PARIAHS IN MONT DAUPHIN – RESEARCH BRIEF
On vit dans une île (We live on an island)
“Sortir du chemin” (off the beaten track)
Overview
Mont-Dauphin is a fortified town built by Vauban in 1693 that is on the UNESCO World Heritage list. It is a unique village of 170 people in a spectacular mountain setting, with Mediterranean sunshine in the summer and blinding snow in the winter. The silence is deafening, and all of the structures reek of history. Mont-Dauphin is nestled in a magnificent natural setting in the heart of the Southern French Alps, in the Hautes-Alpes department. It was built to protect France on its Italian border in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. France’s famous military architect, Vauban, chose the Plateau des Mille Vents to build Mont Dauphin, a fortified site designed for a civilian population but with a military garrison. Because the Italian border moved further away in 1713, Mont-Dauphin was never invaded. The fortress, built of pink Guillestre marble, has preserved a remarkable group of cultural heritage buildings from its military past as an impregnable citadel. Mont-Dauphin is now a hub for active, responsible, and outdoor tourism and a host of cultural events held in festival contexts. Mont-Dauphin will be able to connect internationally with people from various countries and cultures through Pariahs, externalise their expertise, increase their visibility, and explore the common ground we all share as Europeans.
CONCLUSIONS
- Mont-Dauphin is a site of marginality and anchorage, away from the social and geopolitical concerns of metropolitan France.
- Community and Communality is the marginal element for the creation of historical memory in Mont-Dauphin. This is, in a way, paralleled within the Slovene community, in particular with regards to the marginality experienced by Mont-Dauphinois and Mariborians as communities “au sein d’autre chose” (at the heart of an-Other thing) vis-à-vis their respective metropolis, vis-à-vis Europe and the world.
- In Mont-Dauphin, an urge to return and retain an “autre mode de fonctionnement” is observed, (another model of functioning). This model presents a particularity both in terms of its centring of local governance, autonomy as well as material and cultural production and its off centring of the metropolis and the principles of metropolitan organisation and behaviour. This is not expressed so much as an alternative but rather as a close reading and a tighter adherence to the ideals of solidarity, land ecology and historically-forming cohesion.
- Discursively, the will for artistic and administrative autonomy opens up the possibility of revisiting historical experience critically and proposes an emancipatory vision for the future.
- Marginalisation for Mont-Dauphin is the collective which proposes a pragmatic political framework for the cohabitation of autonomous individuals, autonomous governance and conscious ecology.
Read the full research here:
Pariahs D2.2 Guide_final
THE LOCAL PARTNER
The association ASCEN-DANSE was established on 18 July 1996 and is based in Mont-Dauphin, France. It includes a dance school that has existed since 1996 under the direction of Isabelle Mazuet, a professional dance company called Compagnie Isabelle Mazuel, and the organisation of the famous “Vertical’été” dance festival in a Unesco heritage setting since 2006.
Ascen-Danse is rightfully renowned for hosting artistic organisations in the “Vertical’été” festival. In 2017, they cooperated with the National Monuments Centre, within the framework of “Monuments in Motion”’ (valorisation of national monuments in the performing arts). It allowed the company of Yoan Bourgeois, a widely known French choreographer, to appear in the festival. In the continuity of “monuments in movement”, the purpose is to value a reciprocal sublimation between heritage, landscape and living art.
The performances are adapted to the site but were created in their own setting, more or less distant from this type of site. In-situ projects have already been launched. For example, a mapping was created on the Porte de Briançon, “Ceux d’ici”, with and about the inhabitants of the fortified village. It is performed biannually.
The desire of the municipality of Mont-Dauphin, in the near future, is to create a place of residence for artists, and a theatre of greenery. The European professional companies welcomed in the village will thus be more easily open to amateurs.
For several years, Ascen-Danse has been creating with amateur dancers from its school or the inhabitants of Mont-Dauphin; their contemporary dance is influenced by various ways (Cunningham, Graham, Pina Bausch, Peter Goos, Gallotta, theatre, circus, vertical dance, Feldenkrais, Alexander, Body Mind Centering…). Creations with contemporary choreographers were created (revival of “3 generations” by Gallotta, Sylvie Guillermin, Tango contemporary dance Mattias Tripodi…). Creative workshops have led to in situ shows (Collégiate church in Briançon, Salettes Fort in Briançon, Embrun Cathedral).
