The Enlightenment today
– a philosophical dictionary
What is the enlightenment?
Thursday, March 8th at 6:30pm
With Françoise Vergès and Achille Mbembe.
Hosted by Seloua Luste Boulbina.
What is the Enlightenment? This question, which is so eurocentric, deserves to be posed from extra-European points of view as well as from a colonial and post-colonial perspective. “Far away, the Enlightenment”, as we often used to say in order to indicate the horizon of emancipation signified by the Enlightenment. Or “so close, the darkness” as was often said in order to distinguish between reality and the “ideal”, Africa and Europe, the colony and the nation’s capital?
In order to discuss the issues at hand, we have two guests whose centers of interest can only enrich our debate around the following themes: colonial utopias, memory, slavery on one hand, decolonization, political imagination and the use of reason on the other hand.
In partnership with the Collège International de Philosophie.
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Salon Roger Blin / All tickets 5€
Les philosophes amoureux
par Raphaël Enthoven
Diderot and Sophie Volland
Saturday, March 10th at 3pm
With Raymond Trousson, essayist and author of Denis Diderot or the Real Prometheus (Tallandier, 2005).
«No passion has ever been so justified by reason as mine. Is it not true my dear Sophie that you are most kind? Look deep inside. Look closely at yourself, see how worthy of being loved you are and how much I love you.” Paris, July 23rd, 1759.
Their correspondence begins in 1755 and will last for fourteen years. An apparently totally contingent and unimportant fact, the letters from Sophie Volland to Denis Diderot have never been found.
Is it possible that Diderot destroyed the letters from the woman whose praise he sang and whose grace and whose refined mind he so lauded in his correspondence, and if so, then why? What need was there to maintain his passion through reason, and to uphold their dialogue of ideas through love? If it is so, that the philosopher’s obsession to survive and to incarnate the pantheon of wisdom can be found in his ceaseless struggle against erasing the neglectful heart of his lover, then the truth of their relationship should strike one as a crystal clear evidence: to be a “philo-sopher” is to love Sophie.
In partnership with France Culture and Courrier international.
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Main Auditorium / Tickets : 5€
Colloquium
Public Theater, stuck between the State and a Market Economy (1982-2012)
Monday, March 12th, from 2pm to 7pm
Colloquium organized by Marion Denizot, Laurent Fleury, Stéphanie Loncle.
With the participation of the scholars Laurent Fleury, sociologist , Christian Biet and Stéphanie Loncle, (The History and Esthetics of Theater) and participants from the world of theater (to be determined).
What is public theater today? Is it simply a label, a government subsidy? Is the subsidizing of public theater meant to break with the logic of a market economy, or is it simply a nudge in the right direction from the State (Europe, or local government) that is meant to help certain actors on the great stage of theater’s “free market”? This colloquium shall explore the tension and the ambiguity that public theater is going through today, as it attempts to better define what some critics see as its “privatization”.
In partnership with Paris Diderot (Paris VII), Paris Ouest Nanterre-La Défense (Paris X), Maison des sciences de l’homme de Bretagne / Université de Rennes 2, Revue Théâtre/Public
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Salon Roger Blin
Free admission upon reservation present.compose@theatre-odeon.fr
Special performance
Miss Knife sings Olivier Py
Monday, March 12th at 8pm
With Olivier Py vocals
Julien Jolly drums
Olivier Bernard saxophone, flute,
Stéphane Leach piano,
Sébastien Maire double bass.
Music by Stéphane Leach, lyrics by Olivier Py, costumes Pierre-André Weitz with help from Nathalie Bègue, lighting Bertrand Killy.
«From Boy to Miss Knife.
It is surely because I have always been in phase with myself that ever since I was a young boy, I have been able to dress up in drag. When you have lost as many feathers as I have in combat, there is only one thing left to do: stick those feathers on your ass! All of the suffering that goes into being a man, well, I wanted to do something about it. Without turning to extremist antics such as castration, I wanted to rid myself of this credence of masculine desire that creates desire. And so I transformed myself into a woman, into Miss Knife. She is a dream come true in every sense of the term. I love her because she is a blend of all the lives of all the female types I have met, admired or simply imagined.” Olivier Py quoted in Feminist Manifesto by Laure Adler (Autrement, 2011)
Production les Visiteurs du soir, Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Main Auditorium / Tickets : from 6-32€.
Why do you love ?
Lost Illusions by Honoré de Balzac
Tuesday, March 13th at 6:30pm
by Catherine Cusset
A contemporary writer savors a classic.
«Whosoever wishes to rise above other men must prepare himself for battle, retreat in front of no difficulties. A great writer is a martyr who will not die, that is it.» Lost Illusions.
Catherine Cusset was born in Paris in 1963. She is the author of nine novels, all published with Gallimard. Amongst them are En toute innocence / In All Innocence (1995), Le Problème avec Jane / The Problem with Jane (2000), Confessions d’une radine/ Confessions of a Skinflint (2003), Un brillant avenir / A Brilliant Future (2008) and a non-fictional work, New-York. Journal d’un cycle / New York, Journal of a Cycle (2009) published by Mercure de France.
In partnership with Flammarion Publishers and Evene.
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Salon Roger Blin Auditorium / All tickets 5€
Philosophical Crossroads
Where does Philosophy stand in France today ?
Thursday, March 15th at 6:30pm
With Michaël Foessel and the journal Esprit.
Hosted by Jean-Marie Durand.
