Whenever one examines a past era, it is easy to put that era in a box and define it only on one or two things. Going into the course, I had some stereotypes about 1920s Paris, but this course really helped me understand the complexity within that interwar period This first began to register with […]
Author: Eli Aronson
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Le Train Bleu: The Avengers of 1924
Milhaud’s Le Train Bleu is a ballet in one act by Darius Milhaud. At this point in my research I’m still determining which lens would be the best to analyze it through, but I’m leaning towards class. The ballet’s premise is around the shallowness of contemporary love. Because of this, gender seemed like the best […]
I think it is undeniable that Satie’s Socrate and some of Poulenc’s ballets—such as Les Biches and Aubade—are better understood through a queer reading. From my readings, I find that Moore’s analysis of camp in Poulenc’s early ballets makes a stronger argument than Dorf. I agree with Dorf in that a queer reading of Socrate […]
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France, Jazz, and Negrophilia
When Josephine Baker and La Revue Nègre arrived in Paris in the fall of 1925, the public was captivated by her and the other performers’ visceral dancing. It put the soul into black jazz for the white Parisian audiences. Jazz was an enormously controversial music in France at the time. There was both an obsession […]
When picking my topic for the first paper I was immediately attracted to Josephine Baker. I was familiar with her work as a civil rights activist for both France during World War II and America in the 1950s. While I was aware of her French performing career, I was entirely ignorant of her popularity and […]
Is it possible to have a musical nationalist identity? In 21st century United States of America, with streaming services exposing avid listeners to everything from Dolly Parton to Kendrick Lamar, I don’t believe it is possible. This place we call a nation is too diverse. We have too many subgroups and cultures within our “nation” […]