ROYAUMONT RE-ENVISIONED

The story is that the Royaumont Abbey was built between 1228 and 1235 with the support of Saint Louis (King Lousi IX of France), and occupied by Cistercian monks. It was transformed into a cotton mill in 1791 and a novicate for nuns in 1869. In the early 1900's it was acquired by the Gouin family who set it up as a cultural center, and in 1964 Henry and Isabel Gouin created the Royaumont Foundation, the first private French cultural foundation.

This is where I have resided for the past 7 days, and as I sit here in our room, among the remnants of an almost 800 year old edifice, I can't help but feel the overall spirit of a transitory cultural experiences. There were the monks who theorized and contemplated, in silent meditative states, on theological treatises and their effects on themselves and on the kings and residents of the surrounding countryside. Then there was the spirits of the owner and workers in the subsequential cotton mill, who shared residency albeit it in different areas of the cloister of trees, shrubbery, and streams that surrounded their places of residency. There also remains the spirit of the nuns and their humble attempts to restore their idea of the sanctity that was hopefully inherent in this once holy abode, and herein dwells also the aristocratic spirit of those whose seeming purpose, to maintain and display the aesthetics of a centuries old French culture, is nurtured and perpetated by the ambience of the artists, musicians, and intellectuals who come here to create, enjoy, and  then share the outcome of a time spent in this ethereal yet laborious setting of nature, architecture and conscientious creativity. Surprisingly I, as an artist, feel a real sense of belonging.

The irony of all of this is that I am but a guest of the real proponents of my reason for being here. The musicians, American and African, who descended upon this age-old architectural monument, were invited here to create a transatlantic collaboration through the venues of word and music. Three African musicians from the west African country of Mali, Babani Kone on vocals, Fassery Diabate on balafon, and musical director Ballake Sissoko on kora are present. Then there’s the Chicago based musicians of African American descent, Mankwe Ndosii on vocals, Jovia Armstrong on percussion, Felton Offard on guitar, composer Nicole Mitchell on flute, and the one Jewish American Joshua Abrams on bass who are also here.  All coming together, each world renown in their own realm, to exchange artistic ideas and collaborate on the Malian and American compositions of Ballake Sissoko and Nicole Mitchell, that they would practice 8 hours a day, for 6 days, to present to the French audience gathered for the grand performance that ensued inside the interior walls of this majestic complex known as the Royaumont abbey and foundation. What a venerable experience to be a witness to this grand display of cultural collaboration and musical magnificence.

Royaumont has probably, in its 779 plus years of existence, never experienced this coming together of three different cultures, Malian, Jewish, and African American, on stage, bringing to an unknown number of cultures in the attentive French audience, a sound and a message that says “Yes, together we can accomplish a feat of yet unheralded magnitude”, and  at the same time provide you the listener, with an incentive to do the same in your respective arenas. As members of the audience walked away singing in Bambara dialect, the passage of the last song which vocalist Babani Kone had invited and encouraged them to participate in, I knew that a precedent for cultural commonality and a spirit of cross-cultural honor and respect, had been established at this place we call Royaumont. Let’s all keep this newly established legacy movin ya’ll … inside and outside these venerated halls.

I'll holla…


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