, xxx performing, 127. See also Visites en Scène program HLM s (habitations à loyer modéré), 109, 118n14, xxxivn11 Holmes, Douglas, xxvii, 192n7 Hommage à Fellini (TRAC production), 125 Hordé, Jean-Marie, 14–15 Hugues, Clovis, 73, 86n13 “a humanism of development,” 11, 13 l’Humanité, 72 humanization, 163 Hungary anti-Gypsy and anti-Jew comments, 180–82 in European Union, 180 TRAC tours to, 179–83, 191 Huntington, Samuel, The Clash of Civilizations, 158

230 index identity, 11, 113, 170 Immigrant Memories (Benguigui), 137 immigrants, xxviii, 98, 139–40, 189 experience of intergenerational conflict, 136, 138 immigration, debates about, 157 immigrants’ unwillingness or inability to integrate, xxi, 122, 140 immigration policy, 121–22, 125 control of illegal immigration, 122 family reunification, 122 and national identity, 121 selective (based on needs of French economy), 122 individual, 14 individual citizens, 63 individual rights, 49 Institut Supérieur des Techniques du Spectacle in Avignon, 37 intellectual property. See cultural property rights “intercommunality,” 52 international exchange, xv, xvi, xvii. See also TRAC , international touring and exchange; transnational exchanges International Monetary Fund, 64 international voluntary and activist organizations, 64 internationalization, 79 Islam, xxvii, xxviii, 157, 160, 189 reductionist view of, 159 itinerant pedlars (colporteurs), 125 link between urban and rural life, 126, 129 parallels with amateur theatre participants, 131 Ivantchenko, Alexandra, 74 Ivey, Bill, 23n10, 198 arguing for stronger role for public arts policy in the US , 197 Arts, Inc., 196 Izzo, Jean-Claude, 73 Jauneau, René, 30 Jospin, Lionel, 97 Kabylie region (Algeria), 185 Kahn, Fred, 81 Kapchan, Deborah, 160–62 Karanovic´, Jelena, 176, 199 Kazantzakis, Mme, 36, 47 Kazantzakis, Nikos, 125 Kennedy, Roger, 197 When Art Worked, 196 Keynesian model, 50

keys of theatre, 169 Kide (Avignon ECOC project), 94 Kmiec, Elsa, 143 La Courneuve, 108 Labiche, Eugène, Un Chapeau de Paille d’Italie, 124 Laine, Aude, 142 Lamaison, Pierre, 198 Lang, Jack, 12–13, 15–19, 85n10 Langevin, Philippe, 66 language, 124, 138, 140 Arabic-language theatre, 81–82, 171 importance to cultural identity, 170 multilingual productions, 170 Occitan language, xxv, 129 Provençal language, 100, 124–25, 146, 151–52, 178, 184 Larkin, David, 196–97 Latarjet, Bernard, 87, 107, 114 Laurent, Jeanne, 5–6 Le Breton, David, 108 Le Canet neighbourhood, 118n22 linguistic diversity, 112 unemployment, 108 Le Corbusier, 106 Le Pen, Jean-Marie, 121 Leccia, Mario, 56, 141, 143, 173, 184 “emploi-jeunes” contract (CEJ ), 57–58 touring in Bulgaria and Algeria, 58 Lemon, Alaina, xxii L’Entreprise (theatre troupe), xiv, 71 Letarjet, Bernard, 104 Lille as ECOC , 114 linguistic exchange, 162. See also language linguistic pluralism, 81, 112–13, 170–71 “Lisa” (Debraux), 129 listening, 171 attentive bodily listening, 165, 190, 200 listening and theatre practice as model for social relations, 165–68 Liverpool, 81 Living Theatre, 8 local and national in France, xvi, 41–42 dialectically related, xvi, xxx polycentric system linking, 42, 44, 46, 52, 59, 194–95 Lou Viro (all-Provençal troupe), 124 Louis XIV , King, 70, 130 centralized model of arts governance, 2 Louise Michel ou la Révolution Généreuse (TRAC production), 125 Lubéron region, 55 ludruk theatre, xxii, xxxivn8

