Progetto Martha Argerich

italiano

Works

Poeti e barbari: Jazz e avanguardia francese

Lecture

 

In the 1910s and 20s, America captured the imagination of the French avant-garde. In their eyes, America represented the epitome of the modern. It brought together both the new and the barbaric: the futuristic steel skyscrapers, and the primitive violence of the new urban jungles, whose rhythms, at once frenetic and mechanized, were captured by African-American music, ragtime and jazz. It was jazz, the music that was disseminated by the American troops during the Great War, that became representative of a world in transformation. Jazz was the metaphor for a new age ? the Jazz age ? a metaphor for destruction, change and a return to instincts. Cocteau described it as the "pulse of the Muse," at once reassuring and frightening. Through the works of Cocteau, Man Ray, and others, this lecture will explore the influence of jazz on avant-garde artists in Paris.

Performers

Performance