Angela Davis
Conversation avec Elvan Zabunyan
© Angela Davis - 2019 © KK Ottesen ©
The Festival d'Automne à Paris is producing this event in collaboration with the Théâtre de la Ville
In this unique encounter in Paris, Angela Davis and the contemporary art historian Elvan Zabunyan pursue a dialogue they began in 2020. In front of a wider audience this time round, they will continue to reflect upon the intersection between current developments in the arts and global politics.
In an interview dating back to the summer of 2020, Angela Davis responded to Elvan Zabunyan by stressing "the central place of art in the development of peoples' struggles for democracy, justice, freedom and equality". She added: "it is often assumed that the most important figures in a movement are the theorists, orators, and organizers. The assumption is that is they who take on the central task of of building movements and that art simply helps to make us more receptive to these ideas… I think that it is precisely because art allows us to become aware of the bonds that bring us together and to collectively experience possibilities for the future, that it plays such a profound role in the development of radical social movements." For Angela Davis, the arts, in whatever form they may take, shed light on the future. These words resonate with what the Festival d'Automne has always stood for since its creation, and its desire to put in place new cultural paths.
In the same place
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Lola Arias Los días afuera
At the crossroads between musical and documentary, Lola Arias brings us a choral composition in which six female former inmates talk about their lives during and after incarceration. Their six intertwining destinies raise questions about the various forms of violence present in contemporary society, whilst exploring the margins of fiction and reality at the same time.
Robert Wilson PESSOA – Since I've been me
The hero of this new work by Robert Wilson is Fernando Pessoa. And a paradoxical hero at that. The Portuguese poet spent his life 'multiplying himself', inventing heteronyms, or fictitious authors, to whom he attributed works he himself wrote. He even went as far as to invent relationships, either amicable ones or from master to disciple, between his different avatars.
Jan Martens VOICE NOISE
In this breakthrough piece for Jan Martens, VOICE NOISE brings together six dancers to shape a soundscape comprising some of the great female performers and composers of our time. In his own pop-inspired and precise way, the choreographer questions a very contemporary story, and in doing so raises the question of how some of these voices were silenced.