Azou kept a club nobody in her family knew about, and at her death her three grandchildren push its door open on the eve of the funeral. What they find is a cabaret, played by Cie La Lavée in song and spoken récit over an omelette and bread and butter. Mathilde Martinage built it from interviews and collected testimony, so the fiction carries real Breton voices. The Centre culturel François Mitterrand at Plouzané takes it from ten years up.
Region: Brittany
Rozen Création, the workwear ateliers of Lamballe
CRÉATIONS CANTIN – ROZEN has cut professional apparel in Lamballe for half a century, and opens its ateliers for the Semaines du Tourisme Économique et des Savoir-Faire. The route starts in the design studio and reaches the floor where seamstresses train in the ROZEN savoir-faire. Embroidery and screen printing follow, the benches that personalise each garment. A turn through the shop closes the hour, with the range cut for nurses and cooks.
Fest-deiz au Danouët, Bourbriac
A fest-deiz is an afternoon of dancing, run here by the association restoring the chapelle Notre-Dame du Danouët. An open stage gives the floor to local players, among them the Musiciens du Danouët, and a jam open to any musician closes the day. The repertoire is the plinn, the dance that names the hamlet’s own festival. The associations behind that festival take the afternoons in turn, from the Cavan sound centre to the Guingamp hospitaliers.
Sorcière, de l’ombre à la lumière par Avel Douar
The figure at the centre is the Breton witch, followed from Naïa to the women of today. Avel Douar, the cercle celtique that performs it, sets that passage to dance and music together. The route of the piece runs through ancient beliefs, then nature, then modernity, so the sorceress emerges as a thread in Breton belief and never as a seasonal costume. It is staged in the town hall of Saint-Malo-de-Beignon and is open to all ages.
L’Abri des Temps: a village bookshop at Moncontour
L’Abri des Temps is a general bookshop at Moncontour, open for the Semaines du Tourisme Économique et des Savoir-Faire. Its booksellers walk visitors through the premises and the way the shop is run. The stock mixes new and second-hand, with shelves built up in sciences humaines, nature, jardin and paysage, and a choice shaped by rural life, traditions and history. What the hour turns on is how that holds in a village of 800.
Danses bretonnes pour enfants avec Danserien Sant Ke
Danserien Sant Ke is the cercle de danse bretonne of Saint-Quay-Portrieux, and it opens its practice to the youngest beginners. The cercle’s own members lead the figures, so children pick up the steps from the people who perform them. It is held in the Salle le Celtic, where the cercle also holds its galette des rois. Admission costs nothing and places are held by reservation. The same cercle runs the Festival Eskemm.
Planc’h: a Workshop Visit to Breton Cutting Boards
Planc’h is a Saint-Briac-sur-Mer workshop where cutting boards and butcher’s blocks are shaped by hand from Breton timber. The visit follows that work at the bench, and the makers explain how they pick a plank and how each species behaves. Their wood comes from a family sawmill at Plouër-sur-Rance. The visit belongs to Les Semaines du Tourisme Économique des Savoir-Faire, the Breton fortnight that opens working businesses to the public.
Benoît Stichelbaut, the coast of Brittany in photographs
The media library gives its walls to Benoît Stichelbaut, who has photographed the sea for thirty years from his base in Concarneau. The prints follow the coast he knows best: the lighthouses of the Iroise Sea, the islands of the Ponant, small hidden harbours and the yards where boats are built. His racing work runs alongside them, from the great transatlantic starts to the skippers he has followed. The series is Brittany read from the water.
Trio Ladmirault at the Église Saint Winoc, Plouhinec
Florence Ladmirault founded the trio for her great-grandfather, the Nantes composer Paul Ladmirault, and plays beside her flautist daughter and her oboist brother. The programme is drawn from his works, transcribed by the family for their three instruments. Ladmirault studied under Gabriel Fauré, was admired by Debussy and argued for Celtic folklore. The committee restoring Plouhinec’s religious buildings brings them into the Église Saint Winoc.
Fest-noz à Taupont with Les Beurbis Gallèzes
Taupont, inland Morbihan, gives its salle Lenivel over to a fest-noz, the Breton dance evening where the music is played for the dancers. Three bands follow one another on the bill: Les Beurbis Gallèzes, Harold Kotri and Ferzae. The programme is the traditional repertoire that carries Breton dances, sung as well as played. The organisers put the invitation plainly: come and dance, sing and share a moment of conviviality.