YOUNG AUDIENCE PROGRAM – STUDY GUIDE
SNOW WHITE OR THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL
Monday, March 20th, 2017 at 11am – Grades 3 – 8
Presented as part of the Tilt Kids Festival 2017
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Dear Teachers,
Welcome to the Florence Gould Hall at FIAF!
We have made this study guide to help you introduce your students to the performance they are about
to watch.
From both a cultural and a social point of view, it is our goal to make this moment unique and enjoyable
for all. As a result, we expect the students to behave appropriately.
We kindly ask you to tell them:
 NOT to talk or whisper during the show
 NOT to move from their seats
 NOT to eat, drink, or chew gum in the theater
 NOT to wear headphones
We are always looking to improve our events, so we would love to hear your feedback after the show.
Please send any questions, comments, or suggestions to:
Amelia Parenteau at [email protected] or 646.388.6688
Clémentine Guinchat at [email protected] or 646.388.6667
or
French Institute Alliance Française
Programming – YAP
22 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022
We are looking forward to welcoming you and your students at FIAF.
MERCI!
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Table of Contents
French Institute Alliance Française
P.4
Where does Snow White or the Fall of the Berlin Wall come from?
P.5
Basic Information About the Show P.7
Closer Look P.8
The Context P.14
Trip Guide P.16
After the Show…
P.18
Sources P.20
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French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) is a 501(c)(3) not–for–profit
organization incorporated in the State of New York. Its mission is to enhance
the knowledge and appreciation of French and Francophone culture, to
increase the knowledge of the French language, and to encourage
interaction among French, Francophone, and American people through
programs in education and the arts.
Founded at the turn of 20th century, the French Institute and the Alliance
Française de New York operated as two separate organizations, the first
promoting French arts, the second teaching French. In 1971 they merged to
form what has become one of the largest and most respected centers of
French-American activities in the U.S,
FIAF's Young Audience Program is an education outreach initiative that offers school groups the
opportunity to attend events selected for their artistic excellence and connection to French and
Francophone cultures.
Thanks to the generosity of our donors, the program is free of charge for public schools and affordable for
others. School groups from all five boroughs are invited to attend films, performances, and concerts
selected for them.
FIAF provides a study guide for each event and invites groups to participate in a post-performance
discussion with the artists.
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Where does Snow White or the Fall of the Berlin
Wall come from?
Where in the world is Snow White or the Fall of the Berlin Wall from?
LYON, FRANCE
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Who are the artists?
The performance you will attend to has been created by the French Company “La Cordonnerie,” which is
based in Lyon, France.
La Cordonnerie is a music and theater company, which was
created in 1997 by Samuel Hercule and Timothée Jolly. Since
FUN FACT!
then, they have been developing a unique style of creation,
Cordonnerie, in English, means
combining music, cinema and theater, which they have
“cobbler’s shop.” This name
named “cine-performance.”
comes from the name of the
From 2002 to 2007, the company had a long term artists’
room they used to rehearse in,
at the very beginning in Lyon in
residency at the Théâtre de Vénissieux in France. It was
1997: the back room of a shoe
during this period that they began to work on re-writing and
shop.
adapting classic stories into modern, offbeat versions. These
stories are a rich and endless font of creation for the company,
offering the opportunity to introduce audiences of all ages – from 6
years old – to the arts. They started to undertake new challenges, especially in reinterpreting stories, myths
and even plays that, at first glance, may not appear easily accessible for young audiences (for example,
Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, two seminal but challenging masterpieces). Over
these 5 years, they developed a very specific way of creating their shows, which has now become their
lauded, signature method.
The company’s seven most important productions to date [Bluebeard, Ali Baba, The Eternal Fiancée of Dr.
Frankenstein, (Super) Hamlet, Hansel and Gretel, Udo Has Gone Completely East and Snow White or The
Fall of the Berlin Wall] have been touring for years, in France and abroad.
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Basic Information About the Show
The show you are about the see is a cine-performance created by a lot of different people: actors,
filmmakers, musicians, sound and lighting technicians, stage managers… Below is the basic information that
has to be shared when the show is performed, in order to credit everybody who worked on the project.
Script, film and stage direction: Samuel Hercule and Métilde Weyergans
Music: Timothée Jolly
Length of show: 1h15m
Created in December 2015
CREDITS
Voices, sound effects: Samuel Hercule and Métilde Weyergans
Piano, keyboards: Timothée Jolly
Drums, percussions, guitar...: Florie Perroud
Sound designer: Adrian Bourget
Sound manager: Adrian Bourget
Lighting designer: Johannes Charvolin
Lighting manager and stage manager: Sébastien Dumas
Assistant stage manager: Marylou Spirli
Assistant director: Pauline Hercule
Production and administration: Anaïs Germain et Caroline Chavrier
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Closer Look
This section presents a behind-the-scenes look at the story, the art form and the creation process.
