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(2011) May 68, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
L'entrée libre à l'ex-thèâtre de France
the occupation of the Odéon and the revolutionary culture of the French stage
Kate Bredeson
pp. 299-315
On the evening of 15 May 1968, an exuberant mob of three thousand2 ascended the stairs of the Odéon National Theatre in Paris at the end of a performance by the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Well-dressed guests of the dance concert tottered on heels and clutched jackets as they emerged into the heart of the Luxembourg Gardens district, while a carnival of students, committee members and international theatremakers stormed the same stairs, carrying signs, flags, tracts and visions of utopia. The interlopers arrived unannounced, ticketless and after hours; they spilled onto the theatre's stage and into the twelve hundred velvet seats. Their goal: to occupy the theatre at the geographical heart of Paris, to seize it and make it a permanent meeting place where they would discuss the general strike and plan the anticipated revolution.
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Full citation:
Bredeson, K. (2011)., L'entrée libre à l'ex-thèâtre de France: the occupation of the Odéon and the revolutionary culture of the French stage, in J. Jackson, A. Milne & J. Williams (eds.), May 68, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 299-315.
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