In partnership with Seuil publishers and les Inrockuptibles
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Salon Roger Blin Auditorium / All tickets 5€
Readings
Héritages méditerranéens/ Mediterranean Heritages
Wednesday March 21st at 6:30 pm
With Charles Berling (casting in progress).
Crossed readings with Charles Berling doing Aujourd’hui maman est morte / Mother died today and Mathieu Belezi reading Les Vieux Fous./ The crazy old men
From the little French girl in Morocco to the Algerian bowels of an obscene memory, tales from the Mediterranean coast, “whipped” by History..
In partnership with Flammarion editors.
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Salon Roger Blin Auditorium / All tickets 5€
Reading
René de Disiz
Thursday, March 22nd at 6:30pm
Reading by the author
“A novel about a teenager who is forced to grow up to quickly and to make painful life and death decisions, in a society that is at war against itself. Sérigne M’Baye Gueye’s (better known as Disiz la Peste) second novel is a political fiction that takes place in a France that has been taken over by the extreme right wing. He imagines the life of young René, a thirteen year old boy who just wans to be normal.”
In partnership with Denoël publishers.
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Salon Roger Blin / All tickets 5€
Hungry / Readings and Encounters
Hungarian Readings, Hungry!
Thursday March 29th and Friday March 30th
Alias, The second part of who knows what
by Dr Anna Sivián (alias András Vinnai)
Thursday, March 29th at 6 pm
Translation by Marc Martin. Reading directed by Balazs Gera.
Play taken from the cycle performed at the National Theater of Budapest, Les Dix Commandments : Tu ne tueras point / The Ten Commandments: thou shalt not kill.
The story is that of a man, the narrator, who recounts and calls to witness, a series of scenes from the different facets of the lives of couples: two hunters, a father and a son, the son and his fiancée, the fiancée and her lover, a neighbor and his wife. Oh, right, there’s their daughter as well…she is totally lost, affected with an irrepressible desire to sleep, which means that she is repeatedly waking up pregnant! And then, there are those who are there to repair things, or at least repairing is their job: the doctors, psychiatrists, apprentice sorcerers who concoct substances susceptible to produce or provoke all of the desired states of being. Each of these characters is slightly more whacko than the previous one, a real cast of lunatics, all being chased by their own dreams and nightmares.
A lovely demonstration of ordinary madness as it degenerates into the full-fledged kind, of the mind at work, of murder and revenge. A not terribly enchanted assortment of characters, caustic and acidic, here to illustrate the sixth of the ten commandments.
Satan’s Tango
by Laszlo Krasznahorkai
Thursday, March 29th at 8pm
Translated by Joëlle Dufeuilly and Viktoria Sovak, adapted for the theater and reading directed by Frank Ferrara.
With actors from the Cie Machine Théâtre (Montpellier).
Tango de Satan / Satan’s Tango is a rare and daring work about our western civilization. It is written in an anecdotal voice that makes it extraordinarily universal. Not a story about states or sovereigns, wars or genocides, but rather History as it repeats itself, indefinitely, the history of people, whoever they are wherever they live, people who love, hate, betray, run away from each other but always hope…
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Salon Roger Blin / All tickets 5€
Creating in Today’s Hungry
Friday, March 30th at 6 pm.
A meeting with the authors..
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Salon Roger Blin / Auditorium. Free admission upon reservation present.compose@theatre-odeon.fr
Porno
by András Visky
Friday March 30th at 8pm
Translation by Sophie Aude. Reading directed by Thomas Quillardet.
Monologue for an actress
Play taken from the cycle performed at the National Theater of Budapest, Les Dix Commandments : Tu ne voleras point / The Ten Commandments: thou shalt not steal.
The play clearly evokes the Romanian revolution of December, 1989. The scandal on which the play is based is that of “the violent limits of an individual’s freedom”, specifically in the context of police surveillance and a violent dictatorship. After the suicide of her companion (the ultimate means of escaping from those who wish to lock him up), and his burial, which turns into a demonstration in opposition to the regime, “The Girl” (designated by the secret police under the code name of “Porno”), is kidnapped by the political police. Kept prisoner in a hospital, she loses the child she was carrying and finally escapes during the events that led to the fall of the regime in December.
In partnership with the Maison Antoine Vitez and l’Institut hongrois de Paris / The Hungarian Institute of Paris.
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Salon Roger Blin / All tickets 5€
On the edge of the Stage
Der Menschenfeind, an encounter
Saturday, March 31st at 4pm
Round table discussion hosted by Laure Adler
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Salon Roger Blin
free admission upon reservation present.compose@theatre-odeon.fr or 01 44 85 40 44
Musical Readings
Arthur H, L’Or noir / Black gold
Saturday, March 31st at 8pm
Accompanied by Nicolas Repac, guitar and balafon.
Space conceived by Kên Higelin, montage of texts by Nadine Eghels.
«Black gold”, the exploration of sex, of meaning, of meaning linked to sensuality, of that regenerating contact with the soul and the beauty of nature and the body, internal oppression and internal liberation, the great melting pot of the world, the loss of one’s old identity and the dream of a new one, all of these flourishing poetic and philosophical concerns that are so contemporary and so “just” in the desires they provoke. “Black poetry” from Aimé Césaire to Danby Laferrière, from Senegal to Haiti, all of this is a precious mirror that helps me to reconnect, to re-center myself. I tried to come up with the sound and the rhythm of these words and then to disappear behind their music.” Arthur H.
Cycle «Literature and politics» in partnership with France Culture.
> Théâtre de l’Odéon – Grande salle / Main Auditorium / Tickets from 6-12€