“Summer 1989. On the 32nd floor of the tallest building of the ’Kingdo’m (a housing project
located at the edge of a forest), a 40 year old woman (Elisabeth) raises her stepdaughter (White), alone. White is a beautiful fifteen-year-old teenager, who wears
Gothic clothes. Her mother died when she was a child, her father remarried, and left
White and her step-mother to go work in a circus company in the USSR.
Being a single mother is not always easy. Over the years, a wall has gone up between White
and Elisabeth. And, 2000 kilometers away, Berlin is still divided.
Between misunderstandings and family conflicts escapes and anxiety, the tale’s key elements are
reimagined during the Cold War: the wood (forest), the dwarfs (garden gnomes), the apples (candy
apples), the mirror (magic?)…
Will the fall of the Berlin Wall coincide with the reunification of the two heroines?”
Questions for your students
Think of the “traditional” Snow White
story –
How is La Cordonnerie’s story of Snow
White different from the traditional
tale?
What has La Cordonnerie decided to
change while writing their version?
What have they kept from the
traditional tale?
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La Cordonnerie’s finished works take the shape of a silent film, for which all sound
effects, dialogue and music are performed live on stage by multi-talented musicians
(Timothée Jolly, Florie Perroud) and the two company founders (Samuel Hercule and
Métilde Weyergans), serving as the primary sound creators and actors.
Silent Film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound,
especially with no spoken dialogue.
Questions for your
students
The silent film era lasted from 1895 to 1936. In silent films for
entertainment, the dialogue is transmitted through muted
gestures, mime and title cards which contain a written
indication of the plot or key dialogue.
Have you ever seen a
silent movie?
The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound
is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical
challenges involved, synchronized dialogue was only made
practical in the late 1920s.
Did you like it? Why?
Could you name one?
How is the experience
different than a regular
movie?
During silent films, a pianist, theatre organist, or, in large
cities, even a small orchestra would often play music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would
either play from sheet music or improvise.
The term silent film is therefore a retronym—that is, a term created to distinguish something retroactively.
The early films with sound, starting with The Jazz Singer in 1927, were referred to as "talkies’" "sound films,"
or "talking pictures." Within a decade, popular widespread production of silent films had ceased and
production moved into the sound era, in which movies were accompanied by synchronized sound
recordings of spoken dialogue, music and sound effects.
Adaptation
Many plays you see on stage are often adapted by playwrights from books, movies and stories and, in
collaboration with a director, retold in new, innovative ways. Examples of this are Mary Poppins (adapted
from novel to film and film to stage) or Frankenstein (adapted from novel to stage and film). La
Cordonnerie’s production of Snow White or the Fall of the Berlin Wall is adapted from the fairy tale Snow
White, to stage and film at the same time.
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The most famous version of Snow White is probably the one that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm wrote, based
on a German myth.
Various adaptations and versions have been made by different artists. Here are a few examples:
Cinema
The first adaptation for cinema was the black and white silent movie Snow White by J.
Searle Dawley, in 1916.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first long animation movie that Disney
Studios made and that was released on December 21, 1937.
The Disney movie is an adaptation from Grimm brothers’
version, even though a few changes were made: the
villain (the queen) only attempts to kill White through a
hunter and then with the poisoned apple, while in the Grimm’s story she also
tries with lace and a poisoned comb. Also, in the Disney movie, the prince
wakes up White with his kiss, while in the book she comes back to life after the
dwarfs drop her casket, enabling her to spit out the bite of poisoned apple she had
eaten.
Literature
In her book, Snow White and the missile-launchers, Catherine Dufour decides to interrogate the story itself:
What if Snow White’s story took place in a terrible dictatorship? What if the magic mirror was actually
senile?
Contemporary Art
The artist Dina Goldstein hates fairy tales! Which is precisely why she decided to focus her artistic work on
them. Her series “Fallen Princess” presents the lives of Snow White, Cinderella or Pocahontas after the
book has been closed. Take a look at her vision of White’s daily life:
Questions for your students
Do you know an adaptation of a
famous story?
Do you know another adaptation
of Snow White?
How is it different from the
original story?
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Live Music and Sound Effects
While the silent movie will be screened, an actor (Métilde Weyergans), will act as Elisabeth, the famous
stepmother, as well as White. A second actor, Samuel Hercule, will play several other characters: a sergeant
who is also an amateur hunter, the bathroom mirror, and a young prince who is a little immature.
