For a student, especially an international who still struggles to perfect her subjonctif, Reims can prove a challenging city to explore. Not because it doesn’t have things to offer -quite on the contrary- but rather because it is incredibly easy to get lost in ones’ university circles. Besides, friends’ apartments are close, and Bureau events are plenty. We don’t often move past our dorm rooms or campus because we don’t like to challenge ourselves.

But the artistic community of Reims is offering us students with an opportunity that is difficult to reject. An opportunity that made me, upon participating in it for the first time, reconsider the character of our town. It introduced me not only to new pieces of art and a refreshing group of people but also to original ideas that challenged the way I thought of the relations between art and politics. YPALS stands for Young Performing Arts Lovers and it is a program within the premises of the FARaway art festival of Reims that brings a few dozens of young artists under a Remois roof for a weekend of socialization, artistic exploration, and exposure to original art – and what a weekend it is.

Throughout those few, fleeting days the YPALS were given free tickets to some of the festival’s headlining shows – we got to see riveting work, the likes of Hate Radio, Congo, and the Lingering Now. They were all multifaceted and multidisciplinary shows, bending the boundaries of what cinema, theatre, and dance have to be. But what is unique about watching these shows through the YPAL program is that one gets to experience them alongside likeminded performing artists, that often have idiosyncratic takes to offer about the spectacles. Which leads me to the utmost point about the YPAL experience: the conversation.

Apart from ushering us to shows and giving us plenty of chances to relax and enjoy our environment, the organizers of the festival offered us the chance to participate in free debates amongst ourselves and reputable writers and artists. Imagine the scene: a few dozens of artists from different generations, discussing “between lands,” as the project is appropriately named, and expressing thoughts and counter-thoughts in many different languages via the help of internal translations on issues of democracy, public policy & art. Disagreements soon sparked amongst the cohort but discussions were always polite and respectful albeit being impassioned. We all learned from each other the days of the organized debates, most importantly, we learned that experience of art isn’t universal. We all think of its contribution differently, of how it should be funded or whether it should be regulated. Our conditioning and context greatly influence our politics and we absolutely cannot take other people’s experience for granted.

The program itself took us on a tour around Reims. Even for a seasoned “Remois” student who has lived here for two years, the locations were refreshing and showed the charming and active part of our town. Running from workshop to debate to show, we would shift between the Comedie of Reims, its Atelier, the FRAC (which, despite being right next to Sciences Po, most of us Sciences Pistes had never visited), and the wonderfully unique Manege. On the daily we were treated to elaborate lunches, brunches and dinners by the YPALs organizing team at the Comedie bar, which was dressed in Amazonian leaves for the imminent After Bresil bar night. We utilized these breaks as opportunities for reflection and connection – it is where the YPALs truly got to do what they were brought here to do: learn each other, explore cross-country narratives, opinions, ideas.

In Denmark little thought is given to African history, both contemporary and old. As a Danish student I was never expected to, tested in, or confronted with any history south of Italy. The atrocities that found their ways into our syllabus all took place on European soil. We learned about the mass hunt for witches through medieval times, the persecution of Protestants by Catholics, and the systematic execution of Jews during the Holocaust. And when we were presented with African history, they were snapshots and glimpses of colonialism through a European perspective. Aware of this blind spot in my education, I signed up to see – or rather listen to – Hate Radio, a

powerful reconstruction of the programs broadcast by Radio Mille Collines which played a central role in the atrocity that was the Rwandan genocide in 1994, at Le Comédie during the Faraway festival.

Walking into the amphitheater, I quickly realized that Hate Radio would be a different kind of theatre experience; on the seats were a radio and a headset. On stage was a large, square box fitted with screens on the sides. As soon as we’d tuned in to the radio, these screens started broadcasting. From them four individuals each told their heartbreaking story from the Rwandan genocide. It was captivating in a bewildering way. What they were describing seemed so inhumane, so brutal that the immediate impulse was to reject their stories as unbelievable. But then the screens went up and a recording studio appeared. We had been transported to the center of the unbelievable. Our headphones were now tuned into a recording studio in Kigali in 1994. It was no regular broadcast, however. Three hosts called for murder, persecution, and torture of Tutsis, and they did so in the most lighthearted manner. Intoxicated by the most appalling form of bloodrush, the broadcasters switched from calling for the decapitation of a listener’s neighbor to dancing to their favorite pop tune within mere seconds. I couldn’t believe what was unravelling before me. We were witnesses to a genocide through the mouthpiece of hate that was the Radio Mille Collines in 1994.

“How could this happen?” “How are humans capable of such evil acts?” “Can you even forgive such cruelty?” “Why did no one stop it?” The scenes that were unfolding before me provoked many questions. “Could any of this could happen back home?” I thought to myself. Of course, it could. It had happened during the Holocaust. It was the all too familiar story of a minority persecuted because of minority hate and authoritarianism. But this time it was not in a history book: it was in my ears, in front of my eyes, and happening in real-time. Hate Radio had given me a front-row ticket to the banality of evil.

When the broadcast stopped, I remained in my chair. I had travelled thirty years into the past for two hours and needed a few minutes to gather my thoughts. Then, when leaving the amphitheater, I felt grateful for living in a country where democratic institutions remain strong, hate crimes are punished, and multiculturalism cherished. But I left a little more wary too, a little more aware that. if not cared for, these pillars of society can come rumbling down over a summer.

Anne Goalard and Alice Faure-Dumont met Marion Betriu and Natalia Alvarez Simó at the Teatros del Canal to talk about the creation of a Spanish YPAL group. After the presentation of the YPAL network and its ambitions, we communicated to them our desire to create a group of Madrid spectators from various horizons, to rethink the relationship between audience, live shows and Europe.

A call for applications will be launched by the theatre in the coming weeks to start this group, which Alice will be able to follow at its beginnings and part of which will come to live the Reims YPAL experience in February !

To be continued!

Exposition Europia #2 – Damien Rault

In the midst of heated political debate, photographer and actor Julien Allouf presents a fresh perspective on European identity with his exhibition “Europia #2”, with the scenography of James Brandily. Having spent 4 years exploring the European capitals, Allouf captures something that journalistic and touristic photography could never offer; a Europe of the people. The exhibition provides a perambulation of the institutional elements and the intricately different atmospheres found across the continent.

Damien Rault

Europe of Urgency

Alluding to the fall of the Berlin wall and end of the Cold-War period, Allouf states how what began as a promise of peace and communion between people, now is seeing a vast degeneration. He began conceptualising his work during the Greek financial crisis, which was only the start of the beginning; the Hungarian border barrier of 500 km, Brexit, rise of nationalist tendencies in France… A political climate, which overtly puts in question the European common identity. Allouf wanted to portray the materialisation of this mythical concept, in how it actually shows on the streets of European capitals.

His exhibition includes a collection of small pictures, which he invites visitors to take with them. “I like the idea of them ending up where ever, like on a fridge or something.” Finally, he is highly invested in engaging with the reflections of his visitors, and hearing what resonated with them about the exhibition. This acknowledges the individual sentiments Europe evokes in us, and thus bounces back the focus of his exhibition to the original object of his study; the European people.

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