Jazz in Granville

A recent jazz concert in Granville was another illustration of the way the arts are flourishing in Normandy. The musicians were the Indigo Trio, from Chicago: Nicola Mitchell on flute and voice, Hamilton Bankhead on bass and Hamid Drake on drums. The venue was the tiny 64 seat Théatre de Presqu'Ile in Granville. I have been to this theatre before, and this time it was also completely full. In fact there was not just standing room only, but the eight or nine children in the audience were moved onto the sides of the stage to make more room. Brilliant performance by a terrific group, who were clearly not used to playing such a small place, nor to the different ways of a provincial French audience. 


After a 45 minute starting piece, and a couple of shorter numbers, they took a bow, and then looked at each other in bemusement, because the audience applauded enthusiastically, but nothing else. French audiences are very respectful towards the artists, and assume that the artist decides what he or she will do, and that decision is the right one on artistic grounds. Not up to the audience to question that, so there was no expectation that there would be encores. However, after a minute or so, an English voice in the audience (not me) called out 'Could we have another please?'. The musicians were greatly relieved, and started another 45 minutes.

The group's other concerts in their tour were in much bigger places, like the theatres at Caen and Rouen, but I think the intimacy of the Presqu'Ile made for a better concert than many in the bigger places. The performers were closer to the audience, and the audience could see exactly how the musicians played. This was for me particularly interesting watching the drummer, who had a number of personal techniques. It was fascinating watching some of the more intricate pattern making, and the use of a variety of sticks and brushes. By coincidence, I saw him again on television a week ago, playing with the 77 year old jazz musician Arche Shepp. This was on a programme on the wonderul France-German channel Arte. Shepp was interviewed, and spoke in English and fluent French at random, sometimes switching in mid sentence. The CD with that music is available here, and is a fascinating mix of jazz and - as unlikely as it might seem - rap music.


The Théatre de la Presq'Isle has now been renamed the Théatre de l'Haut Ville, and has become associated with the othert theatre in Granville, the modern Archipel, which has 443 places. Compare Granville, population 14,000, with a similar size of British town, and see if you can think of one with even one functioning theatre, never mind two.

Lac de la Dathee

[This post has attracted many visitors, for some reason. I have created a new one with additional and more recent pictures here]

In the seventies, the need for an improved water supply for the town of Vire led to the damming of a valley fed by a little river, La Dathée. This is now a lake, of about 45 hectares, and has been turned into a leisure resource as well as a water reservoir. There is also a large nature and bird reserve.


There has been a facility for hiring canoes/kayaks. pedalos and so on for some years. There is also a solid, if not formally paved, walk (randonnée) of 6.25 km all the way round. There are a couple of steep slopes, but the path is good for pushchairs and wheelchairs, as well as joggers. As this is France, at the start of the walk by the carpark, there is a little sign describing the creation of the path. It cost 49000 euros, funded more or less equally, by the Basse-Normandie Region, La Manche Department, and Vire town. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, public spending is identified and defined in France.


France is a bit behind the UK generally, in providing wheelchair access, though it is improving. At this lake there is a special car park for wheelchair users, leading on to a purpose built dock for angling from a wheelchair. There are anchorage points, appropriate level barriers, and of course a flat access lane. There is also a picnic area (this is France), but with a couple of specially designed picnic tables: a bench on one side only, and slightly higher than usual, to allow wheeelchair users to share a tables with other people. Not seen that before. This was funded by the same parts of the state, plus a grant from the Credit Agricole bank.

The last time I went to the lake was after the weeks of heavy rain, in early December 2009. The dam (barrage) itself was fairly spectacular, as in the picture. Normally there is no water flowing over the top.The river flowing away from the dam was over its banks. The lake itself has burst its banks all round. The Dathée and another smaller river were overflowing as they entered the lake, additional drainage ditches had been cut all round to prevent the paths being flooded.

2009/2010 - such a winter...

December 2009 and the first week of January 2010 have been unremittingly awful, and therefore highly unusual. Not as dramatic and destructive as the Great Tempest of Boxing Day 1999, but long and continuously depressing in different ways. It started with ten days of virtually constant rain, when the daily rainfall was more than the average for the month. Rivers overflowed their banks, and everywhere was sodden. Then the weather went dry, and often sunny, but day after day below zero. The first two photographs show the valley of the river Sée near Tirepied, between Avranches and Villedieu-les-Poeles. This is a flat valley where normally the river gently meanders along, but in times of heavy winter rain can flood. This year it flooded almost completely, and before the flood waters had all gone they froze. Before there was any chance of a thaw, the snow fell. That was on 17 December. and the picture with cattle was the view from our bedroom window the next morning. And the snow is still here, being renewed every four or five days, just as it looks like the last is going from the fields.

