Cracks and Words

^{DES FISSURES ET DES MOTS}

Through a generous gift from Alliance Française de Kansas City, the Kansas City Current salutes the athletes in the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics & Paralympics with the exhibition, Cracks and Words.

This photographic project accompanied by original texts was led by the artist Layla Metssitane and her team: Philippe Groggia, Marcel Lyaudet known as Romain Drac, Myrtille Odichelidze​ and Estelle Descard. The exhibition celebrates Paralympic athletes with both visible and non-visible disabilities - revealing extraordinary champions of the 21st century as icons who embody beauty, grace, strength, desire, and fragility. Metssitane sought to use a technique in tune with her subject, an ancient method of artistic creation called Kintsugi. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with urushi lacquer dusted mixed with powdered gold. It is a philosophy founded on the acceptance of imperfection and highlights the beauty in the impermanent and incomplete.

Copyright photos: Philippe Groggia & Layla Metssitane
Written by Marcel Lyaudet (aka Romain Drac) & Layla Metssitane

Ne vous méprenez pas : mes jambes sont de puissantes racines plantées dans le ciel. Le ciel est en bas et la terre est en haut. Plus de repères. Depuis ma rencontre avec le monde de la Voie Dorée je suis devenu un astre d'une puissance éternel.

Make no mistake: my legs are mighty roots planted in the sky. The sky is below and the earth is above. No more landmarks. Since my encounter with the world of the Golden Way I have become a star of eternal power.

Je danse. Tel le cygne, je m'élance et me déploie. L'envol de mes bras ailés et de mes mains plumes me porte vers les cieux. Enfin ! Je crève le ciel et me laisse engloutir avec grâce. Elle est retrouvée. Quoi ? La liberté de danser. La liberté, tout simplement.

I dance. Like the swan, I soar and unfold. The flight of my winged arms and my feathered hands carries me towards the heavens. Finally! I burst into the sky and let myself be swallowed up with grace. It is found. What? The freedom to dance. Simply freedom.

Ce moment suspendu où à l'unisson nous nous élançons. Ce moment d'éternité où tout est possible. Rien ne peut nous arrêter pas même les larmes du ciel.

This suspended moment where in unison we rush forward. This moment of eternity where everything is possible. Nothing can stop us, not even the tears of the heavens.

Secoués par le récit, les mots s'entrechoquent. Dignité contre barbarie, volonté contre fatalisme. Puis le fait apparaît de l'homme artefact de lui-même. Alors la compétition sportive, ce dépassement de soi, semble offrir à la condition humaine une longueur d'avance qu'on oserait dire sacrée.

Shaken by the story, the words collide. Dignity against barbarism, will against fatalism. Then the fact appears of man as an artifact of himself.  As such athletic competition, this surpassing of oneself, seems to offer the human condition a head start that one would dare to call sacred.

Encore. Encore la foule silencieuse avant le grand saut.  Une plongée dans le bain de la Voie Dorée. Pré-éclaboussures d'étoiles : accueillez moi !

Again. Again the silent crowd before the big jump. A dive into the baths of the Golden Way. Pre-star splashes:  welcome me!

Tel le roseau, je plie mais ne rompt pas. Dans l'obscurité totale, la nuit comme le jour, je vois autrement. Ma vision devient aussi précise que celle d'un aigle. Les étoiles éclairent mon chemin. Connaître la destination ne fait pas le voyage. Ma route ne fait que commencer. Alors, je pédale, je pédale, guidée par des astres intérieurs.

Like the reed, I bend but do not break. In total darkness, night and day, I see differently. My vision becomes as sharp as an eagle's. The stars light my path. Knowing the destination does not make the journey. My journey has only just begun. So, I pedal, I pedal, guided by the inner stars.

Mon corps courbé comme la lune, juste avant le grand saut, se tend vers l'infini. Mes yeux n'entendent plus, mes oreilles ne voient plus non plus. Et pourtant, tout entière j'habite le moment présent. Portée par la foule silencieuse en dehors, bruyante en dedans, je reste concentrée sur notre objectif numéro 1 : atteindre la Voie Dorée.

