Alex Dodd
Sitting on Church Square sipping hot chocolate in the winter sunlight, you’d be forgiven for imagining for a moment that you were at a caf in Europe, and that’s probably why the French Institute has chosen the grand historic square as the spot to host its Bastille Day celebrations.
In collaboration with the Pretoria Inner City Partnership and l’Orangerie, a free and easy street celebration is planned for the square for July 14, featuring a French food festival (yum) and a display of vintage French cars (Citroen, Peugeot and Renault) among other things. But, with characteristic subtlety and panache, the institute has avoided turning the event into a narrow and dogmatic display of nationalism. Instead the day will also be a celebration of local South African culture and it will be open to the public for free.
The highlight will no doubt be the Bastille Day dance at the Capitol Theatre on the night of the 14th. For the uninitiated, the Capitol, built as a grand and dreamy cinema in the early part of this century, has to be one of the most romantic buildings in this entire country. Although its grandeur is now somewhat moth-eaten, it is almost more endearing for it’s peeling paint and dusty golden frills. It’s like walking on to the set of Cinema Paradiso and on Bastille Day the entire Capitol will be filled with music, dance and laughter as couples stomp their feet and whirl around the dance floor.
What’s more the music will be live and kicking in the form of the Michel Macias Quartet who’ll be jetting in from France especially for the occasion. Writes Jacme Gaudas in Jazz Hot: “From concerts to swinging cocktail parties, from festival stages to local village cafs, Michel Macias and his travelling companions play all-French folk and Caribbean music with amazing dexterity; country dances, polkas and mazurkas with enough gusto to wake the dead and get them dancing … Macias has faces smiling, hearts beating, dancers jumping and blends Bulgaria and Louisiana with his chords.”
A real squeezebox maestro, Macias sets fire to dance floors with anything from tango to be-bop, from cajun to Bulgarian music, from mazurka to rock – and he’ll be up there alongside Nico Carstens and the All-Star Flutes.
Definitely an event worth stepping out for.