Where in the world do you think a 1920's dance hall could evolve into a showcase for documentary photography plus a trendy cafe? In Paris, of course! La Bal is in Montmartre, off the beaten track in a non-descript building on a dead-end street near Place de Clichy. A century ago this neighborhood was on the fringes of polite society. Today, "Le Pol Nord" (in the words of Paris Mayor Bernard Delanoe) is making waves in both arts education and contemporary cuisine.
A favorable notice in a recent Sunday New York Times, had alerted us to La Bal Cafe's weekend brunch, a decidedly un-French concept. (Why settle for one meal when you could have had two?) Here the owners, two young Englishwomen, serve their homeland's hearty breakfast cuisine with combinations like beef and Guiness pie or smoked haddock with curried rice - with not a croissant in sight. More predictably, eggs and bacon is on the menu along with a stunning array of baked scones, tarts and cakes. And excellent coffee and tea win instant approval at the beginning of the meal.
KEDGEREE
Once sated, George and I stepped out into a small bookstore in the corridor outside the cafe entrance. Behind it, an unmarked door opens into a stark white 100 meter square exhibition space. This was the site of Chez Isis a dance hall and "hotel d'amour" in "les annees folles" ("The Roaring '20's"). No photographs of this cabaret in its heyday remain. Only a small portion of the original ceiling - an arcade of colored glass bricks - preserved during renovation, testifies to its jazz age glamour.
The City of Paris purchased this abandoned building in 2006, and an influential group of professional photographers - with the help of numerous contributers - have turned it into interactive environment for the study of documentary photography, film and video. La Bal currently offers a set curriculum to students from more than 100 high schools. They learn how to look at and interpret photographic images through lecture, debate and their own artistic projects.
The walls of La Bal were bare the day I looked in. By now they are filled with the photographs of Antoine d'Agata whose work explores, often with hallucinatory and abstract imagery, the world of drugs, poverty and violence in a number of cultures. It's a disturbing look at humanity even when filtered through an artistic sensibility. A dose of reality this powerful might never be allowed on gallery walls in the States, much less made available to adolescents. Without funding for the arts, our kids have only YouTube as their window to the world.
Our walk back through Montmartre took us near Lycee Renoir that offers training in the photographic arts. Studio 28, the first art cinema in ’20’s Paris, was five minutes away. (If you come to Paris on a Chez Madelaine tour, you will stay in Hotel des Arts across the street.) Just steps from our apartment on rue du Mont Cenis, we passed the Art Nouveau gateway to Pathe Films, a motion picture giant a century ago, now a active film school.
What began as an inauspicious Sunday brunch had led to the discovery that Montmartre continues to build on its artistic past. It’s this kind of experience that keeps drawing me back to Paris.
Here is a link to La Bal Cafe's Scone recipe which was published in the La Bal's current newsletter.
http://www.chezm.com/welcome-to-recipes/66-baking-powder-breads/734-baking-powder-bread
