Category: centre-val-de-loire

The Amis de George Sand host a dialogue on history at the Domaine de George Sand in Nohant-Vic. Carole Rivière and José-Luis Diaz consider its place in the writer’s thought and work. Brigitte Diaz chairs a discussion linking history, memory and creation. The meeting introduces a new issue of the Cahiers George Sand devoted to George Sand et la fabrique de l’Histoire.

Children aged nine to twelve make a Merovingian shield in an archaeology workshop in Chartres. Questions about the Franks and their clothing introduce life in early medieval Gaul. The practical activity links these historical themes to the exhibition À l’aube du Moyen Âge. Children work with clay while exploring the beginnings of the medieval period.

Jean-Pierre Surrault examines beliefs about the dead in the Berry of earlier times. The lecture asks how revenants, spells and souls from the beyond figured in that world. Halloween’s popularity provides the starting point for these questions. The speaker is a doctor of history and president of the Académie du Centre. The meeting in Le Blanc is organised by UIPB.

Faïence et Vins pairs an introduction to earthenware decoration with a tasting of Coteaux du Giennois wines. The Faïencerie de Gien and Office de Tourisme de Gien host the workshop together. The decoration session explores the world of artisans d’art. The activity belongs to Les Créatives within Vignobles en Scène, admits children from eight and is limited to twenty people.

A hundred and fifty years after her death, George Sand is read for far more than her references to the Berry. This Bourges talk turns to the other Sand: the correspondent who came back again and again to flowers, butterflies and fossils. Her letters are set beside her published writings, and together they show a genuinely naturalist way of looking. Among the great authors of her time she is seldom presented in that light.

Amaury Babault opens the day with a workshop on bourrées and other little-known dances of the Berry region. The ball that follows brings Grégory Jolivet in a solo set, then the Marivole duo playing alongside friends. The dancers learn the steps in the afternoon and put them to work the same night. A potluck supper sits between the two halves, with a bar open, in the village of Ménétréol-sous-Sancerre.

The École municipale de musique of Chambray-lès-Tours marks Sainte-Cécile, patron saint of musicians, with a concert in the Salle Marcadet. Its second- and third-cycle guitar ensembles open, on pieces from traditional music and the classical repertoire. The Pizzicat’ string orchestra then travels from the popular feasts of Central Europe to the rhythms of South America, with flute, clarinet and percussion. Admission costs nothing, on reservation.

Emma-Joëlle Laflute, a writer, leads a three-part cycle of writing workshops built on the work of George Sand. Each session starts from something of Sand’s own: a sentence, an extract or a short instruction, which participants then carry off in whatever direction they choose. The meetings alternate time spent writing with readings aloud and talk about what has just been written. A single session can be taken instead of the whole cycle.

The jazz and musiques actuelles department of the Chartres conservatoire ends its year with the Christmas Session, heir to its older Christmas jam. The Big Band takes the stage beside the workshops of the different classes. The programme is left deliberately loose: standards, new finds and improvisation. The pupils and their teachers play together in the Salle Doussineau, and entry is free on reservation.

The artist ZER turns George Sand and the Lady and the Unicorn into graphic works, drawn on fabric and on paper. The tapestries were saved with the help of Prosper Mérimée, which gives the show its second thread. It hangs in the Prieuré Saint-Julien at Drevant, whose listed façade stands as a testament to Romanesque art in Berry. Cultural events already run in the priory garden, and the village grew up around seven centuries of monastic presence.