My body, curved like the moon, just before the big jump, stretches towards infinity. My eyes no longer hear, nor do my ears see.. And yet, I live entirely in the present moment. Carried by the silent crowd outside, noisy inside, I remain focused on our objective number 1: reaching the Golden Way.

Faire face à l'Histoire et à son histoire est le destin de tout à chacun. Toutes les deux écrites à même la peau. Dans l’œil du cyclone, je n'oublie rien. Ni d'où je viens, ni où je vais. Regardez-moi bien, malgré les apparences, je reste un homme debout.

To stand before history and one’s own history is the destiny of everyone. Both written on the skin. In the eye of the storm, I forget nothing. Neither where I come from, nor where I am going. Look at me closely, despite appearances, I remain a man standing on my feet.

Tant de discipline, de détermination, d’envie, de sacrifice pour être présent sur la ligne de départ. Combien de fois fait-on le film ? Nous visualisons le parcours du début à la fin. Un rêve porté par une équipe. La Voie Dorée prend forme en soi avant de se concrétiser à l'extérieur.

So much discipline, determination, desire, sacrifice to be present on the starting line. How many times do we repeat the tape? We visualize the route from start to finish. A dream driven by a team. The Golden Way takes shape within oneself before concretizing it outside.

Cet instant précis où le souffle est suspendu. Où tel un fauve, le regard fixe, l'ouïe aiguisé, l'attente du coup d'envoi est là, pesante... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Bang !

This precise moment when the breath is suspended. Where like a wild beast, the fixed gaze, the keen hearing, the wait for the kick-off is there, heavy... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... Bang!

A chaque départ, à chaque arrivée, nous ne faisons qu'un. Nos foulées aux rythmes de nos souffles synchronisés. Notre respiration commune devient soudainement celle d'un peuple tout entier. Atteindre la ligne « arrivée » Et demain ? Demain, on recommence... Encore et encore. Ode à tous les départs et aux arrivées. Solidaire, jamais solitaire.

At each departure, at each arrival, we become one. Our strides to the rhythms of our synchronized breaths. Our common breathing suddenly becomes that of an entire people. Reach the line marked “finish.” And tomorrow? Tomorrow we start again... Again and again. Ode to all departures and arrivals. United, never lonely.

Je deviens un homme-papillon. Mes ailes agiles me portent au gré du vent. Le dépassement de soi comme leitmotiv. Si la compétition est si belle c'est parce qu'elle est à la fois solitaire, solidaire et aussi éphémère, comme la vie d'un papillon doré.  

I become a butterfly man. My agile wings carry me with the wind. Self-improvement as a leitmotif. If competition is so beautiful it is because it is at the same time solitary, united and also ephemeral, like the life of a golden butterfly.

BIOS

Héloïse Courvoisier – paralympic athlete triathlon, Bronze medal World Cup 2021. After a first international competition in October 2021 in Portugal, she joined the French team in April 2022, and then took part in the European championships in Poland last May. She won her first medal (bronze) at the World Cup in Alanya (Turkey) in October 2022. Currently in full preparation for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

Thibault Rigaudeau – paralympic athlete triathlon, vice world champion 2023 - Originally from Vendée. Has lived in Boulogne-Billancourt for 4 years. Four-time French champion (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023). Twice world vice-champion (2022 and 2023), twice European vice-champion (2021 and 2022) and 4th at the Tokyo Paralympic Games. Currently in full preparation for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. Alongside his career as a top-level athlete, Thibaut qualified as a physiotherapist in 2020.

Jean-Baptiste Alaize – paralympic athlete long jump- French Para athlete from Burundi -Double finalist at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Born in Burundi in 1991, he was just 3 years old at the height of Burundi’s civil war - a long-standing division between the Hulu and Tutsi ethnic groups. Jean-Baptiste and his Tutsi family were the victims of a machete attack by their Hutu neighbors.  His mother did not survive, and he had his right leg amputated. After a few years in an orphanage, he was adopted by a couple from Montélimar (south-east France). He discovered his talent for athletics at the age of 14. In 2016, he became a “Champion for Peace”, one of 100 elite athletes under the patronage of Prince Albert of Monaco, encouraging sport as a vehicle for dialogue and social harmony. In 2020, he was one of nine Paralympic champions to take part in the NETFLIX documentary “Rising Phoenix”. Currently in full preparation for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

