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.
Topic: events
George Sand et les sciences naturelles
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 : stage de bourrées et bal du Berry
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.
Sainte-Cécile concert: guitars and the Pizzicat’ strings
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.
À la manière de George Sand: a writing cycle
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.
Christmas Session : le Big Band du conservatoire
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.
George Sand and the Lady and the Unicorn, drawn by ZER
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.
Symposium on the Siegfried collections at Langeais
The Institut de France, to which Jacques Siegfried gave the château of Langeais, devotes two days to the collection he and Thérèse assembled there after buying the place in 1886. Historians, curators and conservators bring the newest research on that ensemble. The register Siegfried drew up with his daughter Agnès still guides them. The château also shows « Fragments d’ailleurs », photographs he brought back from his travels.
L’Heure Exquise: soprano, horn and harp at Lureuil
Hors Saison Musicale brings the trio L’Heure Exquise to the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Lureuil. Chloé Jacob sings soprano, David Harnois plays the horn and Marie Le Guern the harp, forming a chamber ensemble of voice, brass and plucked strings. The concert belongs to Hors Saison Musicale’s programme of live performances in rural churches and other heritage buildings.
Foire aux Rillons au Liège, escale irlandaise
The O’Liège association has dressed its traditional Foire aux Rillons in green and orange for this edition. The champ de foire fills with a brocante and a market of craftspeople and producers. The Irish band The Ghilie’s plays, and the ChoréOceltic dance group performs before opening a session to anyone willing to try. The sit-down meal keeps the fair’s own menu of charcuterie, rillons-frites, cheese and dessert, with a tombola running all day.