index 231 Maallem, Sahouda, 139 Maastricht Treaty on European Union (1992), 65, 176–77, 179 opposed by some TRAC members, 184 Magnan, Pierre, 144, 149, 154 attention to place, 144, 146 celebration of rural heritage, 152 detective fiction, 144–45 Mon Théâtre d’Ombres, 125 The Mahabharata (staged by Peter Brook), 31 la Maison Blanche (HLM ), 109–10 Maison des Jeunes et de la Culture (MJC ), 30 Maisons de la Culture, xxiv, 7–10, 13, 16 Malraux, André, xxiv, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 85n10, 194 creation of a regional committee for cultural affairs (CRAC ), 15 focus on “action culturelle,” 7 Mandel, Ruth, 90–91, 115 market economy, 4 Marquis, Aline, xxiii, xxv, xxvii–xxix, 124 “La Marseillaise des Cotillons” (feminist version of French national anthem), 129–30 Marseille, xviii, xxx, 65–67 cosmopolitanism, 66 cross-roads of civilization, 87 cultural diversity, 82 ECOC bid for 2013. See MarseilleProvence 2013 entry point for immigrants, 66 ethnic diversity, 103–4 Euro-Mediterranean aspirations, xviii, xix, 64, 69, 79–80, 104 European Union urban renovation program in, 63, 67–68. See also Euromed explosion of the arts scene (1990s), 67 heterogeneous population, 65, 77 inequality, 66 installing cultural projects in empty industrial spaces, 68. See also Friche international aspirations of, xxxii “Mediterranean” setting of, xxxii multicultural tolerance, 66 port for trade and economic exchange, 67 post-colonial complexities of, 111 poverty, 66 racism, 66, 115 real estate speculation, 67 site for reflection on France’s colonial legacy, 81

unemployment, 66 ZUS (Zone Urbaine Sensible), 66 Marseille Theatre Conservatory, 108–9 Marseille-Provence 2013, xxxii, 79, 88, 103–4, 107, 195 budget, 104 emphasis on the Mediterranean, 105, 113 Euro-Mediterranean project, 115 Euro-Mediterranean Workshops, 105–6 Friche named key cultural intermediary for the project, 80 inclusion of small towns and intercommunal organizations, 104 more ambitious than Avignon, 115 new territories of art in, 106–7 Marseille-Provence-Métropole, 68, 104, 118n18 Marseille-République project, 75 Marseille’s ECOC bid. See MarseilleProvence 2013 Martin, Christian, 78–79, 107 Martinet, Marie-Madeleine, 173 May ’68, xxiv, 7–10, 194 TRAC as child of, 30 wave of amateur theatre following, 30 Mazari, Malika, 38–41 McGuigan, Jim, 83 Méchamment Berbère (Sif), 118n22 Mediterranean important context for the TRAC , 184– 85, 188 international belonging for postcolonial migrants, 188 as “liquid continent,” 188–89 unemployment, 105 Las Méninas, 170–71 Mentens, Ivo, 132–33 Mény, Yves, 198 Mercouri, Melina, 91 Mesguich, Daniel, 14–15 Meunier, Elisabeth, 132, 141 “Migrations and Memories” theme, 106 Ministry of Cultural Affairs. See Ministry of Culture Ministry of Culture, xiv–xv, xxi, xxxi, 2, 5–7, 16, 18–20, 40, 70, 103, 194 emphasis on creation, 15 funding, 10, 12 privileging of professional specialists, 13 protection of universalist works of art, 71 social agendas pursued through arts policies, 21

