The emotions aroused by the concomitance of the deaths of a popular writer and a singer who was even more popular, showed the importance that each of us attaches to these two very different dimensions of culture: music and literature.
And yet, the media does not equally treat both: Literary programs have practically disappeared from the audio-visual landscape, perhaps silently. In stark contrast, programs highlighting music are innumerable and followed closely on prominent media outlets. And the rest of the art forms are reduced, in media outlets, to the smallest portion.
In terms of classical art, there is only one that found favour with programmers in these mainstream broadcasts: dance, and more specifically, the show “Dancing with the stars”. It is a very successful concept, and a show produced with great quality and rigor, in which amateurs, who are not seeking to become professionals, are coupled with professionals, to perform, after long rehearsals, in front of a professional jury, which, by giving its verdict, delivers fascinating pedagogical commentary on this art form.
Couldn’t we come up with, in order to make other art forms as popular, at least another program of the same kind, which perhaps could be called “Playing with the stars”?
It could entail amateur actors, who are not seeking to become professionals, learning, rehearsing and then performing the great scenes of classical theatre while paired up with great actors accustomed to this repertoire. Members of the Comédie Française ought to be prioritized. The jury could be composed of great theatre directors.
I am convinced that the general public would enjoy discovering with great pleasure a scene from Molière’s “Tartuffe”, Marivaux’s “Love Arising for the Second Time” or Musset’s “No Trifling with Love”. Or, of course, contemporary theatre, like that of Yasmina Reza or others. And the commentaries of a jury composed of (let’s dream a little) Ariane Mnouchkine, Olivier Pym and Eric Ruff, would be absolutely fascinating, because they are passionate individuals.
It would also, incidentally, be a way to give a concrete perspective to the Francophonie project, (which I have already underlined here, how it is scandalously left in obsolescence), and also highlight texts by Sony Labou Tansi or Michel Tremblay. Or so many others.
Nothing is more important, for art, than making it accessible to those who are all too often constrained or reticent spectators. Nothing is more attractive than inciting competitions of this kind, which could then, like “Dancing with the stars”, be developed in all the territories in local competitions.
The concept could then, in the same way, be developed into a musical program, where amateur musicians, who are not seeking to become professionals, could perform duets with great classical musicians; piano four-hands, or sonatas for piano and violin or compositions for two clarinets. The repertoire is filled with major works, not too difficult, for two instruments.
It would be more complex to reproduce the concept in plastic arts; but why not? The tests that have been carried out so far have not been conclusive; but it does not mean that it cannot be achieved. Especially for the most current aspects of contemporary art forms, pertaining to performance, which shares similarities to the other performing arts; even if the artists, more or less rightly, sometimes deny this assertion.
Let’s try?
