Paris (France)

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      From Salzburg to Paris, Dancing Bach’s St. John Passion

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      From Salzburg to Dijon to Paris, a German choreographer adds striking dance to the sacred oratorio.The first thing we hear in Sasha Waltz’s production of the “St. John Passion” (“Johannes-Passion”) is not the mournful opening notes of the sacred oratorio, written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1724, but rather the whir of sewing machines.Eleven dancers bend over a long table as they mechanically stitch together modest frocks. The chorus enters, with lacerating cries of “Herr, unser Herrscher” (“Lord, our Sovereign”), while the dancers slowly carry the billowy white garments that they have just made downstage, their naked bodies bathed in a golden glow. In a recent phone interview, Waltz referred to these frocks as “the shift of life, the cloth that represents, in a way, your own life, from birth to death.”Over the next two hours, the dancers repeatedly don these white gowns, slip into other, colorful garments, or perform in the nude as they bring Bach’s magisterial music to life, their movements enhanced by shimmering nocturnal lighting. For the most part, the set remains bare throughout the performance; the few props include wooden poles, blocks and planks, rope and mirrors.After springtime performances at the Salzburg Easter Festival in Austria and the Opéra de Dijon in France, the production is to arrive at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in early November. Waltz, 61, is perhaps Germany’s best-known living choreographer, and the latest director of many who have been drawn to Bach’s two surviving passions — grand musical settings of the crucifixion of Jesus.“I think it’s very, very theatrical,” Waltz said of the “St. John Passion.” “It’s maybe the oratorio where Bach comes the closest to opera, I would say. And I love the rhythmicality of the turba choirs,” she added, referring to the highly charged crowd scenes.She was speaking days after receiving this year’s German Dance Award. The jury statement praised her “artistically unique and disciplinary-bursting oeuvre,” which has ranged from works staged in museums to operas, such as Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” and Wagner’s “Tannhäuser.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Paris Is Rising as an Art Market Hub, With Some Way Left to Go

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      Sotheby’s opened a new salesroom and international collectors are arriving for the inaugural Art Basel Paris fair. But visiting is one thing; buying is another.“This is the Mona Lisa of handbags,” said Aurélie Vassy, Sotheby’s head of handbag and fashion sales in Europe, as she unlocked a glass display case and proudly revealed a battered black leather Birkin.“The first in the world, made for Jane Birkin. It’s the beginning,” said Vassy, pointing out the design features of the bag, specially made by Hermès for the Anglo-French singer and actress in 1984. Three years earlier, Birkin had found herself sitting next to the chief executive of the luxury brand on a flight from Paris to London and had sketched the design on the back of a sick bag.This precious fashion icon, on loan from the collection of the pre-owned luxury dealer Catherine B, was one of the star exhibits at the opening of Sotheby’s new salesroom in the Avenue Matignon district of Paris on Saturday. The auction house will hold Surrealism and modern art sales on Friday, just days after the inaugural edition of the Art Basel Paris fair begins in the newly renovated Grand Palais.Aurélie Vassy, Sotheby’s head of handbag and fashion sales in Europe, with the very first Birkin bag.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesThe Paris art scene is expanding. After Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union, a procession of international gallerists established spaces in the French capital, expecting its underperforming art market to revive at London’s expense.When Art Basel took over the management of Paris’s flagship October fair in 2022, this nurtured hope that the city’s art scene would become a magnet for international collectors. (It ran the fair for a couple of years from a temporary location under the ungainly name “Paris+ par Art Basel” before rebranding for this year’s edition.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Art Basel Returns, Larger, and More French, Than Ever

