Surviving Le Spectacle

Tags

fêtes, living in France, spectacles

One of the things you learn very quickly about living in France is that if you do any form of dance or exercise class sometime during the year you’re going to have to perform in public at a spectacle, whether it’s a proper affair with tickets in the Salle de Fêtes or freebies for the Telethon, the Fête de La Musique, your village’s fête or whatever.  This is one of the reasons I do Yoga, no-one has yet come up with a means of turning relaxation sessions into a spectator sport.

Even the Telethon draws the line at entertainment like this.

When the girls started doing ballet we were told iat the first lesson in October when the date of the end of year spectacle was.  One of the mothers said there was a family wedding on that date and her daughter wouldn’t be able to perform and she was told that in that case her child couldn’t come to the classes.  She had a lucky escape, that year was our first introduction to the French Spectacle and set the pattern for most of the ones that followed; they are like French meetings, they start late and they go on for ages…  Admittedly this one hit a particularly low note, the teachers were obviously afraid that the standard of their young pupils wasn’t going to be sufficiently high so in between each set performed by the children the teachers did a dance too.  The result was that the show, held on a stiflingly hot July afternoon, went on for four and a half hours.  And then as a finale the head of the dance school summoned all her young pupils on the stage and before the curtain call announced, with no warning whatsoever, that she was retiring and there’d be no more ballet.  Exit left loads of little girls in floods of tears.

Sadly, none of the kermesses we went to were as much fun as this.

School kermesses  (a sort of school fête with playlets, dance shows, exhibitions and usually a meal) can be particularly tricky; there was the one organised by the pupils where we had to sit through two hours of 11 and 12 year olds  miming to hit records – rap was particularly in that year – and another in collége where a modern dance show following the repas.  One of the girls was dancing so we had to stay.  It started an hour and a half late but by that time my husband and I were well into the second bottle of cheap Spanish pink they were selling to go with the paella so we were beyond caring.  I’d had a frozen shoulder for about three months, it never bothered me again though it took the whole of the next day to get rid of my headache.

The Fête de la Musique can be quite good, largely, I think, because it’s for fun and no-one seems to stay on stage for too long.  The Telethon however is a different matter.  Being ‘in a good cause’ seems to give every group a burning desire to get up on that stage, even when it would be kinder to everyone, especially the audience, to stay at home.  I once saw the local step class gave a demonstation of what they did –  for twenty minutes.  To be fair, it wasn’t all step, they did arm exercises too.

This year my daughter’s Indian Dance group was performing for the Telethon in a large espace culturel in Langon.  It was due to start at three, actual kick off was at quarter to four with the Line Dancing troop who gave us three different line dances – apparently.   I found it hard to distinguish one from the other.  They were followed by the children’s Indian Dancing, the under six Break Dancing, the junior Modern Dance, the Line Dancers came back for a bit of Rock (done at Line Dance speed), my daughter came on stage for all of one minute and was in the back row.  By now two hours had passed and she had two more dances to do.

Claiming there were dogs to walk and feed I meanly snuck out leaving my other daughter to enjoy the performance.  When she returned home at eight o clock she reported that the children’s Improvised Break Dancing had been quite something.

Being gluttons for punishment we went to see the dancing daughter with her African Dancing troop last weekend.  It started only five minutes late, the children’s class was on stage for just two dances, the other acts (four different groups performing together) had been properly rehearsed and no one was allowed to hog the stage.  It lasted for 45 minutes and was a revelation.

The organisers of the village Telethon shows, take note please.

Almost French

Tags

living in France, Paris

I didn’t get 2012 off to a good start reading-wise.  The first off the To Read pile was something that described itself as a “enthralling tale of dark suspense” which seemed perfect for New Year’s Day.  I waited in vain to be enthralled, or for the suspense, dark or otherwise, and finally put my pedant’s hat on and chucked it in the charity pile when I got to ‘she passed a 4 x 4 with two setter dogs barking loudly.’  What else is a setter and barks?  An otter?  A Horse?  Seal?

Then I started next month’s book group choice, set in the Spanish Civil War, and based on my experience with Hemingway braced myself for some fairly gory passages.  Actually the gory passages would have been a welcome change from nothing happening and some of the most excruciating writing I’ve ever come across.  One girl had a plait that swung from hip to hip as she walked, it was intended to show how graceful she was I think, but in this reader it produced an ineradicable image of a drunken sailor lurching from side to side.   I really try hard not to give up on book group reads but when I realised that the thought of picking up this horror was actually making me feel depressed I decided to pass it straight on to the next unlucky soul in the list to read it.

So thank heaven for Almost French by Sarah Turnbull which was published about eight years ago.  I can’t remember who it was on one of the Living In France blogs who said this was really good and in a different class to most of the books about making a new life in France but she was absolutely right.  Thank you so much for I don’t think I’d have read this otherwise.

Sarah Turnbull is an Australian journalist who moved in with Frederic, a Parisian lawyer in his thirties, only weeks after meeting him while backpacking around Europe.  She spoke barely any French, didn’t have any employment, barely knew her lover and knew even less about the people and the habits of the city she was now living in.  She was a true Australian, impetuous, informal, friendly; he was typically French, close to his extended family, formal, used to smart dinner parties where everyone wore black and didn’t speak to strangers unless they had been properly introduced.   What sets this apart from all those other “I came to France and have adapted books” is that she’s remarkably honest about herself.  She comes across as very likeable but you still get the impression that she could be difficult and unbending on occasion, in other words thoroughly human.  There are no neat answers, it’s the story of two people who have to learn to change to make their life together and it’s a wonderful read.  The fact that it’s also very well written is a bonus.

I think I might suggest this for the book group…