Occitan Trobadors in NYC: a Symposium, a Banquet, a Performance

Occitan Trobadors in NYC: a Symposium, a Banquet, a Performance

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On Saturday, November 23, Poets House, in partnership with City Lore and NY’OC Trobadors, hosts a landmark symposium celebrating and bringing the riches of southern French poetry and culture to the American public. The symposium gathers international and local poets, artists, scholars, and performers to share the fascinating history of the region and bring to life the songs of troubadours past and present in the endangered lenga d’òc (Occitan language). Chef and foodie favorite Ariane Daguin, owner of gourmet purveyor D’Artagnan, will host a reservation-only Gascon Buffet with a short historic overview of Occitan cuisine and cooking demonstration. The evening will culminate in a music and poetry performance featuring accomplished bicontinental artists Joan Francés Tisnèr (project director), Jakes Aymonino, Domenja Lekuona, Pierre Joris, and Nicole Peyrafitte. Other presenters include New York University scholars Deborah Kapchan, Sarah Kay and Richard Sieburth, and director of Fondacion Occitània Alem Surre-Garcia.

The 11th century trobadors and trobairitz of Occitania, a region spanning the entire southern half of France (Bearn, Languedoc, Auvergne, Limousin, Provence) and encompassing the Occitan Valleys in the Italian Alps and the Aran Valley in the Spanish Pyrenees, have long inspired American poets, most notably Ezra Pound, with their lyrical, secular, and often subversive verse-commentary on the culture, politics, and love affairs of their time. Mythologized as wandering mystics, these professional poets set the stage for everything from poetic forms like the cantata and sestina to the passionate and carefully-wrought works of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan to Top 40 love songs. The Trobadors symposium celebrates and bears witness to a millennium of Occitan culture and influence around the globe.

Symposium Schedule
Opening Remarks: Richard Sieburth
2:00–3:30 PM: Topologies of Occitan Language & Culture
Languages & their Territories with Nicole Peyrafitte, Domenja Lekuona, Alem Surre-Garcia; Occitan & the Orient with Deborah Kapchan; Participatory Introduction to Occitan Language & Songs with Joan Francés Tisnèr

4:00–5:30 PM Occitan Literature Through the Ages:
Troubadour Poetry: The Classical Moment with Richard Sieburth; Occitan Literature: The Middle Ages with Sarah Kay; Occitan Poetry: The 20th Century & Beyond with Pierre Joris & Alem Surre-Garcia

5:30–7:00 PM: Gascon Dinner with Ariane Daguin and D’Artagnan (Space is limited: Reservations Required)
Buffet Gascon offered by gourmet purveyor D’Artagnan, with short historic overview of Occitan food and cooking demonstration by Ariane Daguin and Nicole Peyrafitte. Gascony is a region in Occitania known for its “sweetness of life” and is home to foie gras and Armagnac brandy.

Dinner admission (includes evening performance): $25 per person.
Reservations REQUIRED!
 please contact Joe Fritsch at (212) 431-7920 x 2832 or [email protected].

7:00–9:00 PM: NY’OC Trobadors Multimedia Performance
Journey through a millennium of Occitan culture in music, images, and bilingual poetry. With Joan Francés Tisnèr, Jakes Aymonino, Domenja Lekuona, Pierre Joris, and Nicole Peyrafitte.

EVENT SPONSORED BY: Poets House   & City Lore
Partners:
D’artagnan, Région Aquitaine, Cirdoc, InÒc, DRAC, CG64, Ville de Pau Produceurs: Lo NAu (Occitania), Ta’wil Productions (USA)

Additional donnors:
André Spears & Anne Rosen, Margo & Anthony Viscusi, Jason Wise, anonymous

– See more at: http://www.poetshouse.org/programs-and-events/readings-and-conversations/trobadors-symposium-occitan-poetry#sthash.ufM31TLU.dpuf

En Route Again!

En Route Again!

at The Taste of france

The picture above was taken on September 28-29 at The Taste of France where I had the pleasure of MC’ing the main stage for the entire weekend. The event took place at Bryant Park in NYC & one of my favorite moment was to be on stage with my occitan acolytes: Ariane Daguin (d’Artagnan) & Pierre Landet (Executive chef at Chez Felix, in NYC). Here is Ariane showing  an aiguillette de canard, or the little tenderloin part found on top of the magret de canard that you’ll never find on your plate because it’s the cook who always eats it!

Throughout the weekend many artists & chefs were featured on stage, among them Julie Andrieux (Les Carnets de Julie), an important delegation of the Maîtres Cuisiniers de France, The Metropolitan Opera singers & their director Peter Gelb.  I want to thank Abby & Guy René from the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont, without whom the cooking demos & tasting could not have happened so smoothly; also, a big thank you to the volunteers & a special mention to Alexis!

Voilà, we can move on to the next events & that will be a reading at The Shed Space in Brooklyn on Thursday — & Friday we are off to our old stomping ground in Southern California for two weeks! Check out details below .

