Between two weeks of courses, let's take a moment to read this postcard written by François Liénard, artistic advisor for the visual arts, on the occasion of a visit to the Neufchâteau courses.
In Neufchâteau, we enter between
Two towers it's a village, oh
Sorry, a town, fortified since
The Middle Ages
Two world wars, and the
Oldest remember the Panzer
Division that trampled its flat
Beds and destroyed its rosebushes
Today, vines grow
On its hillsides, on a pond
Ducks sail, and on the lake
Pedal boats, water, water everywhere
There's a mill and a waterfall near
The little schist bridge, it's enough
Bucolic and picturesque, you'd think you were in
Geneva or Annecy, we have
A single desire to jump into water,
But some women are waiting for us
Second floor of the mill, singing
In a chorus, listening to each one
As we go, a tune takes shape until
Back to silence, in a tower
Lives a griffin, further on St. Michael
Terraces the dragon, in a school
Brecht is played, the living is triturated
In grotesque gestures,
Summer twists, he puts on his hat,
His big nose, the city is padded
With forests, the old village cool
In its leaves, in Neufchâteau we
Don't mess with justice, a
Greco-Roman palace in stone from
France protects from its shadow
The region's inhabitants, in a
Gymnasium, we enter the
Dancing like in Brazil, we sway
In pairs, as if we were treading cocoa,
Men and women move
Still together as in the old days
In Neufchâteau live on
Even griots from Burkina Faso
Who teach the locals the kora,
The balafon and the djembe, the town and
Its Summer Academy are bordered by
Five continents five oceans five
Seasons, four plus one, the one spent here
Together, the world is not a village,
Quite the opposite, and so much the better.
François Liénard, Neufchâteau, AKDT, July 2023.
François Liénard