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      The fair will open in a freshly redone space with a new name. ‘In a way, it’s year zero,’ explained Art Basel’s chief executive.Art Basel Paris returns for its third edition with two big changes: It will be held for the first time in the newly renovated Grand Palais, and its name, formerly Paris+ by Art Basel, has been simplified and brought in line with the organization’s other art fairs.Open to the public Oct. 18-20, 195 galleries will display their wares, an increase of 27 percent from last year, since the Grand Palais can now accommodate more dealers than the former venue, the temporary Grand Palais Éphémère.A new section will debut, too: Premise, for focused presentations of older works that can include those made before 1900, the usual cutoff point for art to appear in the Art Basel fairs. Nine galleries will participate.“In a way, it’s year zero,” Noah Horowitz, the chief executive of Art Basel, said of the fair’s reset.Despite the larger number of exhibitors this year, Horowitz noted that it was still the smallest of the four Art Basel fairs (the others take place in Hong Kong, Miami Beach and Basel, Switzerland) and had the smallest booths. Space is still at a premium.“The selection process for Art Basel Paris was in many ways the most excruciating process I’ve ever borne witness to, only because of the extra amount of demand and the relative paucity of space,” Horowitz said. “There are incredible galleries, all very well deserving, that are not in the show.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Christian Louboutin Makes a Splash at Paris Fashion Week

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      Christian Louboutin enlisted the French Olympic synchronized swimming team to introduce his new Miss Z stilettos at Paris Fashion Week.Christian Louboutin made a splash at Paris Fashion Week on Friday night: He staged “Paris is Louboutining,” a synchronized swimming spectacle at the Piscine Molitor.The Art Deco pool, designed by Lucien Pollet in 1929, was transformed into a watery burlesque that would sink Esther Williams with envy. Mr. Louboutin enlisted the photographer and music video director David LaChapelle for art direction, Blanca Li for choreography, a troupe of 14 dancers and 15 members from the French Olympic artistic swimming team for an underwater performance done entirely in his new Miss Z stilettos. The musician LP sang on the pool deck.Even before the Paris Olympics, Mr. Louboutin had been taken with the idea of using athletes to present his collection. He envisioned something surprising, “where you would not expect athletes and you would not expect shoes,” Mr. Louboutin said before the show. “I thought, basically, swimming.”Known for his slick red-leather-soled shoes, Mr. Louboutin also has a love of dance, camp and glamour. His first job was at the Folies Bergère, and he got his start designing shoes for showgirls. He has collaborated with Crazy Horse, Paris’s tastefully nude cabaret, and staged his Loubi shows, the dance and music presentations he orchestrates to showcase new collections, with various choreographers and performers.“Paris is Louboutining” took the concept to another level. The entire revue was fabulously over the top, beginning with its title, a play on the documentary “Paris Is Burning.”Members of the Olympic swim team slid down a giant mule …via Christian Louboutin… and into the pool for their synchronized performance.via Christian LouboutinWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Amadou Mahtar M’Bow, 103, Dies; His Tenure Leading UNESCO Was Stormy

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      He was the first Black African to head a major international organization, but complaints about his tenure led the U.S. and Britain to pull out of it.Amadou Mahtar M’Bow, a Senegalese civil servant and politician who became the first Black African to head a major international organization when he was elected director general of UNESCO — but whose contested tenure there led the United States and Britain to pull out — died on Tuesday in Dakar, Senegal. He was 103.His death, at a hospital, was announced on the website of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which was established to promote international cooperation in those domains.Mr. M’Bow, a rare survivor among the continent’s first generation of independence leaders, had served as Senegal’s education and culture minister when he rose to the top post at UNESCO in 1974. Over the next 13 years he turned the agency into a spearhead for grievances in the developing world and the Soviet bloc, mainly over Western cultural dominance, while entrenching himself behind a phalanx of handpicked bureaucrats at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.His resistance to Western influences, as well as accusations of misspending and nepotism, contributed to decisions by President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to pull their countries out of UNESCO in disgust, the U.S. in 1984 and Britain in 1985. Britain rejoined in 1997, the United States in 2003.The withdrawal by the U.S. was particularly disastrous for UNESCO, as American contributions had provided a quarter of its budget. For years afterward, the agency was seen by critics as the poster child for U.N. bloat and politicization.Criticism of Mr. M’Bow centered on his promotion of what came to be known as a “new world information order,” a vague body of recommendations that many in the West regarded as a threat to freedom of the press, while its advocates saw it as an attempt to break the perceived Western monopoly on the reporting and dissemination of news.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Paris Throws a Final Olympics Bash