We were marooned in our house for four days. On the second day, a farmer used a tractor with a shovel to try and clear a way out, but once we get out of our little rural lane, the road has a sharp incline, and I could not get all the way to the top - 50 metres - even though my foot was to the floor in first or second gears, the car stopped moving. Downhill ended in a T-junction at the bottom of the valley, with sharp climbs in both directions. The last photo is the walk to the village after three days of snow.

New Year's day, and the snow fell continuously, another foot or so. It was gardually reducing until yesterday, 6th January, when another foot fell. It is snowing again as I type, and of course we cannot get the car out and are marooned again. Fortunately, there is a small epicerie (grocery) we can walk to in the village, and a depot de pain as well, though the two mornings a week butcher hasn't been able to get there.

I know there has been a lot of snow in the last few days in the UK, and it seems the bad weather is stretching all the way to the south of France. Must be the climate change - global warming leading to a shift which in the short term is very cold, before overheating. It is also interesting that we in western Europe have had unreasonably good weather, compared with North America, for centuries and longer. Toronto in Canada is on the same latitude as Madrid, and they have snow for six months every year. Snow is really pretty for the first day, but ther magic wears off. I found that in Quebec a few years ago, when the temperature was minus 25 without counting the wind chill, and there was no free running water anywhere. The Saint Lawrence river at Quebec city is about a kilometere wide, and was entirely frozen except for a single little channel kept open by an icebreaker chugging up and down 24/24. We have not got it that bad, yet, but ten years after La Tempete, another bad winter. Is a pattern developing?

Where the money comes from - and goes

There seems to me to be a much greater sense of civic pride in France than in the UK. This applies particularly to the local arena, where spending money on civic resources and appearances is expected and welcomed. In Britain, any council expenditure on non-essentials such as the theatre and dance, art works, street decorations and the like tends to get criticised by a large section of the local population, and the tabloid press nationally, as a 'waste of taxpayers' money', 'councillors's ego trips', or most damning of all 'elitist'.


This goes to all public expenditure, see for example a big piece in the Sunday Times on 3rd January 2010 headed 'BBC wastes millions' about art works being commissioned around the BBC redevelopment. Of course, the Sunday Times is owned by Mr Murdoch, who also owns Sky TV, which of course needs to damage the BBC for commercial reasons, but there is nonetheless a willingness of people to accept this sort of idea.


In France, local mayors, departments and regions are all prepared to invest in the quality and enjoyment of life, whether it is subsidising a theatre, financing cultural events, or justinstalling and maintaining wonderful flower beds everywhere. All part of maintaining and enhancing la patrimoine.


Here are a couple of examples. In Vire, a town with a population of about 14,000 people, there is a new theatre, seating 618, with a team of about 18 people, including a writer in residence, and which puts on demanding and interesting productions. It also has extensive educational programme, and takes productions to quite small villages throughout Normandy. It is the Theatre de la Preau, and has a budget of 1.6million euros. 


In Villedieu-les-Poeles (population under 5000) there is a museum of traditional furniture, small museums of lace making and copper working, a whole range of free public events in the streets. 


There are theatres at St Lo, Coutances, and Granville. Granville also has its Museum of Modern Art. Avranches has the Scriptorium - a museum of all the old documents from Mont St Michel - which as a series of exhibitions throughout the year: the most recent was of photographs of literary figures by Robert Doisneau. Every village has its salle des fetes, and a comite des fetes to devise and bring about events.


What is also noticeable is that all of these resources, events and activities receive their public funding from a variety of sources, and these are publicised properly. Theatre programmes, museum exhibitions and every event include details of where the money came from. For example, the Theatre de la Preau had a wonderful drama/dance production called On Somme (about sleep) which was fiannced by about a dozen organisations and other subsidised theatres, and a play about Madame de Sade co-produced with 10 other companies. The programme does not play it safe, with mixed media, dramas about racism, jazz, a piece based on the writings of Studs Terkel, and almost all are completely sold out. Many of the productions are actively ptomoted to young people and schools and colleges, with big discounts for parties and organised groups of students.


I cannot think of anywhere in the UK where small towns have such resources. Not Swansea, Bedford, Leicester for example or similar large towns have as many artistic and cultural facilities.