Centre Culturel André Malraux

Today is the first day of the three-day conference, "Esthetique de la Dance: Ontologie, cognition, emotion." It is being held at the Centre Culturel André Malraux in Nancy, an interesting location in many ways.

The Centre is located in an outlying suburban neighborhood in Nancy. The conference organizers led a caravan of three cars to get the speakers to the Centre from our hotel in the historic district. Here is the entrance to the building.

Surprising to me was the fact that we were surrounded by middle-class high-rise apartment buildings in all directions, seemingly built in the unfortunate function-as-form era of the 1950s and 60s.

I discussed this puzzling location with some of the French scholars at the conference. Malraux was a national hero, the Minister of Culture as well as a celebrated novelist. He wanted culture in France to extend to ordinary neighborhoods and not be limited to elite enclaves in major cities and apparently such Centres are located in comparable locations throughout France.

I can sympathize with this political goal for government funding of the arts, but the French told me that the Centres have been less than successful at involving those local communities in the planning and administration of the Centres' activities. I noted that tourists would be unlikely to venture to outlying neighborhoods, and it was unfortunate that the Centres did not seem to be actively engaging the local communities either.

This Centre is a marvelous facility, with sunny, spacious galleries, meeting rooms, and a newly-renovated theatre where we saw two contemporary dance performances. Here is the cafe area where we enjoyed superb espresso during breaks outside the room where our conference sessions were held.

Speakers for the opening day were Roger Pouivet, the conference organizer, and director of the Archives Poincare (standing, back right); Catherine Z. Elgin of Harvard; Catherine Kintzler, Universite de Lille III, and Fabrice Louis, Nancy-Universite.

This is an exceptionally well-organized conference. The scheduling gave us the luxury of time to discuss papers in depth. Philosophy and dance is such a specialized area, it is rare to be in the same room with so many scholars who share my passion for these issues. The speakers also had leisurely buffet luncheons and dinners together, also at the Centre, allowing even more time for extended discussions.

Some papers were presented in English, others in French. In most cases, the French papers were translated into English and distributed to the audience, so we could follow along, and the French scholars were sufficiently fluent to field questions in English.

The evening performance, also at the Centre, was an American contemporary choreographer working in France, Mark Tompkins' Song and Dance. Before the performance, there was a showing of a film about the American post-modern choreographer Merce Cunningham.

NOTE: Click on any image in this blog to see it full-size.