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      Tens of thousands cheered, clapped, danced and sang to celebrate French athletes and to relive, one last time, the Games that uplifted a nation.Paris threw its last Olympics party on Saturday, a buoyant, nostalgia-tinged celebration of the 2024 Games that drew tens of thousands of cheering spectators to the streets of the French capital for a parade of athletes and an outdoor concert around the Arc de Triomphe.The festivities started with smoky blue, white and red fireworks, echoing the start of the opening ceremony on the Seine. Flag-waving crowds then roared and sang France’s national anthem as more than 300 French Olympic and Paralympic contestants paraded up the Champs-Élysées on a giant white runway.“Thank you all,” Teddy Riner, the French judo legend, told ecstatic spectators as they sounded air horns and chanted athletes’ names. “It was incredible!”Medal-winning athletes were later decorated with state honors, some of them by retired French sports legends, and a handful were honored by President Emmanuel Macron himself. France won 64 medals, putting it in the top five of the Olympics medals count. And it earned 75 medals at the Paralympics.Athletes paraded up the Champs-Élysées on a giant white runway.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersAfter night fell, the Olympic cauldron floated into the air one last time and a highlight reel of the Games was projected onto the Arc de Triomphe. Performers from the opening and closing ceremonies also returned for an encore on a ring-shaped stage around the famous monument (including Philippe Katerine, a.k.a blue Smurf guy). French fencers, rugby players and others led the concertgoers through giant karaoke sessions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Eiffel Tower Will Keep Olympic Rings Permanently, Mayor Says

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      “I want the two to remain married,” Mayor Anne Hidalgo of Paris said in a newspaper interview.The giant Olympic rings that were installed on the Eiffel Tower for the 2024 summer Games will become a permanent fixture on the monument, the mayor of Paris revealed on Saturday.Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that it was a “beautiful idea” to combine a quintessentially French icon, the Eiffel Tower, which was originally built for the 1889 World’s Fair, with a global one. The five interlaced rings of blue, red, yellow, black and green, which represent the different continents, were installed this summer between the tower’s first and second floors, more than 200 feet above the ground.“I want the two to remain married,” Ms. Hidalgo said in an interview with Ouest-France, a newspaper.The Eiffel Tower, already one of the most widely recognized monuments in the world, with about seven million visitors per year, has been a prominent symbol of this year’s Olympic Games, which ended earlier this month, and of the Paralympic Games, which will end on Sept. 8.Medals won by athletes are encrusted with pieces of the famous landmark; Celine Dion made a triumphant comeback by singing from the tower during the opening ceremony; and the monument has become a stunning backdrop for beach volleyball and blind football.Olympic competitors pass the Eiffel Tower at the start of the women’s road race in August.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesMs. Hidalgo said that she had written to President Emmanuel Macron of France to notify him, because the Eiffel Tower is “part of our national cultural heritage.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Paris, Uncharacteristically Giddy, Bids Au Revoir to the Olympics

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      A joyous Games, a cleaned-up Seine and improvements to the region brought cheer to Parisians as they handed off the Summer Olympics to Los Angeles.There were French firemen flipping like acrobats, a musician playing a piano that hung vertically in the air, and Olympic athletes overwhelming the stage and forming a mosh pit around the French electro-pop band Phoenix.The Paris Olympics ended much as they began, with a raucous spectacle before a joyous crowd, a generous supply of strobe lights, smoke and fireworks. And then the actor Tom Cruise rappelled off the stadium roof to collect the Olympic flag from the gymnast Simone Biles and carry it off on his motorcycle, à la “Top Gun” and “Mission: Impossible” to Los Angeles, where the next summer Olympics is set to take place in 2028.“Together, we have experienced the Games like nothing we have ever lived before,” said Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris Olympics organizing committee, adding that of all the records broken, among them was one for marriage proposals. “From one day to the next, time stood still and a whole country got goose bumps.”As Paris bids au revoir to the Olympic Games, many are reluctant to let go of its magic: of the adrenaline-fueled excitement, of the party free of political debate, of the sense of time deliciously suspended, like the glowing Olympic cauldron that has hovered wistfully over the city every night.The beach volleyball venue became one of the most popular, and most photographed, at the Games.Daniel Berehulak/The New York TimesThe Olympic cauldron hovering over the city.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More