232 index Ministry of Culture and Communications, 18, 53 Ministry of Education, 18 Ministry of Health and Sports, 55 Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, and Co-Development, 121 Ministry of National Education, 5 Ministry of Youth and Sports, 2, 5–7, 12, 28, 194 disappearance, 55–56 reorganized (diminished), 18 theatre production workshops, 30, 132, 135 Mistero (Fo), 124 Mistral, Frédéric, Mireille, 54 Mitterand era, 46 Mitterrand, François, 12, 17–18, 70, 103, 194 Mitterrand, Frédéric, xv, 19, 21 Mnouchkine, Ariane, xxv, 21, 131 modernization, xxii Moinot, Pierre, 11 Molière L’Avare, 124, 186 Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, 124 Dom Juan, 124, 186 Les Fourberies de Scapin, 33, 124, 177 Mon Ami Pierrot (TRAC production), 125 Mon Théâtre d’Ombres (Magnan), 120, 125, 144–47 funding for, 148 music, 147 presents rural perspective, 151 small cast designed to tour frequently, 147 terroir, 145, 154 Monclar neighbourhood, 98, 101 Le Monde, xv, 14 “monolithic culture,” 197–98 Monsieur Chasse (Feydau), 124 Mont Ventoux, 32 Moody, Kim, 49 Moreau, Alain, 85n5 Morel, Stéphanie, 141, 143 Moroccan Gnawa trance, 160–61 Mother Courage (Brecht), 124 municipalities, 59 as centres for social and economic exchange, 48 efforts to group together for efficiency, 42 as local centres of state power, 194 municipalization of culture, 16, 52, 59 Muselier, Renaud, 78

Museum of the Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean (MUCEM ), 78, 80 Naples, 81 Napoleon, 129 nation state, 89, 199 European Union’s effect on sovereignty, xxviii globalization’s impact on cultural integrity of, xxii national belonging, xxi. See also Gypsy community in Avignon; immigrants; national identity; peripheral neighbourhoods acceptable markers of, 197–98 outsider (because of language or accent), 170 post-colonial debates about, 176 National Centres of Drama (Centres Dramatiques Nationaux or CDN s), 6 national culture. See also state cultural policies public theatre as medium of, xxi national discourse on culture, 2, 194 evolution of, 22 in local contexts, xx ongoing relevance, 191 national education system, 20 National Endowment for the Arts in the US , 196–97 funding for, 23n10 National Front (Front National), xxviii, 66, 121, 140, 192n7 support for in Belle de Mai, 74 national heritage, 7. See also patrimoine national identity, xxxi, xxxii, 20, 121. See also national belonging public debate, 120, 197 National Popular Theatre (Théâtre National Populaire or TNP ), 5, 78 neighbourhoods of exile. See peripheral neighbourhoods neo-liberalism, 49–50 New Deal arts policies, 197, 199–200 bridging of social divisions, 196 new territories artists challenges to state role in culture, 72 criticized as pawns of neo-liberal economy, 83 new territories of art (NTA ), xxxi, xxxii, 70–71, 77 adapted of old ideals of French cultural policy to new conditions, 81 desire for autonomy from state and from globalizing economy, 78

index 233 goals are variations on Fifth Republic state cultural policies, 84 in Marseille-Provence 2013 campaign, 106–7 new conception of the public value of the arts, 78 reactivating ideas of decentralization and participative democracy, 82 NGO s, 64 Noiriel, Gérard, 140 non-public, 8–9 Nora, Pierre, 160 North African immigration, 139–40 Northern League (Lega Nord), xxviii, 192n7 north–south economic inequalities, 138, 154. See also East/West division Nugent, David, 64 Occitan language, 129 Occitan-language theatre troupe, xxv Odéon theatre, student occupation of, 7 “On the necessity of the play of theatrical enchantment” (Siano), 33 The Oranges (Théâtre de la Mer production), 111 Ory, Pascal, 22n4 Ozouf-Marignier, Marie-Vic, 41, 49 Pagnol, Marcel, 35 Palace of the Popes, 94 la parole, 162–63 Parti Socialiste (PS ), 12, 97 participation in the arts relationship to a more active citizenry, 172 participatory democracy, 82, 84 participatory model of citizenship, xxv, 5 Pasturel, Roger, La Chichòla, 125 “Les Patentes” (Pitou), 128 Patras, Bernadette, 99, 101–2 patrimoine, 7, 45, 49, 53 Peacock, James, Rites of Modernization, xxii Pei, I.M., 70 Pemezec, Philippe, 52 Peraldi, Michel, 67–68 performers and audience relationship between, 166–68, 195 peripheral neighbourhoods, 26, 38, 40, 88, 90, 102, 108, 115 alienation, xxxii banlieues, 38, 66, 98, 122, 127 free bus service to ECOC activities, 97 immigrant population, 141 riots in, 66, 122, 160 social distance, 98

