The veil at school is a social issue that has been stirring up France for over 30 years. We can try to take advantage of this situation as some directors are doing today. It is a niche that of provocation, which is sometimes profitable. But from there to rewarding provocation and institutional revolt…

The Rouen CDN

The election of the leadership of the Rouen Dramatic Arts CenterIndeed, David Bobée was appointed director of the Théâtre du Nord in Lille in February and should soon be replaced.

Let us recall for the record that a CDN, before being an ideological platform, is an old tool for managing artistic policy imagined after the war to boost French theatrical creation. Supported by Malraux in the 60s, this network is based on the national trust placed in a recognized artist. To quote the federation:

Drama centers are major and structuring tools for the creation and production of theater, in a spirit of openness and sharing, in particular by welcoming artists in residence. The missions of the CDNs are organized around the creation and promotion of the works of the director and/or around the expansion of the repertoire defended by the center.

http://www.asso-acdn.fr/quest-ce-quun-cdn/

It is essentially a public interest mission of dramatic creation, within the framework of a national policy of development of the art of theater. David Bobée has directed the Normandy scene since 2013.

Who will succeed him?

A great artist? An undeniable personality? A master of the stage? Ehhhhh noooo…..

It is obviously on the side of "Decolonize the Arts" that we must look to find the candidates most likely to distinguish themselves. Let us recall for the record that "Decolonize the Arts" is this association very committed to helping the “Whites to give up their privilege” and “chase the colonizer from their heads”. As they define themselves:

Decolonizing the Arts is an association whose goal is to question the French cultural and artistic community on several points: the absence or extreme rarity in the various instances of the community, of people of Maghrebi, Asian, Black and Other origin assigned to an identity (MANA) because of their appearance or their surname, the way in which persists, in the arts, a colonial thought of which not everyone is necessarily aware, the stereotypes and prejudices which plague both training and production, the silence to which stories relating to colonial history have been condemned for too long.

https://www.r22.fr/antennes/decoloniser-les-arts

Specializing in the pursuit of unconscious racisms, deep thoughts and systemic malaise, this association distinguishes itself by its militant actions and its committed publications. On their website page in 2015, still available online in the Google webcache, we can read some interesting information:

On November 2, 2015, Marine Bachelot-Nguyen, Leïla Cukierman, Gerty Dambury, Eva Doumbia, Karima El Kharraze, and Françoise Vergès created the association “Décoloniser les Arts” (DLA). Its necessity arose from two observations: the low representation of racialized people in the artistic cultural world – theater, visual arts, cinema, television, museums – which is accompanied by the assignment of racialized people to roles and functions, and the absence of a narrative that would make visible a heterogeneity of stories. The association, composed of actors and actresses, authors, directors, choreographers, personnel working in the audiovisual sector, cultural journalists from minorities, and visual artists, born and living in all regions of France, is organizing a monthly university (UDLA) and protest actions, publishes, and leads campaigns against structural racism in the arts world.

Home page of the commercial domain decoloniserlesarts.com

These actions that different personalities allow to be implemented have an objective of action and claims linked to the identity themes that we denounce. Thus, in the items highlighted on their site opened until recently, we find problems such as the consequences of confinement for racialized artists and employees where the use of inclusive writing is not the most annoying. Let us judge the militant quality of the text:

All these questions are being asked today with acuity for the whole of capitalist society, they must be asked publicly and widely in cultural institutions. This is why, to the extent that, since the founding of our association in 2015, we have carried these reflections publicly, we wish to share them with you. What has changed in 5 years implies even more crudely to raise the question of discriminations of narratives and artistic processes, of diverse aesthetic research and experiences that make it possible to shed light on the world we live in from the angle of the relations of domination linked to colonialism and the systemic racism of our society. And this all the more so since everywhere on the planet struggles for equality are rising, against deadly police violence. At the heart of this fight, the freedom of creation of racialized artists conditions the radical emancipatory transformations that humanity needs.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://decoloniserlesarts.com/enquete-sur-les-consequences-du-confinement-pour-les-artistes-et-employee-e-s-racise-e-s/

or accusations of negationism brought against an exhibition entitled “Planet Galiéni”. Yes: of “negationism”…

Veiled Antigone at School

At the forefront of the fight, we find Marine Bachelot-Nguyen, today coached by David Gauchard, which is in the shortlist successors expected for the management of the CDN of Rouen.

It is to her that we owe, among other things: Akila, the fabric of Antigone, a play originally scheduled for Rennes, interrupted by the health crisis and whose pitch is a provocation against the educational institution that is still in mourning for Samuel Paty. The story is in fact devoted to the macabre gesture of a child in the courtyard of her school who puts the Islamic veil on her head in homage to her terrorist brother – here is the summary of the play published on the theater's website:

In post-attack France, during a minute of silence in the courtyard of a high school, a student places a white scarf over her hair. This forbidden gesture causes turmoil and questions in the school community, which is gradually entering into crisis. All the more so since this young teenager turns out to be the sister of one of the terrorists guilty of the attack. A dead brother to whom she seems to want to pay funeral tributes, against all odds...

https://www.theatre-contemporain.net/spectacles/Akila-Le-tissu-d-Antigone/

Twitter is not mistaken in seeing in Madame Bachelot's piece the spokesperson for an anti-institutional guerrilla movement (here, here et here):

Thinking about the world

Let us imagine, at the end of the 70s, a play featuring, in a public theatre, Antigone in the guise of the sister of a member of the Red Brigades, the object of compassion and admiration for her courage?

In its texts, "Decolonizing the Arts" claims to belong to a profession - the cultural professions - which "think the world". But perhaps it would be good, on the occasion of this succession, to remind this small world that you can't make money from everything.