Remembering Philippe Gauler 1943-2026
Yesterday I went to Paris to attend the extraordinary funeral of the teacher who changed the course of my life Philippe Gaulier. In the sometimes murky world of artist training Gaulier is perhaps the most widely and wildly misunderstood pedagogue of all. Perhaps we all assembled from around the world yesterday – how many? maybe 600 of us – because we wanted to hold onto that magical thread of his teaching specifically by being together…because we were there…because we know it. Perhaps we all feel tired by having to listen – every time his name comes up – to the broken record of criticism spewing from the mouths of people who never even went to his school regarding his somewhat unorthodox teaching style. As Simon McBurney put it he was –
‘provocative, demanding, deliberately inappropriate and utterly hilarious’
The elusive cornerstone of his school was to find that ‘complicité’ on which McBurney, Arden and Magni founded the namesake company – the inferred danger and delight in being connected (with each other, with the audience) when we play. Do we have pleasure to be on the stage? If not why bore us? ’Adios, sit down immediately, my little friend’. Gaulier actors read audience in a way that no other actors do and that is what I am proud to know. It will be in my bones. It was in the bones of us, connected together when we – a giant congregation – burst into ‘Non, Je ne regrette rien’ along with Piaf as we saw the old fella off on his way. And we might be messy and we may not do things ‘correctly’ but we will do it with heart and a kind of passion that is very rarely really seen on stage. Spontaneous, huge applause, whooping, cheering, Bravo, Bravo went off as he was carried up the long theatrical staircase to disappear into the glittery backdrop of blue-sky mosaics of La Coupole in Pere Lechaise cemetery.
I began at Gaulier’s school aged 25, just two months after losing my mother. Philippe taught me to feel again and how to be free.
Why am I writing about this here? Because what I am looking for is not and should not be definitive or even precisely known. This is the same for fine art, for performance, for poetry, for playwriting, for art installation, for ceramics, for concept art, for music – definitely not for music – for opera, for dance, for education…for making anything at all really, I think.
Alex Murdoch, Artist 