from Native American dances to Rameau’s “Sauvages”

September 1725: Paris discovers the New World. Barely a month after disembarking in Lorient from a port in Louisiana, five representatives of Native American nations from the Mississippi basin – among them, the daughter of a chief – set foot on Parisian soil. Their program? The Opera, the Invalides… and the Comédie-Italienne, before going to Fontainebleau for a very formal audience with Louis XV. Until then, on September 10, the capital holds its breath: two of the visitors, adorned with tunics and feather headdresses, perform ritual dances on the stage of the Comédie-Italienne. The public is stunned.

These gestures from the New World tell of war, peace, the pipe. “These are very codified dances, extremely rhythmic to the drum,” explains Bertrand Rondot, co-curator of the exhibition. “1725. Native American allies at the court of Louis XV » and general curator of heritage at the Palace of Versailles. The room is full. The event caused a sensation. Among the spectators, a discreet forty-year-old: Jean-Philippe Rameau. At the time, he composed for fairs. But that evening, something changes. This pulsation, this energy… Rameau comes away upset.

Music that resembles nothing

Two years later, he composed The Savages. A daring piece: bouncy rhythm, percussive accents, big leaps. “It’s completely new music for the time… it doesn’t resemble anything known in composition,” remarks the co-curator of the exhibition.

On August 28, 1735, Rameau reused the piece in the fourth entry of his opera-ballet The Gallant Indiesunder the title Dance of the Great Peace Pipe. The success is immense. “For me, it’s the first hit in French music,” concludes Bertrand Rondot enthusiastically. And this hit spans the centuries: in 2019, it was reborn at the Paris Opera, revisited by classical and hip-hop dancers. Proof that his energy remains intact.