Happy & Healthy 2014
Occitan Trobadors in NYC: a Symposium, a Banquet, a Performance
On Saturday, November 23, Poets House, in partnership with City Lore and NY’OC Trobadors, hosts a landmark symposium celebrating and bringing the riches of southern French poetry and culture to the American public. The symposium gathers international and local poets, artists, scholars, and performers to share the fascinating history of the region and bring to life the songs of troubadours past and present in the endangered lenga d’òc (Occitan language). Chef and foodie favorite Ariane Daguin, owner of gourmet purveyor D’Artagnan, will host a reservation-only Gascon Buffet with a short historic overview of Occitan cuisine and cooking demonstration. The evening will culminate in a music and poetry performance featuring accomplished bicontinental artists Joan Francés Tisnèr (project director), Jakes Aymonino, Domenja Lekuona, Pierre Joris, and Nicole Peyrafitte. Other presenters include New York University scholars Deborah Kapchan, Sarah Kay and Richard Sieburth, and director of Fondacion Occitània Alem Surre-Garcia.
The 11th century trobadors and trobairitz of Occitania, a region spanning the entire southern half of France (Bearn, Languedoc, Auvergne, Limousin, Provence) and encompassing the Occitan Valleys in the Italian Alps and the Aran Valley in the Spanish Pyrenees, have long inspired American poets, most notably Ezra Pound, with their lyrical, secular, and often subversive verse-commentary on the culture, politics, and love affairs of their time. Mythologized as wandering mystics, these professional poets set the stage for everything from poetic forms like the cantata and sestina to the passionate and carefully-wrought works of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan to Top 40 love songs. The Trobadors symposium celebrates and bears witness to a millennium of Occitan culture and influence around the globe.
Symposium Schedule
Opening Remarks: Richard Sieburth
2:00–3:30 PM: Topologies of Occitan Language & Culture
Languages & their Territories with Nicole Peyrafitte, Domenja Lekuona, Alem Surre-Garcia; Occitan & the Orient with Deborah Kapchan; Participatory Introduction to Occitan Language & Songs with Joan Francés Tisnèr
4:00–5:30 PM Occitan Literature Through the Ages:
Troubadour Poetry: The Classical Moment with Richard Sieburth; Occitan Literature: The Middle Ages with Sarah Kay; Occitan Poetry: The 20th Century & Beyond with Pierre Joris & Alem Surre-Garcia
5:30–7:00 PM: Gascon Dinner with Ariane Daguin and D’Artagnan (Space is limited: Reservations Required)
Buffet Gascon offered by gourmet purveyor D’Artagnan, with short historic overview of Occitan food and cooking demonstration by Ariane Daguin and Nicole Peyrafitte. Gascony is a region in Occitania known for its “sweetness of life” and is home to foie gras and Armagnac brandy.
Dinner admission (includes evening performance): $25 per person.
Reservations REQUIRED! please contact Joe Fritsch at (212) 431-7920 x 2832 or [email protected].
7:00–9:00 PM: NY’OC Trobadors Multimedia Performance
Journey through a millennium of Occitan culture in music, images, and bilingual poetry. With Joan Francés Tisnèr, Jakes Aymonino, Domenja Lekuona, Pierre Joris, and Nicole Peyrafitte.
EVENT SPONSORED BY: Poets House & City Lore
Partners:
D’artagnan, Région Aquitaine, Cirdoc, InÒc, DRAC, CG64, Ville de Pau Produceurs: Lo NAu (Occitania), Ta’wil Productions (USA)
Partners:
D’artagnan, Région Aquitaine, Cirdoc, InÒc, DRAC, CG64, Ville de Pau Produceurs: Lo NAu (Occitania), Ta’wil Productions (USA)
Additional donnors:
André Spears & Anne Rosen, Margo & Anthony Viscusi, Jason Wise, anonymous
– See more at: http://www.poetshouse.org/programs-and-events/readings-and-conversations/trobadors-symposium-occitan-poetry#sthash.ufM31TLU.dpuf
Spring Schedule: NYC, Bard College, London, Wales, Scottland
Below is our busy Spring schedule.
For all the clickable links go to: Spring schedule
If you are smart phone savvy then : voilà le QRCode!
Happy Spring to y’ll & we sure hope to see you here or there.
PJ & NP
Chantons Les Cornichons!
Sunday afternoon I was at the The Tenth Annual NYC International Pickle Day where pickles from around the world were featured, celebrated and sampled—list of participants here. The event is organized by the New York Food Museum & The Lower East Side Business Improvement District. This year the Umami Food & Art Festival curated the first performance and art event at the festival where I was invited to offer some pickle poetry. My origins demanded that I focus on the cornichons a.k.a gherkins.
The video above features my cornichon poem written for the occasion and set to the music of the well know composer and famous gastronome Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868). The title of the composition is: Hors d’Oeuvres III : Les Cornichons — and this is not a joke. Quatre Hors d’Oeuvres et Quatre Mendiants are part of Rossini’s last sets of compositions called “Dernier Pêché Mortel, de Vieillesse” or in English: “Sins of Old Age”. These unpublished late compositions (1857-1868), now compiled in 14 volumes, were meant to be performed at private occasions in the composer’s drawing room. Below are the details of Volume/ Book 4:
Quatre (4) Hors d’Oeuvres:
[The Hors d’Oeuvres here refer to appetizers]
I- Les Radis – radishes
II- Les Anchois – anchovies
III- Les Cornichons- gherkins
IV- Le Beurre – butter
The Quatre (4) Mendiants:
[Mendiants refer to dried fruits and one of the Thirteen desserts of the Noel Provençal. Each fruit is supposed to represent the robe color of four monk orders]
Les Figues sèches – dry figs — Carmel order
Les Amandes – almonds —Dominican order
Les Raisins- raisins —Franciscan order
Les Noisettes – hazelnuts — Capuchins order
This occasion lead me to reconnect with the marvelous Franco-Italian singer-song writer Nino Ferrer (1934-1998). I learned his “Les Cornichons” and even if you don’t know French, do listen to it. Nino Ferrer was a very interesting artist who had quite a successful carrier. His background included studying anthropology with André Leroy Gourhan and accompanying jazz musicians like Richard Bennett & Bill Coleman. Voilà — and merci beaucoup to Françoise Bevy for the photos. Enjoy!