Pernes les Fontaines, 173 Pertuis, 55 Pitou, Louis Ange, “Les Patentes,” 128 place, attention to, 145–46, 153 coexists with inclusive cosmopolitan vision of European society, 183 Place Cadenat, market at, 74 Place des États-Unis, 109, 118n22 Planchon, Roger, 8, 14 pluralism, xxviii cultural, 82, 89, 159 linguistic pluralism, 81, 112–13, 170–71 post-colonial, 84 “pluri-cultural” centre (pôle pluriculturel), 55 Poirrier, Philippe, 3, 8, 16–17 Pôle de Développement Culturel, 54–56, 172 Pôle Départemental des Pratiques Amateurs Beaumes de Venise, 55 political dimension of theatre practice, 168–71 “political grammar” devoted to culture across the French territory, 194 political subjectivity, xxi politicization of the audience, 8 polycentric system linking state and local governance, 42, 44, 46, 52, 59, 194–95 Pompidou, Georges, 10 Pont d’Avignon, 95 the popular, xxxi, 2, 191 radicalization (and marginalization) of, 8 popular education, xxxi, 1–2, 5–7, 9, 22, 28, 33, 38–39, 59, 132, 138, 144, 186, 195 adult education, 4 diminished support for, 17, 21, 49, 56, 60 funding through Ministry of Youth and Sports, 194 goals of TRAC , 151 social inclusion, xxix, 4 popular education and Ministry of Cultural Affairs “failed marriage,” 6–7 Popular Front, xxiii, 4–5 popular song, 127 as alternative mode of expression, 126, 129 French chanson, 13 history of France from a grass-roots perspective, 126–27, 130 role in shaping a national narrative, 128 site of expression for opposed views, 128 popular theatre, 2, 9, 13, 31, 59, 111

234 index French tradition of, 23n6 May ’68 and, 8 “regressive populism,” 14 rejection of, 22 popular universities, 4 post-colonial, European republicanism, xxxiii, 157 post-colonial complexities of Marseille’s population, 111 post-colonial memory, xxx post-colonial pluralism, 84 post-colonial republican universalism, 158–60 postindustrial cities, 67, 74, 78, 81, 88 post-national world, xxii “Le Poteau,” 146 Poujol, Geneviève, 7 poverty, 130, 140, 170, 172. See also economic inequality; ZUS (Zone Urbaine Sensible) distinguishes immigrants from others, 139 Marseille, 63, 66, 105 Le Premier Homme (TRAC production), 125 “The Primary School, Society, and Peasants” (Siano), 29 prise de parole, xxxiii, 120, 158, 161, 177, 189 amateur theatre approaches to the concept of, 171–75 encouraging more open society, 191 in exchanges with Hungary, 183 expression of a distinctive voice, 190 in Mediterranean touring, 186 and the political dimension of theatre practice, 168–71 private sector funding of the arts, 23n10 Profession: Mother, 171 professional theatre, 12 professional theatre artists, 5 increased support from the state, xxxi increasing autonomy, xxxi, 8, 22 role in defining political goals of arts policy, 9 stronger voice and independence, 14 professional theatre vs. amateur theatre, 7, 171–72 progress, xxii protocol agreement (Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Youth and Sports) (1989), 17 Prova d’Orchestre (TRAC production), 125 Provençal language, 100, 124–25, 146, 151–52, 178, 184

