Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen.
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France,
world football champions? Anything else would surprise me very much.
Because it's clear for all to see. After all, we're among the top
favourites. Has there ever been a world champion that was not among the
top favourites? No, never. But that's not all. Our team has an ideal
number of players: eleven. That is nether too many, nor too few.
Personally I'd have nothing against ten players more, but my
eleven-year-old son – eleven, another wink of fate – explained to me
that's not allowed. So be it, we'll win with eleven. Even if one of
them is an old man called Zidane.
The ball used at this World
Championships will be spherical in shape. That is a very decisive
advantage for us, because we've secretly been training our players for
months with just this kind of ball. Even our Zidane has got used to
kicking it around, and he can do things with it that are going to amaze
more than a few people.
A football pitch is comprised of a
lawn. The French know this type of grass very well, because it grows
abundantly in our latitude (plant in March then water regularly). They
say even Zidane grows it in the gardens surrounding his manor.
On
top of that, a game lasts 90 minutes. For a Frenchman that's nothing:
we eat for two hours at breakfast, three in the evening and four at
lunch. Zidane eats the whole time.
And finally, "football" is a
typical French word deriving from the English "foot" and the English
"ball". But "foot" is in fact much more French than English, because
the French are the only people who call running "footing". And as for
"ball", it comes from "balle" a word that's so French we used it to
designate our once mighty "franc".
I'll admit, Zidane is not a
real French word, but it's diminutive, Zizou, is all the more so.
Really, I pity everyone else. In 1998 we were the world champions
because Zidane was on our team. In 2006 we'll be the world champions
although Zidane is on our team.
*
This article forms part of compilation of writings originally published in the Neue Zürchner Zeitung magazine Folio on May 2, 2006.
Herve Le Tellier is a journalist
and writer, and lives in Paris. His most recent publication is the
prose work "Cites de memoire" (Berg International 2003).
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