Not the slightest drop of water fell on Paris on Saturday evening.
Contrary to previous editions of the Nuit blanche, the most indefatigably rainy event in the capital thwarted all forecasts.
The streets of the City of Light came alive with an abundant crowd, surprised by the unexpected mildness of this October 1st.
Ile-de-France residents and tourists strolled the two banks of the Seine, getting caught up in the game of two hundred events, curiosities and other one-night artistic performances.
Perhaps inspired by the theme of the evening, given by the Austrian programmer Kitty Hartl - the
Garden of Earthly Delights
by Jérôme Bosch -, the congested streets of Paris took on the air of summer.
Le Figaro
tells you three experiences chosen from this night, while waiting for the return, in June this time, of the event.
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On the left bank of the capital, the Institut de France is dressed in a thousand and one candles.
In its main courtyard, mischievous godelleurs in Grand Siècle costume, made up and ruffed, welcome a first salvo of impatient visitors.
Moliere!
The seat of the French Academy offered itself a short night, with
La Jalousie du Barbouillé
, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin's first farce.
The baroque spectacle, provided by the merry fellows of the Oghma company, thrilled the mandolin strings and the eyes of the little ones.
At least initially.
The Institut de France has invited the Oghma company to perform all night long, in its main courtyard, Molière's farces in costume and, above all, in period phrasing.
Simon Cherner
The theatrical jokes of the troupe, declaimed with verve, of course, but in contemporary French, somewhat disconcerted the public.
In the audience, two friends enjoy the performance.
"
It must be long, a whole room like that
", loose, a glass of red wine in hand, the one who says she is a former press officer for Jean-Pierre Coffe.
No matter the complexity of the verb, the children, numerous to hurry to the front row, did not miss a single second of the burlesque comedy.
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ecstasy of colors
The pleasures of the Nuit Blanche were less immediate across the river.
A human tide has gathered, Place Beaubourg, in front of the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris.
Whole families, groups of friends and clusters of tourists crowded in front of the pipes of the Center Georges-Pompidou.
The crowd was about to see deluges of multicolored foam spring up at any moment.
She waited a lot.
Island of Foam
, a sculptural and ephemeral performance by German visual artist Stéphanie Lüning, tested the public's patience.
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"Why isn't the foam coming?"
moaned a child perched on her father's shoulders.
The entire attention of a few hundred onlookers turns, for thirty interminable minutes, to the two giant tubes of the
piazza,
already soiled with the fluorescent seeds of the inaugural wave.
Almost mystical scene.
And suddenly the color was.
If it was sometimes made to wait, the fountains, or “sculptures” of foam, of Stéphanie Lüning made see all the colors with the hundreds of onlookers come to contemplate them.
Amelie Com
Two fountains of pink foam gush forth.
Their hypnotic torrent changes: grapefruit, strawberry, plum, kiwi.
Behind, the less well-off passers-by rise on tiptoe to hope to enjoy this astonishing
riviera
with its fruity hues.
"Ah, but it's definitely better in real life than through a screen,"
exclaims a young woman, finally delighted to see something.
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White square on dark night
A short distance away, on the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, many would like to see less there.
The energetic - but is he sober?
- Catalan show developed by the architect Mariona Benedito and the Cube.BZ collective does not go unnoticed.
Pulses of light emitted by
Specter
, a Catalan installation, Amélie Com
A monumental pavement loaded with 56,000 luminous diodes,
Specter
is, from time to time, a black mass, lurking in the night.
But when this volume awakens, passers-by start blinking to the rhythm of the giant's strobe pulses.
The beast, equipped with powerful bass, growls.
In rhythm, flashes of light spring from its faces.
Their intensity is surprising.
“What is this thing?”
asks a tipsy teenager.
This thing is the evocation
of "a ballet of vibrant energies",
the designers' tribute to the City of Light.
The dedication in Paris is frenetic.
It accelerates in cycles, becomes sound and fury.
Epileptics flee.
Others are hypnotized.
At the foot of the installation, some take the full brunt of a bath of light.
La Nuit blanche has never been so aptly named.