Provence–Alpes–Côtes d’Azur (PACA ) region, xvi, xxxii, 27, 63, 81, 88 public cultural policy. See state cultural policies “Qui a Tué la Mairesse?,” 146 Quoirin, Sylvie, xxvi, 37 racism, 66, 111–12, 115, 138. See also xenophobic groups “The Radiant City (La Cité Radieuse),” 106 Raimbaut (Provençal troubador), 54 Le Rapport (TRAC production), 125 Rassemblement pour la République (political party), 97 Rasteau, 55 Redortiers (town), 144, 148 “region of art and history” designation, 53 regions. See also “Europe of Regions” power through decentralization, 78–79 Reine Jeanne area (peripheral neighbourhood outside Avignon), 38 Rennes, 6 republican universalism, xxi, xxxi–xxxiii, 63, 82, 84, 120, 157, 164, 194–95 RGPP (Révision Générale des Politiques Publiques), 18, 55, 122, 195 diminished support for popular education, 17, 21, 49, 115 Theatre of the Sea and, 114 Richards, Greg, 91, 95 Rigaud, Jacques, 19 Rijksmuseum, 83 rioters in the French banlieues (2005), 66, 122, 160 Rioux, Jean-Pierre, 16 Rites of Modernization (Peacock), xxii “rites of the Republic,” 195–96 Robinson ou la Femme Île (TRAC production), 125 Robion, 33–35, 37 Rogers, Susan Carol, xvi, 41, 198 “Le Roi d’Yvetot” (De Béranger), 129 Roig, Marie-Josée, 87, 97 Rokem, Freddie, 127 role of central state being redefined and reorganized, 21, 51. See also decentralization; state cultural policies role of state in local governance in Europe, 28 role of state in new transnational era, 65 Romeas, Nicolas, 72 Roncayolo, Marcel, 67 Rosanvallon, Pierre, xiv

index 235 Roseman, Sharon, 89 Roux, Patrick, 34–35, 37 Ruffin, François, 75 rural fatalism, 136–37 ruralist focus of the TRAC , 1, 12, 31, 151, 195 Ruzante, 177 Saint Geniez, 143, 148–50, 152 Saint-Didier, 54 Saint-Etienne, 6 Saint-Pulgent, Maryvonne de, 19 Salazar, Antonio, 8 Salle Fracasse (TRAC ’s home theatre), 37 Samson, Michel, 67–68 Sancho Panza (TRAC production), 125 Santiago de Compostela bid, 89 Sarajevo, 183 Sarkozy, Nicolas, xv, xxxi, xxxiii, 17, 79, 97, 114, 121, 140 reference to rioters as “racaille” and “voyoux,” 122 role in state immigration policy, 122 Sassatelli, Monica, 90 Schain, Martin, 159–60 SCIC (Société Coopérative d’Intérêt Collective), xviii, 63, 74–76, 84 “se retrouver” through “citizens’ theatre,” 193, 201 “Le Secret de la Mère Imbert,” 146–47 SEITA (Societé Nationale d’Exploitation Industrielle des Tabacs et Allumettes), 67 “Sharing the South (Le Partage des Midis),” 106 “Migrations and Memories” theme, 106 Shore, Cris, 65 Siano, Vincent, xiv, xxvi, 2, 12, 18, 25–26, 30, 34, 36–37, 56–58, 123, 127–29, 132, 134, 136, 138, 142, 144, 151– 53, 168, 172, 178, 180–81, 183, 185–86, 188, 190–91 Chivau Frus, 125 importance to TRAC , 28 “On the necessity of the play of theatrical enchantment,” 33 “The Primary School, Society, and Peasants,” 29 rural background and emphasis on amateur participation, 29 state certification as an animateur, 28 theatrical activity at the grass-roots level, 28 “The Train and Bread,” 135 treatment of immigration in eXX iL s, 195 Sif, Minna, Méchamment Berbère, 118n21

