A look back at the Culture Masterclass on the documentary film Indes Galantes

>Article written by Fanny Berdah, Maria Crevatin, Joséphine Villeroy de Galhau, students of the Culture/Cultural Policy and Management policy stream of the School of Public Affairs. 

On November 15th 2021, as part of the masterclasses of the School of Public Affairs specializing in culture, we met with three key figures in the making of the documentary film Indes Galantes: Philippe Béziat, director, Philippe Martin, producer of the project and of the Opera's "3ème scène" and Feroz Sahoulamide, dancer. A frank and generous exchange to better understand the aesthetic, political and institutional stakes of this excepcional artistic project. 

A plural and multidisciplinary creation

Under the same name, Indes Galantes actually refers to three creations. At the genesis of the project, Clément Cogitore directed in 2017 a short film for the "3ème scène" of the Paris Opera. He invited krump dancers to revisit the Danse du grand calumet de la paix, taken from the opera-ballet Indes Galantes by Rameau. Faced with its success, Stéphane Lissner (then director of the Paris Opera) proposed to stage Indes Galantes in its entirety at the Bastille Opera, which was then performed twelve times in 2019. At the same time, Philippe Béziat directed a documentary on the creation of the performance, which was broadcast in 2020. 

In addition to the objects’ plurality, Indes Galantes constitutes a "phantasmagoria" for Philippe Béziat, a "polyphony" where the various disciplines of dance, music and singing are mixed. The opera, "total art", encounters here an "already very complex ecosystem" (Philippe Béziat): the street dances (hip-hop, krump, flexing, etc.). Feroz Sahoulamide insists on this "community" of dancers who have their own histories, cultures and visions of the world gathered here on the same stage. The documentary, "at the heart of the laboratory", witnesses these creative challenges and this real "utopia of collaboration".

Institutional perspectives

Envisaged at first like an “eminently political and little conformist meeting”, the creation was not received in the same way by the press and the public, showing the transgressive dimension of the project. It is about seizing how the project succeeded in bringing bodies, thoughts, dances "in a place where they do not come", in the institution, "the incarnation of a place of power" (Philippe Martin). For Feroz Sahoulamide, the project of Indes Galantes is an opportunity to "take back the space" by the bodies, to reappropriate the "I am" by the "détournement". This is done both by highlighting dances considered as minorities by the institution and by a decolonial reading of Rameau's work, necessary nowadays. 

Is the re-creation of Indes Galantes a sign of institutional change? For Philippe Martin, everything depends on the direction. The creation of the "3ème scène" is emblematic of an institution that has been "visionary" on issues that "agitate the world of performing arts" (in this case the digital era). But the new directions and budgetary limitations are, on the contrary, symptomatic of institutions that remain "frozen" and in "incredible inertia". Philippe Martin recalls that the Opera was not able to afford to put on the Indes Galantes, and that the rehearsals and creative work were done "outside" the institution. Should we put the institutional upheaval into perspective? If for Philippe Martin, the "almost unusual diversity of the public" and the success with the usual visitors make it a "unique experience" from which lasting lessons must be drawn, Feroz Sahoulamide qualifies by reminding us that this regular public did not, however, come to "see them elsewhere".

A human adventure

Beyond a unique live performance experience and a transgressive project, Philippe Martin reminds us that the Indes Galantes adventure is above all "an encounter". Between disciplines that everything seemed to oppose, opera and street dance. Between the institution and "the art of détournement" (Feroz). But above all between artists, energies gathered around what the choreographer of the project Bintou Dembélé designated as a "circle". 

Indeed, this adventure began with a training period at the National Center of Dance to make the dancers meet and "learn to look at each other and tell each other stories". After the "generational shock", the cohesion was born from this preliminary work of discovery between dancers but also by going to the meeting of the technicians, the singers and other trades. 

Just as Feroz Sahoulamide objects, "We went to see them, they didn't come", we can only wonder about the repercussions of such a project: ephemeral upheaval or profound change? The future will tell, but the nomination of Indes Galantes in the category of best documentary film at the Césars 2022 already appears to be a form of institutional recognition. A welcome success for this project, which aims at the right thing precisely because it "puts the artist at the center" of the creation, as Philippe Martin recommends.

Indes Galantes, documentary by Philippe Béziat on the creation of the opera by Clément Cogitore, 2021, 48min. 

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• The Culture policy stream at the School of Public Affairs ("French track")
• The Cultural Policy and Management policy stream at the School of Public Affairs ("English track")