Xavier Garnier
The Alliance Française de Macao (AF) is celebrating its 30th anniversary in Macau. At the same time, the French association will take the opportunity to celebrate the French National Day (Bastille Day) that is officially commemorated on July 14.
Director of AF, Xavier Garnier, explained to the Times that this year, in light of this important milestone, there will be a few novel aspects to the celebrations.
AF will introduce a new website with added features and a “more modern and functional outlook,” Garnier said. “The [French language] school is still one of our main activities but we want to continue to contribute more in terms of cultural activities, as we have been doing for the last six or seven years, with the support of the Macao Foundation.”
According to Garnier, “the main challenge is to be able to attract more students to continue studying French at intermediate and even advanced levels.” He remarked that many start learning French but after some time fail to continue studying the language, noting that “we have many students at a basic level but only a small group [of students] studying French long enough to be highly proficient [for over 20 years in some cases].”
For the celebrations, the organization decided to create a short remembrance of the times by inviting “people who have been somehow related to the association in Macau in the past.”
One such person is the French video director, Robert Cahen, who will present a video installation (done over the past week), which aims to present both a symbolic and a human representation of the importance of certain people in AF to the territory.
As Garnier explained, “The work is presented as a triptych, composed of three screens that will be located in Sofitel Macau’s lobby.” The triptych will present a succession of landscapes revealing three aspects of Macau: its modern aspect, its historical aspect and its dynamic aspect. It will also portray the portraits of 30 men and women, the same number of people as the association’s age, connected to Alliance Française.
The installation is titled “Crossing of Time” and also includes a voice- over in Chinese, French and Portuguese to accompany the pictures with messages about the significance of having an AF in Macau.
This event will take place on Saturday, July 15, at 4 p.m., which is the celebration day. It will be followed by a concert by French Bangkok-based artist Laurent Couson. Together with some colleagues, Laurent will present a tribute to French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, an iconic artist and one of the most relevant artists in last century’s French popular music.
The concert will be held in Promenade Function room, a room of small capacity, to create an appropriately intimate atmosphere. Both the events are opened to public and free of charge.
The program will be followed by a cocktail reception attended by French Consul General for Macau and Hong Kong Eric Berti and [representing the Macau SAR government] the Secretary for Administration and Justice Sonia Chan.
The reception will be followed with the usual dinner that will also include a performance by Couson and his colleagues to further entertain guests at the event. “We are pretty full already but there is no problem, all people who want to join can do so by dropping by and buying their entry ticket at the door and we can accommodate them,” Garnier said. The buffet menu will include several delicacies representing different regions of France.