Silone, Ignazio, 31 Silverstein, Paul, 188 soccer as “mirror of identity” project, 113 Social and Cultural Centre of the Barbière neighbourhood, 141 social and economic justice, 51. See also economic inequality social barriers within cities, 108. See also peripheral neighbourhoods obstacles to city-centred EU cultural policy initiatives, 101–2 social class, 63 class-based nature of arts appreciation, 71 fatalism, 29 social class, boundaries of, 5 decentralization and, 3 social diversity, 164 social inclusion, xxix social inequalities in peripheral neighbourhoods, 108 social memory, 190 social solidarity through theatre practice, xxvi–xxxiii, 49, 127, 153 arts practice as medium for cultivating, 132 in Les Colporteurs, 131–35 in eXX iL s, 141–43 in Theatre of the Sea, 112 through meals and meetings with townspeople, xvii, 34–35, 154 sociocultural animation, 22, 59 “A sort of trench,” 136 Soufi, Kheira, 141 St. Gabriel social and cultural centre, 109 “Staging Villages” program, 184. See also Visites en Scène program state cultural form of the welfare state, 23n4 ensuring “pure” domain of culture based on universalist ideals, xxi promoting republican universalism, xxi protecting artists from the vagaries of commerce and incomprehension of locals, 73 role of. See role of central state state as guarantor of cultural rights, 5, 197 state cultural policies in globalized world, xiii local cultural producers and, xxv, 65 loss of faith in, 195 state cultural policies in France, xviii, 7, 10–12 after Lang, 19 challenges to, xv, xxx, 19–20, 63, 72, 82 criticized as monarchist, 70

236 index cutbacks in aid to the arts (1969–1981), 10 decentralization, 96 “dissolution” of, 13 evolution of, xxxi important site for debate, 194 local responses to, xxv participation in construction of the Republic and of democracy, 4 passage from tutelary to partner state, 17 post–World War II , xvi pursuing democratization and decentralization, 63 questions about, xxxi support for professional artists at expense of amateurs, 9 state intervention in economy (France) support across political spectrum for, 50 state-directed modernist social project loss of faith in, xxvii Strasbourg, 6 street theatre, xxv Suds en Lubéron, 47 supranational European unity, 90 Tasca, Catherine, 17–18 television, 20 Temime, Émile, 66 “Le Temps des Cerises,” 130 territorialization of culture in France, 16 territorialization of politics, 41–42, 49 terroir, xvii, 30–32, 145–46, 154, 186, 189 from the terroir to the international, 185–86 terrorism, 127, 159 TGV (high-speed train), xxv, 67, 84, 94 theatre allowing one to step out of socially defined status, 30 citizens. See citizens’ theatre effort against mind-numbing qualities of everyday life, 170 encouraging acceptance of minority linguistic communities, 171 events of May ’68 and, 7 links between actors, 195 links between actors and audience, 166–68, 195 means of expressing a vision of social and political belonging, 195 poliltical dimension of, 168–71 public theatre as medium of national culture, xxi tech crews, 33–34 theatre performance as a site of social communion, 168

