Catherine Ringer reads and sings Alice Mendelson’s poems on stage in “The Eroticism of Living”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Monday March 25, 2024: the multidisciplinary artist, Catherine Ringer. She will be on the Théâtre de l’Atelier stage in Paris, from April 1 to 6 with “L’Érotisme de vivre” and will make a detour to Printemps de Bourges on April 25.

In more than 40 years of career, Catherine Ringer has become an essential multidisciplinary artist, with an atypical and unique personality. She has already lived a thousand lives. Model at eight years old, actress in a TV film directed by Marianne Oswald, The Two Naughty Girls in 1969, she left home at the age of 13. Known for being the singer of the legendary group Rita Mitsouko which she created and played with Fred Chichin, there was also experimental musical theater, dance and this magical meeting with the choreographer Marcia Moretto which gave birth to the song Marcia Baïla. Then there was also television and cinema.

She will be on stage at the Théâtre de l’Atelier in Paris, from April 1 to 6, with The Eroticism of living. Then she will participate in the Printemps de Bourges on April 25.

franceinfo: On stage, you read and sing the verses of the poetry of Alice Mendelson, who is now 97 years old. You are the voice of sensuality, of the passion for life, of love, of men, of colors, of moments. When we talk about Catherine Ringer, we talk about sensuality.

Catherine Ringer: Ah good ? I did not know. I’m surprised.

For what ?

I had the feeling of representing other things and also a little sensuality, but not particularly that. But hey, so much the better, I’m delighted! One more string to my lyre…

This show was born in spring 2021, after Covid. The Petit Théâtre de la Huchette in Paris has asked you. You were one of the personalities who interested them in relaunching Mondays with carte blanche. And you immediately thought of Alice Mendelson.

In fact, I said to myself: carte blanche… I had heard that she wrote very beautiful poems and I said to myself that this was the opportunity to read them. I asked Mauro Gioia, a Neapolitan singer and director, to lend me an eye and an ear. He read them. He told me : “Ah yes, I like them a lot. We have to put on some music, too. We’re not just going to say poems like that”. So we put on this show at La Huchette, we put it on a second time in a theater in Auxerre, where it was a bigger production, with another actress, puppets. Afterwards, we returned to our initial version. If you want, I’ll read you a little bit: “Do you know how to plant buzzwords, fashionable words? Do you know how to weave sentences?”

“Do you know how to constantly mime the infinite chain of children’s dreams? Do you know how to grind joy in fashion, in fashion? Do you know how to fulfill love in fashion, in fashion… From us ?”

Catherine Ringer reads Alice Mendelson

at franceinfo

Tell us the story of this woman, Alice Mendelson, who has an exceptional career.

Alice Mendelson’s father was taken in the Vel d’Hiv roundup. She was able to hide with her mother because the police officer who had come to pick up the father the day before told them to hide. They ran away. She became resistant. Afterwards, she became a passionate French teacher at the Lycée Montaigne in Paris. When she retired, she became a storyteller, meaning she would go into people’s homes and tell stories from all over the world. And this is his life.

There is always an incredible energy in everything you do, whether you go on stage, whether you sing. Where does this energy come from?

I don’t know, maybe from parents who were both, my mother and my father, fans of this presence in life, of being able to appreciate colors, something funny, something someone says, loving the presence of other people, while not necessarily having the facilities, but hey.

You started very early. Didn’t you grow up too fast?

Well, it’s true that when I was 12, people thought I was 17, so I was a young woman, very quickly.

“I went from being a child to being a little woman while still being a teenager. Yes, I grew up too fast!”

Catherine Ringer

at franceinfo

What made you want to sing?

I have always sang a little and made music. I played the flute. I was singing. I played a little piano at my grandmother’s house. Singing is a basic human activity, singing.

Your songs with the Rita Mitsouko group are part of the collective memory, of the music family.

We have this honor and this joy of being now part of the French repertoire and of having been useful to the public, to listeners and to viewers since we have also made images.

What do you keep from Rita Mitsouko?

Joy, pride, emotion, money!

Watch this interview on video: