Being inquisitive can prove to be either a useful trait or a burden one has to carry through one?s life. With a title such as "Première Nuit des Arts et des Mondes " a lot had to be lived up to. I had originally imagined an evening watching mind numbing television, but an unexpected e mail had drawn me away from such a fate and had led me to make a journey which involved a tram journey to a park I had never heard of, as the night sky darkened and drizzle prevailed.

The event was held under buildings which presumably serve as a market place. On my arrival I noted a hive of activity, but the evening was to pan out in a most unanticipated way. The event was divided into two areas and I first scurried around the area which hosted paintings, installations, some craft works, some performances, in fact a kaleidoscope of different possibilities. Two dancers pranced about to medieval music, in a kind of tent, pulling faces at their audience, or those filming them with their camcorders. The art work spanned many styles, life drawings, paintings of nudes, erotic paintings, images to shock, images designed to provoke thought, images of beauty and images of ugliness, all were present. Sound bust out of some of the installations, as I said before this was a hive of creativity.

Perhaps this space represented microcosm of the world we live in a world of beauty but a world where ugliness and also absurdity also rears it?s head. I had left my apartment with the images of the Buddhist monks who had stood up to the military junta in Burma and their desperate plight in my head. The constant grizzle, fatigue from a trying week of work, and the monks perhaps shaped my mood for the evening, but my spirit was lifted by this range of creativity from people around the world.

Having gauged on the works in the first area I decided to cross over to the other side, where a crowd was gathering around a catwalk. There was that nervous energy before a fashion show. There was some symbol, which had an Arabic look to it, close to where in time the models would begin their walk down a pure white carpeted cat walk. Music blasted out, oriental, a man wailing words of course I could never understand, but the emotion I could feel, the build up to the drama of the show that was about to unfold. Seats were quickly taken and the photographers poised at the end of the catwalk ready to snap away. There was a last minute hitch, and then the first modal dressed in clothes, representative of Turkey made her entry, to drum laden music.

One after another models appeared in clothes representative of a country or culture. There was also some fusions, suggestions of kitsch and references to recycling and currant pertinent themes. It was presented as a journey. The pièces de résistance came at the end for me, as a woman clad in a white dress with long trailing sleeves made her entry, first standing static, to the sound of silence, before launching into a frenzied dance, swirling around like a dervish, both captivating and hypnotic and enriched with energy. At the end of the show, the models and the designer received their well earned rapturous applause. Though the clothes were fabricated, a fusion, a pick and mix of clothes around the world, the dancer was genuine, a pleasure to behold. On the walls of this space there were some awe inspiring photographs, of people involved in conflicts unknown, celebrating victories or suffering from some plight.

I ventured back to see how things were evolving on the other side. Unlike the usual static staidness of an art gallery, this event was in a state of flux, always new things to see, the space being used by a mass of creative people, from different parts of the world, given the title of the event. A lot of people were bemused by the installation of lots of ?blow up sex dolls?. The perpetrator of this installation, appeared, stripping down to flesh coloured ?y fronts? before putting on of the dolls over his head, then he began to rant into the microphone as music blared in the background. There was a muted response to this, the shock value in this day and age was limited and for me I preferred the performance by the medieval dancers, whose performance had more wit and ambiguity to it. The only thing Mr ?sex doll? conjured up for me was ?pathos? but little else.

The area was a hub of discordant noise. There were two electronic musicians with ancient dated looking old synthesisers, a Japanese woman was dancing, was she part of the act? I couldn?t tell. There was a long and large painting of horses, attached to the fencing around the market. Works seemed to be added all the time, a woman carried a large canvas, placing in some of the space that was left to display things. Some of the work disturbed me, strange Frankenstein aberrations of animals, bones, like the work of a taxidermist at play. This was not like an arts and crafts market, it was an event that had a sting to it, a puissance.

I crossed back to the other side of the show, there was music murmuring and images being projected by a VJ, the fashion show now finished, the space was now open to a new reincarnation. There was a fusion between electronic music and some live jazz musicians, who were behind the screen, where images were being projected. In the same area, there were some giant size images of meat, not too enduring for likes of a fully fledged vegetarian like me, but maybe this was their purpose.

Another band of musicians were assembling and in their warm up began to play some of Ravel?s Boléro. Fatigue caught up with me, the event was due to finish at two in the morning, but I had work the following morning and I felt like I had absorbed so much, in the time I had been there, anyway. I headed for the tram and then took the metro. On the way back I witnessed a grown man weeping, as talked into his mobile phone, the reason for his show of grief, unknown to me. A couple who had been on my outward journey reappeared in my journey back, getting in on the same carriage, a bizarre coincidence. All in all it had been an evening punctuated by the bizarre, one to remember.

Francis H. Powell is originally from England and moved to Paris in 1999. In addition to being a writer (articles, songs and poems), he is a painter, DJ and English trainer. For more information, please click here to read his complete bio.

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