Photo Pauline Catherinotphoto Pauline Catherinot

Nov 23
A Symposium on Occitan Poetry
Poets House
Full brochure here

Past Events:Many Videos of Nicole Peyrafitte at the Festival des Voix Vives, Sète – France, July 2013.

Photos of NY’OC Trobadors Residency in Béarn

Video of Pierre Joris reading at DIA Foundation, 8 April 2013.

Video of Pierre Joris reading at Whitman’s Birth Place, 6 April 2013.

NP modeling for plurifonctionel Montreuil artist Touta Bakouche

Photos by poet/blogger Pauline Cathrinot

NY’OC Trobadors residence in Béarn
more pix here

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Pierre on Twitter
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 Blogs:
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After a great summer filled with many exciting events (see sidebar for links & pix) voilà our fall schedule. We are hoping to see many of you here or there! Keep in touch.— Pierre & Nicole

Saturday 28 & Sunday 29 September
Manhattan, NY
Nicole Peyrafitte will be the MC at Taste of France. Yes! Come to France by subway! Come to Bryant Park this weekend, the French are taking over! Many cooking demos, music & even diplomacy since The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laurent Fabius, has been announced!

Monday September 30  5:00 – 7PM
Manhattan, NY
Pierre Joris & Nicole Peyrafitte present: The Making of The University of California Book of North African Literature: Poems for the Millennium Vol.4
NYU – Hagop Kevorkian Center, 255 Sullivan Street (at Washington Square South) NYC.

Thursday October 10  8:00PM
Brooklyn, NY
Nicole Peyrafitte reading at The Shed Space with Kimberly Lyons & Nada Gordon
366 6th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY.

Tuesday October 15  3:00 – 7:00PM
Los Angeles, CA
Pierre Joris talk & reading at USC Dornsife Department of English
Ide Memorial Common Room, THH 420
3501 Trousdale Parkway
Taper Hall of Humanities 404 -University Park
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0354

Wednesday October 16  7:30PM
Los Angeles, CA
Pierre Joris poetry reading at Otis College of Arts & Design
Ahmanson Hall Forum
9045 Lincoln Blvd L.A. 90045

Thursday October 17 10AM-1PM
Los Angeles, CA
Pierre Joris presents Poems for the Millennium Vol.4 : The University of California Book of North African Literature at USC Dornsife (w/ NP multimedia presentation & readings)
Table ronde moderated by Olivia Harrison with Guy Bennet, Teresa Villa Ignacio & Kenza Sefrioui. Details here

Wednesday October 23 4:30PM
San Diego, CA
Pierre Joris & Nicole Peyrafitte present Domopoetics at UC San Diego.
SME Performance Space Room. Details here

Thursday October 26 8:00PM
Brooklyn, NY
Pierre Joris at World Series Poetry & Music Spectacular
Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt Ave., Brooklyn.

Saturday October 26 4:00-6:00 PM
Brooklyn, NY
Pierre Joris reads at “Come Together: Surviving Sandy” Dedalus Foundation & Brooklyn Rail Reading
Industry City (Sunset Park, Brooklyn)
d.t.b.a.

Thursday & Friday 8 November  
Brussels, Belgium
Keynote lecture & reading by Pierre Joris; poetry reading & performance by Nicole Peyrafitte.
Moving Back and Forth between Poetry and / as Translation: Nomadic Travels and Travails with Alice Notley and Pierre Joris
Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Saturday November 23  2:00 – 9:00PM
Manhattan, NY
A Symposium on Occitan Poetry, Lectures, Gascon Dinner & NY’OC Trobadors Performance, with Jakes Aymonino, Pierre Joris, Deborah Kapchan, Sarah Kay, Domenja Lekuona, Nicole Peyrafitte, Richard Sieburth, Alem Surre-Garcia, Joan Francés Tisnèr. Full brochure here
Poets House, 10 River Terrace (at Murray Street), NYC 10282.

Monday December 2  8:00PM
Philadelphia, PA
Pierre Joris & Nicole Peyrafitte Reading
Plays and Players Social Club
1714 Delancey Pl, Philadelphia

Tuesday December 3  6PM
Philadelphia, PA
Pierre Joris at the Kelly Writer’s House: The Holocaust Experience in the Poetry of Paul Celan
3805 Locust walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104
tel: 215-746-POEM

Tuesday December 3  6PM
Villanova,PA
Pierre Joris presents Poems for the Millennium Vol.4 : The University of California Book of North African Literature
(w/ NP multimedia presentation & readings)
Villanova University
800 E. Lancaster Avenue
Villanova, PA 19085

Wednesday December 11  
Ohio
Pierre Joris reading at Kenyon College
Gambier, Ohio 43022
d.t.b.a.


& Fresh from the presses:
by Nicole Peyrafitte:

Bi-Valve: Vulvic Space | Vulvic Knowledge
Publisher: Stockport Flats
Available here

by Pierre Joris:

Meditations on the Stations of Mansur AL-Hallaj
Publisher: Chax Press
Available here

Copyright © 2013 Joris/Peyrafitte, All rights reserved.