Hamid Allouache – Dancer (former Paris Opera dancer) and advisor for diversity and inclusion, notably with the Paralympic Committee. He danced all over the world for over 20 years before becoming Director of the Paris Opera Ballet. In 2016, an illness left him paraplegic. Always sensitive to diversity issues, he returned to dancing in a wheelchair, and in 2018 created his own disability awareness program. It consists of a blind dance experience followed by a conference on vulnerability, diversity and inclusion.

HeartCraft - HeartCraft is an artist with many lives: actor, author and urban artist. His creations are driven by a desire to share the values he holds dear, starting with altruism, fraternity, diversity and inclusion. A keen sportsman (swimming, squash), he uses his art to make the struggles he holds dear to his heart resonate within each of us and in the urban space: the fight against the invisibilization of people with disabilities (by multiplying portraits of disabled sportsmen and women), against homophobia, and against violence against women. But it is his stenciled slogan that sums him up best: Love to Power!

Layla Metssitane

"Mettre en scène, écrire, jouer, danser, photographier.... au service d'un projet artistique, culturel, éducatif et solidaire : voilà ce qui m'anime. Créer ensemble. Les hommes et les femmes auront toujours envie de voir spectacle, d'une exposition, d'un concert où ils se reconnaissent, car c'est là que se joue notre humanité. Mes tournées, mes spectacles, mes films me permettent de rencontrer l'autre dans sa diversité, et en même temps de me rencontrer moi-même. Arthur Rimbaud nous le rappelle : JE EST UN AUTRE"

"Directing, writing, acting, dancing, photographing.... all in the service of an artistic, cultural, educational and solidarity-based project: this is what drives me. Creating together. Men and women will always want to see a performance, an exhibition, a concert in which they see themselves and each other, because that is precisely where our humanity is played out. My tours, shows and films allow me to meet others in all their diversity, and at the same time to meet myself. Arthur Rimbaud reminds us: “I IS ANOTHER."

Philippe Groggia

"La photographie était un choix évident. Après avoir passé plus de 40 ans à apprivoiser la lumière et à interagir avec elle sur les plus grandes scènes de théâtre en France et dans le monde, la photographie est un prolongement naturel de ma carrière. J'ai trouvé dans la photographie un moyen de capturer la matière éphémère et impalpable que j'ai eu tant de mal à créer au fil des ans. En tant qu'humble artisan de la lumière, j'ai naturellement trouvé dans la photographie un prolongement naturel de ma profession de concepteur d'éclairage. Mon travail photographique se concentre sur le corps en mouvement et les portraits."

“Photography was an obvious choice. Having spent more than 40 years taming and interacting with light on the greatest theatrical stages in France and around the world, photography is a natural extension of my career. In photography, I've found a way to capture the ephemeral, impalpable material that I've worked so hard to create over the years. As a humble craftsman of light, I naturally found photography a natural extension of my profession as a lighting designer. My photographic work focuses on the body in movement and portraits." 

Marcel Lyaudet dit Romain Drac

Marcel Lyaudet, aka Romain Drac, is a multi-talented poet and artist from Grenoble. In novels, stories, songs, music and poems... Marcel has never stopped questioning the world through the prism of creation. In 2021, he entrusted Double Plume - a publishing and production company - with the task of republishing all his literary and musical works, including the novel "Le trésor de Goba-mosquito" and the recording of "Est-ce ainsi que les hommes vivent? "(Léo Ferré), "Quel joli temps (Septembre)" in tribute to Barbara and Françoise Lo. As well as his last song "J'ai demandé à mon corps fatigué", released on 4/02/2024, two weeks after his death. "Des Fissures et des Mots" is his last artistic collaboration.

In memory of Marcel Lyaudet dit Romain Drac.

Thank you to the sponsors that made this project possible:
CAPSAAA, La Nuit du Handicap, Sport Unlimitech to Perf, Le Studio Daguerre, Shiseido, Repetto Paris et ITM Paris.