On stage, in front of the audience, they will perform their dialogues live, using rear view mirrors from trucks,
so they can follow and lip synch the film directly.
With their sets of different instruments, Timothée Jolly (prepared piano, Philicorda organ, toy piano and
keyboard) and Florie Perroud (drums, bass drum, electric guitar, chimes, voice) will perform the music that
has been created by Timothée Jolly for this show, live. They will be providing a soundtrack to accompany
what is happening in the movie.
The ciné-concert has become a genre in itself, and is pretty
common nowadays. However, La Cordonnerie has
developed a unique way of doing it.
They have created a very specific organizational system
where all the sound effects and props that the artists use
on stage (hair driers, cassette players, mustard jars,
bicycle pumps…) are carried to the stage on a small
conveyor belt. Each item needs to be put on the conveyor
belt according to a very specific timing (down to within a
second) so they get to the artists precisely when they have
to create each sound effect corresponding to the projected
video.
INTERESTING!
This unique system needs to
be adapted to each theater
hosting the show, because
the conveyor belt’s length
and
speed
must
be
changed according to the
stage dimensions.
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How do they create their shows?
First, Samuel Hercule and Métilde Weyergans start by selecting a classic story and writing
their own version. For this show, they picked out Snow White!
Then, they make a silent
movie from their own script.
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Once the movie is
complete, they meet
with their technicians and
musicians and start thinking about
the soundtrack together, which will
have to be created live on stage for
each performance. They work very
closely with their sound, lighting and
stage management team to create
each show together from the ground
up.
The sound and lighting crew then starts working on
audio innovations and develops very specific, oneof-a-kind systems for each project which, for
example, link the live sound effects to the movie,
and make each show extremely original and creative.
They perform the music
and create sound
effects on stage, while
screening the movie.
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The Context
La Cordonnerie’s artists decided to have the movie take place during the Cold War. Below is a brief
description of this historic context, if you want to talk about it with your students.
Cold War
The Cold War was a long period of tension between the democracies of the Western World and the
communist countries of Eastern Europe. The West was led by the United States, and Eastern Europe was
led by the Soviet Union. These two countries became known as “superpowers.” Although the two
superpowers never officially declared war on each other, they fought indirectly in proxy wars, the arms
race, and the space race.
Time Period (1945-1991)
The Cold War began not too long after World War II ended in 1945. Although, the Soviet Union was an
important member of the Allied Powers, there was great distrust between the Soviet Union and the rest of
the Allies. The Allies were concerned with the brutal leadership of Joseph Stalin as well as the spread of
communism.
The Cold War came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Proxy Wars
The Cold War was often fought between the superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union in
something called a proxy war. These were wars fought between other countries, but with each side getting
support from a different superpower. Examples of proxy wars include the Korean War, the Vietnam War,
the Yom Kippur War, and the Soviet Afghanistan War.
Arms Race and Space Race
The United States and the Soviet Union also tried to fight the Cold War by demonstrating their power
through technology. One example of this was the Arms Race, where each side tried to have the best
weapons and the most nuclear bombs. The idea was that a large stockpile of weapons would deter the
other side from ever attacking. Another example was the Space Race, where each side tried to show that
it had the better scientists and technology by accomplishing certain space missions first.
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was built by the communist government of East Berlin in 1961. The wall separated East
Berlin and West Berlin. It was built in order to prevent people from fleeing East Berlin. In many ways it
was the perfect symbol of the "Iron Curtain" that separated the democratic western countries and the
communist countries of Eastern Europe throughout the Cold War.
How it Started
After World War II the country of Germany ended up dividing into two separate countries. East Germany
became a communist country under the control of the Soviet Union. At the same time West Germany
was a democratic country and allied with Britain, France, and the United States. The initial plan was that
the country would eventually be reunited, but this didn't happen for a long time.
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The City of Berlin
Berlin has been the capital of Germany since June 1991. Even though it was located in the eastern half of
the country during the Cold War, the city was controlled by all four major powers: the Soviet Union, the
United States, Britain, and France.
Defections
People in East Germany started to leave the eastern part of the country to move to the west. These
people were called “defectors.”
Over time more and more people left. The Soviet and East German leaders began to worry that they were
losing too many people. Over the course of the years 1949 to 1959, over 2 million people left the country.
In 1960 alone, around 230,000 people defected.
Although the East Germans tried to keep people from leaving, it was fairly easy for people to leave in the
city of Berlin.