theatre workshops for amateurs, 30 theatre artists amateur, 2, 29, 131, 172–74, 191 furthering dialogue and exchange, 160, 164 independence from or alternative to dominant discourses of society, 190 listening, 161 prise de parole, 161 professional, xxxi, 5, 8–9, 12, 14, 22 promoting image of France as place of multiple origins, 189 recognizing and providing expression to alternative voices, 160 reproducing and recasting French republican tradition, 199 sensitivity to energy of other actors on stage, 166 sensitivity to one’s physical surroundings, 166 shaped their own Eurropean and postcolonial version of republicanism, 189 theatre arts workshops (stages de réalisation), 1–2 theatre as “public service,” 5 théâtre citoyen. See citizens’ theatre Théâtre de la Cuisine, 169 Théâtre de la Mer (Theatre of the Sea), 115, 164 language of the body in, 113 respect for distinctive voices (Moroccan and Arabic), 113 RGPP reforms and, 114 soccer as mirror of identity project, 113 town crier project, 108–15 theatre decentralization, xxiii, xxiv, 10, 14, 194. See also decentralization associated with creation of the CDN s, 6 Théâtre des Amandiers, 14 Théâtre du Fil, 40 Théâtre Gyptis, 74 Théâtre National de Chaillot, 13 Théâtre National Populaire, 13 theatre of objects, 169 Theatre of the People, 4 théâtre populaire. See popular theatre Théâtre Rural d’Animation Culturelle. See

TRAC Théâtre/Public defence of création and criticism of théâtre populaire, 14 theatrical activity at the grass-roots level, 28 Third Republic, xxvii, 3–4 arts decentralization, 4 popular education, 4

index 237 Till l’Espiègle (TRAC production), 177 Todorov, Tzvetan, 158–59, 164, 191 recognition of linguistic minorities, 171 Toubon, Jacques, 17 Toulouse, 6 tourism, 48, 88. See also competitive ethos of selling places competitive market for, 45, 51 effects on attitude toward theatre, 46 inter-city and inter-region competition for, 51 tourism industry, 27, 92 Tournier, Michel, 125 town crier project (Théâtre de la Mer), 112, 115 audience, 109–10 TRAC , xiv, xvii, xxiii, xxv, xxvii–xxix, xxxi, 25–60, 120, 144. See also titles of TRAC productions adapted performance to expectations of hosts or audience, 35–36 amateur status, xxvi, 2, 172 arts initiative in a small town, xxviii, 27–28 assertion of the “popular,” 191 attention to place, 123–25 beginning actors and skilled together, 38 as child of May ’68, 30 contributed to embedding a national politics of culture in its local environment, 41, 59 contribution to economic life of the area, 37 cultivating arts participation open to all, 26, 29, 33, 36, 57–58, 172 emphasis on social environment, 31 employment and training in theatre arts, 27, 37–38 Europe on Stage festival (1992), 175–77 European themes, 177–79 exchanges at grass-roots level, 183 exchanges with other amateur groups outside France, 37 historical plays (or staging French history), 125–27, 131 importance of Europe and the Mediterranean as broader frameworks, 176 importance of music in, 125 intergenerational exchanges, 134–35 international touring and exchange, xvii, 46–47, 148–53, 175–76, 179–89, 191 linguistic minorities and, 190. See also linguistic pluralism local, emphasis on, 1, 32, 58–59

local performance circuit in Vaucluse, 43–44 loyal following (audiences), 37–38 Mediterranean emphasis, 179 Mediterranean solidarity among members, 184–85 middle way between priorities of artistic creation and sociocultural animation, 59 network of connections with municipalites, 41–42, 47 performances per year, 37 pôle or centre of cultural development, 60 as pôle or departmental centre of amateur practice, 56 political dimension, 2, 57, 188 popular education and popular theatre, 33, 59 popular education goals, 2, 29, 151 popular songs in, 126, 128 question of who should be paid, 56, 173 reasons for participating in, xxix, 56 republican values of, 172, 191 RGPP reforms and, 18 rural theatre, 1, 12 seeking broad audience (low ticket prices), 149 social exchanges with local communities, xxix, 149 social solidarity. See social solidarity through theatre practice sources of support for, xx springboard to professional careers, 37 stage de realisation (production-specific training workshop), 38 un théâtre de terroir, 30–33, 146 in tradition of theatre “decentralization,” xvi, 2 troupe “sympathizers,” xxix Visites en Scène program, 54, 59, 125 volunteers, 56 work involved in setting up in different sites on tour, 33–38, 148–50 TRAC perspective on immigration focus on economic inequalities, 138– 39, 153 presented as experience shared by many, 139–40 TRAC repertory, 124–25. See also names of TRAC productions TRAC tour in Crete, 47 TRAC touring (Mediterranean), 184–89 TRAC touring in Algeria, xvii, 185–86 fighting the fear of abstract others, 191 new arts festival in Beni-Yenni, 187

