This article is one of a series of posts dedicated to our latest project, Humans of La Tour. Inspired by the successful Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton, Humans of La Tour is comprised of a series of journalistic portraits created by the Journalism students at La Tour. They seek to highlight a few of the many people who make up the La Tour community: those we see every day as our professors and classmates, as well as those whose hard work and dedication keep the school running smoothly on a daily basis.
Each portrait was created by an Anglophone Section student in Ms. Temple’s Journalism Elective as part of their final project for the Spring Semester 2021.
By Charlotte Dupeux (2EA)
“One day, I asked myself about what would make me want to wake up every day and be happy; the answer was to become an actor.” explained Tanguy, a monitor at La Tour, where he has been working since 2013.
In fact, 2013 is the same year that Tanguy arrived in Paris to take theatre classes at a prestigious theatre school. Tanguy was looking for a job to help support him while he studied. He applied to many schools, but he got along very well with Mr Janin, the wellfare officer at La Tour at this time.
Tanguy’s job at La Tour is to monitor the entry and exit of the students from school and to assist them during the breaks. He also supervises the students when they have free periods. “I have created relationships with the students, I even consider some of them as my friends,” says Tanguy. He does not consider his job as a chore, but rather as a pleasure. Tanguy left La Tour in 2018 and was invited back by the headmaster to return as the school they needed extra help monitoring the student during the onset of the Pandemic restrictions.
Tanguy comes from the South of France, and he went to university and studied biology for two years. One day, however, he realized that he did not want to continue his studies. Instead, he took a risk, and he stepped out of his comfort zone and began to take theatre classes. He had never done theatre before, but it was a revelation for Tanguy. After taking classes at the Florent theatre school, Tanguy decided to create his own theatre company with two of his friends one year ago. He called it “La Compote”: “To make a compote, you need different ingredients (apples, pears). Each one comes with what he has and when you put it all together, it creates something good, a mix of flavours,” he explains. Nonetheless, he does not want to include other people in his theatre company. “It can be complicated to be numerous in a theatre company as there are many decisions to make, and we do not always agree on everything.” Tanguy and his two friends perform on stage and write the plays. When the Pandemic started, Tanguy and his friends wrote their first play, called “Les sous-terriens”. This play has on many levels: a real story and a philosophical aspect which questions many different concepts: “It is not philosophical theatre, it is an entertaining play with a hidden, philosophical message.”
Tanguy also likes to write poems, which he posted on the walls of several classrooms. His poems are about nature, all that surrounds him. “The poems I wrote are not about myself, but rather of those moments I had. My inspirations are moments of life where I felt there at the right time.”
In the future, Tanguy would like to perform his play on stage in a theatre: “The goal is to try to stage this play despite the Pandemic.”
Quotations translated from French by Charlotte Dupeux
The Tower Times Blog 