« Femmes pour le dire, Femmes pour agir"

I made it to the French Disabled Women's Association « Femmes pour le dire, Femmes pour agir" 3rd Annual conference Forum Femme Création Handicap and gave my little 5 minute speech as Maudy Piot, the President had asked me to - in French. Matthieu helped me with the translation.

I was late getting there because I did not want to stay the night in Paris  and I missed  quite a bit of the  conference at the beginning and the end - which is a shame because the programme looked very impressive. I enjoyed what I did see and can report on those bits.

I arrived at about lunch time and there was a tribal dance Grillons Papillons on stage. It looked very colorful.

I made my way to Maudy Piot in the front row with her guide dog, she was happy I could make it and told her husband, Alain, who was the compere that I would be giving a short speech.

During the lunch interval I wenat around the different stands/stalls called ' ruches' (hives/cells). There were many organisations which did disability arts or music and theatre - a mixture of those ran by disabled people and some by therapists - I do not think that there would be such a mixture of non disabled and carers with disabled groups in a UK organised event.
There were some artwork depicting mental health survivors but the stand was not ' manned' and the explanations were hung too high for me to read properly.

There was a ' foot and mouth' artists stand too. However, I was impressed by Sandrine Lepelletier's ceramics.

I spoke with someone whom I think is one of the Retour d' image organisers, she told me she needed her lunch too much to talk to me but that there was a film festival happening just across the hall the 3rd Festival Retour d'image :

Our team programs movies featuring disabled characters, in accessible french cinemas and cultural centers.  All the films are subtitled and audio-described in french. A debate is conducted following each screening, by a disabled film critic or professional. French sign language interpreters are provided at every venue.

Certainly I missed Sandrine Bonnaire who was the guest of honour - she had just had a documentary out about her autistic sister:

Elle s'appelle Sabine de Sandrine Bonnaire,

documentaire Français, 2007, 85 mn, produit par Mosaïque films.

Le portrait émouvant par Sandrine Bonnaire de sa soeur autiste Sandrine, d'un an sa cadette.

I did not miss Nicolleta, however, she did not sing but she gave a lovely speech which she topped by saying that she is involved in the organisation because her mother had a learning  disability.

For me, the most impressive event was the premiere of the musical l’Opéra du désert par Duo Soma. The two Somas are both disabled musicians and singers and I was entranced by the breadth and the profound message in the music and the story. There was a verve, a joy, exuberance which is powerful and thoroughly enjoyable.  It was not intimidating at all inspite of being called an opera. My rough translation of the story as given is -

16th century AD in North Africa
A Berber noble, Tin Hinan, ‘She who came from faraway’ crossed the Sahara accompanied by her loyal servant, Takamat, to meet the spirits of Hoggar – volcanic mountains in mid Sahara – and to find her destiny. The spirits revealed her own liberty as a free woman and that she had to decide her own destiny for herself…
Legend has it that Tin Hinnan was a magnificent woman with immense and passionate eyes. She was also an authoritative woman who was the queen of her community.

Unfortunately, after my very short speech, I had to leave to catch my train for Strasbourg.