Augustus Saint Gaudens On Line
The Adam’s memorial, Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C.
This sculpture was commissioned by Henry Adams who asked Saint-Gaudens to create a memorial for his wife, Clover Adam, who had taken her own life .
Those who have been following both my blog & facebook postings, might remember the various references I make on Augustus Saint Gaudens.
Augustus Saint Gaudens was born in 1848 in Dublin, Ireland and died in 1907 in Cornish, New-Hampshire. The reason I got involved in this project is because Augustus’ father, Bernard, was born in Aspet in 1816. Aspet is a village 28 miles away from my home town. In 2005 I was approached by Françoise Sarradet, a Saint Gaudens’ aficionados from Aspet who was then president of the French Association “Les Amis d’Augustus Saint-Gaudens”, to create a performance to celebrated the 100th anniversary of the sculptor’s death in 2007. The goal was to generate more awareness about the sculptor local origins and to preserve that memory. It is important to note here that Augustus Saint Gaudens was never well known in France. So, showing how famous he was in the United States and bridging the local connection was the goal of this first performance.
Bernard, August and Homer Saint Gaudens
Over the years several projects have developed, but I feel that the real meaning of this quest revealed itself while I was working on developing a script for a documentary about his life. I realized that I was not only interested in showing the artist’s oeuvre and his incredibly successful interaction with the art world of the time, but more by “walking in their shoes”. I found out that Augustus’ father, was a serious radical hanging out at Pfaff’s Tavern with Whitman, Clemenceau, Mark Twain to name a few. I was also made aware that there was not one piece of public art in New York when the Saint Gaudens’ family arrived in the city in 1848! So by shadowing their life I re/discovered the country where I live today (NYC/USA) and the place where I come from (the Pyrenees). I found their past in my present , and my present in their past. I am also an immigrant and generating a “dynamic” memory that can be inscribed in our becoming became essential and exciting.
List of projects:
2006— Itinerant residency visiting all the major sites hosting Saint Gaudens’ work in order to develop a performance to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the famous sculptor’s death in Aspet. Project commissioned by the Association les Amis d’Augustus Saint Gaudens & funded by the Conseil Regional de Midi Pyrenées. See photos here
-The show “Augustus Saint Gaudens returns to His Fatherland” was performed in Aspet in 2007 & in Luchon in 2008. Both shows featured the incredible French baritone Jean Ribet & my son Miles Joris-Peyrafitte as the best stage manager. The Conseil Général de la Haute-Garonne funded partially this project along with several local sponsors. The two short videos below are live excerpts from the 2007 show. We had a lot of fun and I cooked a pretty unusual “saupiquet” that was fed to the audience at the end of the show. I will talk more about this recipe in the future.
Jean Ribet sings “Arrenoulat” (the swallow). Song in Gascon written by André Bouery (1821 – 1879) a contemporary of Bernard Saint Gaudens. Arrenoulat is the —almost lost— anthem of the village of Aspet.
-In 2009 Yoan Rumeau asked me to write an extensive article in the scholarly history bi-annual La Revue de Comminges. I did and for this project I am in debt to my husband Pierre Joris for his editing.
-In April 2010 I presented an illustrated conference for the ACF (U.N French Cultural Association). Thank you to Françoise Bevy & Mme Françoise Cestac. Madame Cestac has a big fan of Augustus Saint Gaudens work for years.
-Then, last May, I completed the script for a documentary for now called: “Une En/quête- Collectages sur la Vie et l’Oeuvre Augustus Saint Gaudens”. This was certainly the most painful piece of work I have done so far on this project or at the matter fact on any other. I never gotten so close to being fried & eaten live! As my therapist said in the thick of it: “Nicole, this is the graduate program!” I learned a lot about the movie business, script writing, how to deal with undermining colleagues, and got the best workout on self confidence. So with the support of my husband, my family & great friends I pulled through! Needless to say that at this point I will pursue this project until it makes it on the screen weather I’ll get it done this life or next!
-The latest component I am working on is a website gathering all the info regarding my projects on Augustus. For now it is in French, an English version will be added sooner or later. So for now go brush up on your French @ :
There is a long list of people to thank and they know who they are. Though I want to mention a few institutions that trusted me enough to share their resources and passion for Augustus Saint Gaudens & without whom I couldn’t have even begin:
Henry Duffy, Gregory Schwartz & the staff at the Saint Gaudens National Historic Site
Thayer Tolles at the Metropolitan Museum
The librarians at The Rauner Special Libary at Dartmouth College
Marie-Laure Pellan at the Musée de Saint Gaudens
Les Amis d’Augustus Saint-Gaudens —their past & present president & members.
I really need to mention my parents Jean & Renée Peyrafitte who are the first who shared their passion for Augustus Saint Gaudens.
To be continued!