Building the Wall
On August 12th and 13th of 1961, the Soviets and the East Germans built a wall around Berlin to prevent
people from leaving. At first the wall was just a barbed wire fence. Later it would be rebuilt with concrete
blocks 12 feet high and four feet wide.
The Wall is Torn Down
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech in Berlin where he asked the leader of the Soviet Union,
Mikhail Gorbachev, to, "Tear down this wall!"
Around that time the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse. They were losing their hold on East Germany.
A few years later, on November 9, 1989, the announcement was made. The borders were open and people
could move freely between Eastern and Western Germany. Much of the wall was torn down by people
chipping away as they celebrated the end to a divided Germany. On October 3, 1990, Germany was officially
reunified into a single country.
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Trip guide
Before you leave school
We advise you to leave all bags and lunches at school, if possible. It is not possible to eat inside the theater.
Plan to arrive at FIAF venue at least 30 minutes before curtain time. The building opens 30 minutes prior
to curtain (i.e. 10:30 am for an 11 am performance).
If you realize that your group is running late, please contact us at 860.886.3597.
If you will be arriving by bus, please ensure that your driver drops your group off on 59th Street between
Park and Madison Avenues.
Arrival
When you reach 59th Street, a member of FIAF staff will check in with the school trip leader.
It is important to wait until our staff checks in the school trip leader before the students enter the theater.
Lunch
FIAF venues are not equipped to host lunch/snacks. When the weather is nice, nearby Central Park offers
a pleasant place for picnic lunches.
Seating
In order to make your experience at the theater as efficient and safe as possible, you will not be issued
tickets. Your group will be assigned seats. Your seating assignment will not be available prior to the
performance. If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected].
Accessibility
Wheelchair seating must be requested in advance, at the time of the ticket request, and is subject to
availability.
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Trip guide
If you are traveling by bus, please also share this important information with the bus driver.
Directions
Florence Gould Hall (French Institute Alliance Française)
55 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues)
New York, NY 10022
By School Bus
FIAF’s neighborhood is extremely congested and has a high volume of traffic.
Once your bus is empty, it is important that the bus driver finds parking at a nearby location.
FIAF is not responsible for bus drivers who receive parking tickets.
By Subway
to 59th & Lexington Ave
to Fifth Ave
to 53rd St & Lexington Ave
to Lexington Ave & 63rd
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After the Show…
Reflection questions
What were your favorite moments in the show?
What themes did you notice in the show?
How did the adapted story make you feel?
Which are the elements that were present in the traditional tale?
What is different?
What did you think about the changes the artists made?
Performance Reflection
Be a theater critic! Write your review of Snow White or the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Your review should include the following elements:
A catchy headline, an opening that clearly states your opinion on the production and how you came to
have that opinion, a brief summary of what you saw, and what made this production unique.
WHAT I SAW AND WHAT SURPRISED ME:
HOW THE SHOW MADE ME FEEL (What mood were you in after the
show? What about the show made you feel that way?):
MY OPINION (consider the acting choices, props, set and lighting):
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Activity
Create your very own versions of tales! Using stories or tales you’ve been working on with your students,
guide them in exploring how to create an adaptation, like Snow White or the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
1. Tell your students that, in small groups, they will be creating their own adaptation
of a famous tale.
2. Divide your students into groups of 4 or 5.Which tales does each group want to
work on and adapt?
3. Have your students generate the basic premise of their adaptation.
The following prompts can help them get started:
Do you want to keep the exact same story (same first line, same last line of the story? Same
characters?…)?
If no, how do you want to change the story?
Which elements do you want to keep?
Which elements do you want to change and how?
Which elements do you want to get rid of?
Why do you make those choices?
Do you want to change the historic context? To which one? Why?
Do you want to change the geographic context? Why? Where do you want to see the story take place?
Why there?
Do you want to keep the key elements that have made the tale famous (e.g. the apple, the dwarves, the
mirror in Snow White) or do you want to adapt/change them as well?
While you are working on your own adaptation, are you sure people will still
recognize the story?
Keep in mind that you are writing a version of an existing tale, not a
completely new story!
What are the elements that need to be present so people recognize the
story?
4. As a class, discuss the themes and contexts of each story, then ask each group to generate a list of
keywords/key elements that are relevant to their story.
5. In each group, have the students write their own adaptation of the tale that uses the elements you
have discussed.
6. Read through the different stories as a class.
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Sources
http://lacordonnerie.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_film
http://www.ducksters.com/history/cold_war/summary.php
http://www.ducksters.com/history/cold_war/berlin_wall.php
Credits for La Cordonnerie’s pictures
Mike Guermyet and Sébastien Dumas
Drawings
Chloé Mossessian
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