Campus Community
Posted: Thursday, March 12, 2009The French Connection: Campus Events Celebrate French Language and Culture
By Jerod Dahlgren
Buffalo State’s long-standing connection to the French language and culture will be showcased over the next five weeks as the Alliance Française de Buffalo (AFB) partners with the campus community to bring three events to the college that are magnifiques.
Highlighting the series is the April 22 performance of Voir un Ami Pleurer (To See a Friend Cry), a five-actor play performed by the acclaimed Atlanta-based theater company Théâtre du Rêve. Written by young Belgian playwright Olivier Coyette in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the play chronicles the changing relationship between Americans and Europeans, seeking to reestablish the forgotten links that bind them.
Co-sponsored by the Modern and Classical Languages Department, the play will be performed by American actors in English and French with English subtitles. The Buffalo State presentation at the Performing Arts Center at Rockwell Hall at 8:00 p.m. is one of just three performances of Voir un Ami Pleurer scheduled nationally this year by Théâtre du Rêve.
“For us, this is monumental,” said Marianne Vallet-Sandre, a former faculty and staff member at Buffalo State and current AFB board member. Tickets are available through the Rockwell Hall Box Office.
Kicking off Buffalo State’s spring French activities is Sunday’s International Francophone Day Celebration in E. H. Butler Library 210 at 2:00 p.m. French Polynesian heritage will be presented through music, costumes, and cultural rituals throughout the day. Audience members are invited to attend a meal of regional dishes at the conclusion of the presentations, including an authentic Tahitian dinner. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. For more information, contact AFB president Patricia Schiavone.
Prize-winning chocolate connoisseur Benjamin Desmartins, founder of Le Comptoir du Cacao, will visit campus for a lecture in Bulger Communication Center at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 26. Desmartins’s presentations will showcase the fabrication of chocolate, the worldwide origins of its raw materials, the flavors, and the development of its tastes.
After the lecture (in English), Desmartins will entertain a question-and-answer period, followed by a chocolate tasting of assorted samples by this chocolaterie artisanale familiale. The Modern and Classical Languages Department is also co-sponsoring this event. Tickets are $10 for faculty and staff and $5 for students, and may be purchased at the door or in advance by contacting Vallet-Sandre, 886-0886.
International Francophone Conference on Campus, July 13–14
Jean Gounard, director of international student affairs, is coordinating and hosting the Francophone World and the Western Hemisphere conference July 13–14. The two-day conference of some 200 professionals with interest in Francophone institutions of higher education will be held at Buffalo State in association with l’Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie.
“Through this conference and all of our projects, we hope to promote and support the French language and sensitize people to Francophone cultures from around the world,” Gounard said.
Details of the Francophone Conference will appear in an upcoming issue of the Bulletin later this semester.