238 index TRAC touring to Morocco, 185–86 TRAC 2008 tour in the Alpes-de-HauteProvence, 148–53

TRAC visit to Croatia and Bosnia, 183 TRAC ’s Hungarian tours close bond with hosts, 179–81 dialogue and exchange, 191 emphasized direct human contact, 182 ideological differences with hosts, 180–82 intended to contribute to growth of democracy in Hungary, 183 trade unionism, 50 “The Train and Bread” (Siano), 135 Trans-Dance-Europe, 94–95, 101 transnational environment new sources of funding for artists, 82 transnational exchanges, 82. See also international exchange transnational influences, xxx transnational modes of governance, 64–65 Transplant’Heart, 95 Trautmann, Catherine, 17 Travellers (non-sedentary Gypsies), 99 travelling salesmen. See itinerant pedlars twinning of Varvara in Crete with Cadenet in Vaucluse, 47

UMP (Union for a Popular Movement ) party, 52, 121

Varvara, Crete, 47 Vaucluse department, xvi–xvii, xix, xxv, xxix–xxx, 31–32, 44, 59 economic and demographic overview, 27 inmigration, 27 plan for cultural development (2002), 54 Vaucluse department of Social Cohesion (Direction Départementale de la Cohésion Sociale), 55 Vaucluse Matin, 126 Venasque, 54 Le Ventoux par Mots et Musique (TRAC production), 125 Vichy government, xxiii, 4, 195 Vigoureux, Robert-Paul, 67 Les Vilains (TRAC production), 123 Vilar, Jean, xxiii–xxv, 1, 5, 8–9, 14–15, 78 Villeurbanne “manifesto,” xxiv, 7–11, 13–14 violence in French cities, 122, 159–60, 197 violent class and nationalist movements in Europe, 160 Violet, Jean-Luc, 12, 179, 184 Visites en Scène program, 54, 59 staging historical aspects of small towns, 125 Vitez, Antoine, 14 Voices of Europe (youth choir), 94 Voy Caminando (I Travel Along) (film), 99

UNESCO (14th General Conference, 1966), 11 Union for the Mediterranean, 79, 86n17, 115 United States neoliberalism, 50 United States arts policy, 196. See also New Deal arts policies Ivey’s argument for a stronger role for, 197 “unity in diversity,” xxxii, 20, 83, 87–116 Avignon’s interpretation, 95 ECOC goal of furthering, 90, 115 as a form of cosmopolitanism, 88–91 as policy objective of the European Union, 88–89 urban renewal and arts creation projects combining, 73 urban socio-economic inequalities, 88 Urfalino, Philippe, 13, 16, 19, 52 Vacqueyras (town), 44–45, 47 Vaison-la-Romaine, 55 Vanverberghe, Francis, 86n14

Waiting for Godot (Beckett), 124 Weber, Eugen, 136 Weil, Patrick, 121, 200 Western superiority, belief in, 89, 159 When Art Worked (Kennedy), 196 Williams, Raymond, xiii–xiv, 71, 195–96 Winegar, Jessica, 65 withdrawal into communities (le repli communautaire), xxi, 81. See also communitarian appeals World Trade Organization, 64 xenophobic groups, xxviii, 66, 121. See also racism Yvon Lambert Centre for Contemporary Art, 94 zither orchestra (Hungary), xix, 179–80, 183 Zorba the Greek (TRAC adaptation), 36, 47, 125, 177, 179 ZUS (Zone Urbaine Sensible), 66, 73, 108