L’Oréal to Celebrate Bodies’ Diversity, Artistic Expression in a Festival

BEAUTIFUL GESTURES: L’Oréal has teamed with Le Centquatre-Paris cultural space for Beaux Gestes, billed as a multidisciplinary festival that will celebrate bodies’ diversity and artistic expressions.

It will run from Dec. 1 to 14 in the hangar-size space in the city’s 19th arrondissement, and encompass dance, literature, circus, virtual reality and visual arts. The mix is meant to spur people to delve into how the body is a language, mirrors identity and affirms human beings’ freedom.

“This vision is shared by Centquatre-Paris and L’Oréal, which continues to deploy and strengthen its actions favoring art, in all its dimensions, particularly contemporary,” L’Oréal said in a statement.

Artists represented span from Vimala Pons, Arno Schuitemaker, Aurélien Bory to Chantal Akerman. There will also be free workshops allowing people to take part in the artistic experience.

“The body is a major issue in societies,” said Delphine Urbach, L’Oréal’s director of art, culture and heritage, in the statement. “Today, we often talk about it to denounce contradictory injunctions. We wanted to talk about it differently, to leave room for plural beauties, the generous, the positive — for all these questions of inclusion that allow a surge of freedom.”

“The Beaux Gestes festival continues what we have been questioning at Centquatre for 20 years: the notion of contemporary repertoire that makes it possible to identify the evolution of aesthetics and to show different generations how a subject is treated,” said José-Manuel Gonçalvès, artistic co-director of Beaux Gestes.