Paris at Midnight
Jazz and Surrealism in the 1920s
November 9, 2022
Terrace Theater at The Kennedy Center
Guest Curator Harry Cooper, senior curator of modern art at the National Gallery of Art
Paris in the 1920s was a place of great artistic conflict and excitement. While some like Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Picasso embraced Neo-Classicism and a "return to order" in the aftermath of the Great War, others launched bold new experiments. Under the leadership of André Breton, Surrealism sought to shock the bourgeoisie, while a passion for African and African American art and culture, from jazz to art to dance, galvanized the city, personified above all by Josephine Baker. Join PCE for a screening of the classic Surrealist film Entr’acte (René Clair, 1924) with the original score by Erik Satie performed live. The program also includes film footage of Baker dancing and a tribute to jazz great Sidney Bechet. It culminates with Maurice Ravel's partly-jazz-inspired Piano Concerto in G featuring soloist Drew Petersen, winner of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the 2017 American Pianists Award.
