User:Pabalter/Fondation Axiane

Axiane is a Swiss not-for-profit public utility foundation established under private law in 1994. Axiane develops activities in the field of clinical anthropology (Daseinsanalysis and existential psychiatry for children and adults) that are rooted in the cultural and natural heritage of Porrentruy and the surrounding area (Jura, Switzerland), where it is based. It organises workshops, seminars, concerts and public performances, and releases audiovisual documentaries and publications. These activities are in line with the chosen careers and main areas of interest and research of its founders.

History
Axiane’s founders are the psychiatrist Robert Christe (director of the Jura Medical Psychology Service since 1960, founding director of the Clinical Speech Therapy Division of Bern Faculty of Medicine, established in 1978, and emeritus professor since 1986), and the psychologist, psychotherapist and speech therapist Marie-Madeleine Christe-Luterbacher (head of practical speech therapy training at the Clinical Speech Therapy Division of Bern Faculty of Medicine from 1975 to 1985).

Having spent their careers working with expressive language disorders, the two founders chose to introduce an aesthetic dimension to their clinical and therapeutic practice. Their approach, which places particular emphasis on listening and ways of vocalising, refusing to speak and denying distress, focuses on verbal enunciation and the way sounds are produced to form words. The theory and practice of their approach have been studied in various publications: La parole troublée, “Suivre la parole en clinique psychiatrique” , “Parler sans pouvoir dire” , “Mécanisation” , “Dans le sillage de l’ours” , “La parole comme principe de la clinique” , and “Comprendre une parole troublée”.

Christe and Christe-Luterbacher established Axiane to enable them to work outside a strictly clinical framework and break down the barriers between psychiatric practice and artistic disciplines.

Founding principles
Believing that diagnosis and therapy should be followed by a stepping stone towards artistic expression, the foundation offers patients the opportunity to become involved in the production of a performance, outside the patient-therapist relationship. This gives patients the opportunity to act and express themselves in contact with people whom they do not know and who are unaware of their condition.

Axiane organises workshops, courses, concerts and opera performances involving, on an equal footing, patients and amateur and professional artists from a variety of backgrounds without distinction of ability. The objective is to achieve an original expression and to engender in all parties, artists and audience alike, the desire to get along, to come together and arrive at mutual understanding.

Music, and song in particular, is the artistic discipline favoured by Axiane. The workshop environment enables each person involved to work in a group setting without losing their individual identity. Axiane’s aim is to “reconnect with native forms, not out of reverence for the past or commemoration of a bygone era, but because these forms have not been subjected to the natural evolution that progressively turns them into an increasingly accomplished form, which thus becomes fixed and incapable of transformation. A form of germination into something new. To listen is to be open.”

The foundation’s activities extend to projects that have affinities with clinical philosophy and existential psychiatry (seminars, publication and creation of sound archives, in particular with the philosopher Henri Maldiney and the psychiatrist Roland Kuhn). In this capacity, it was involved with organising the inaugural symposium to found the Association Internationale Henri Maldiney at Royaumont Abbey in 2008. Axiane’s archives include videos filmed at this symposium; the bilingual (French and German) correspondence between R. Kuhn and H. Maldiney 1953-2004, ''Rencontre–Begegnung. Au péril d’exister'', was published in 2017.

Axiane’s productions
To provide a space suitable for its activities, in 1995 the foundation restored to its original state the choir of the former church of Porrentruy Jesuit School (1680). The early years saw productions of key works of the Baroque religious repertoire under musical director Michael Radulescu: The St Matthew Passion (1996), The Messiah (1997), The St John Passion (1998), The Christmas Oratorio (1999), and Mass in B Minor (2000). Some of the production recordings were published. In 1998, the musicologist and vocalist Anne-Marie Deschamps (founder of the Ensemble Venance Fortunat) began arranging concerts and musical performances of 12th- to 15th-century monodies and polyphonies: Le Génie de l’an Mil (2000), Le surgissement du lieu (2001), and Chant des profondeurs (2003). Among the highlights have been two productions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (2005 and 2007, with the latter being broadcast on Télévision Suisse Romande ). Other events organised include readings with Jean Gillibert, dance workshops and performances with Jean Guizerix and Wilfride Piollet, and cycles of instrumental music concerts featuring works by J. S. Bach and Beethoven

Celebration of heritage
In 1998, at the request of Robert Christe, who was looking for early written works from the Jura region, the Cantonal Library of Jura brought to his attention the Bellelay Gradual (Ms18), a little-known 362-page 12th-century parchment which included the proper of the liturgical songs of Bellelay Abbey. That same year, Anne-Marie Deschamps incorporated this ‘undiscovered’ regional repertoire into her courses and concerts. In 2001, the foundation created the first complete very-high-definition digital facsimile edition of this gradual (Etienne Perrenoud, PMM). This facsimile was made freely available on the Axiane website, along with transcriptions, an index, audio recordings, texts, translations, musicological commentaries and videos.

In 2004, the foundation organised an international symposium on the gradual at Bellelay Abbey Church, followed by a concert of songs from the manuscript (broadcast by RSR-Espace 2).

The commissioning of the organ of the Church of the Jesuits (built by Jürgen Ahrend in 1985, based on a G. Silbermann design) resulted in the recording and release of the complete works for organ of J. S. Bach, performed by Michael Radulescu.

La mise en valeur de l'orgue de l'église des Jésuites (Jürgen Ahrend 1985, d’après G. Silbermann) a donné lieu à l'enregistrement et à la publication d'une intégrale de l’œuvre pour orgue de J. S. Bach par Michael Radulescu.

Discography and videography

 * Bach, J.S., Organ Works. Organist Michael Radulescu, organ of J. Ahrend in Porrentruy (recordings 1998-2004). Axiane (18 CDs).
 * Bach, J.S., The Art of Fugue. Organist Michael Radulescu, organ of J. Ahrend in Porrentruy (2004). Axiane (2 CDs).
 * Bach, J.S., St Matthew Passion. 1996, live, Axiane 2 CDs.
 * Bach, J.S., St John Passion. 1998, live, Axiane 2 CDs.
 * Le chant des origines : Graduel de Bellelay : XIIe siècle. Editions Monthabor – Axiane, box set of 1 DVD and 1 CD, 2016:
 * Le fabuleux voyage du Graduel de Bellelay, film by Manuella Maury, Romain Guélat and Didier Humbert. Axiane audiovisual documentaries – Edition de l’Office de la culture de la République et Canton du Jura – Image et Son, (1 DVD) 2015
 * Le chant des origines, selection of pieces from the Bellelay Gradual, by Venance Fortunat and the Atelier d’Axiane choir, conducted by Anne-Marie Deschamps (1 CD) 2005

External link

 * Axiane foundation website