Constance Arnoult and Anaëlle Malka, founders of L’école. © India Lange

Just like museums, cultural institutions and art magazines, which now have their digital tools to communicate, certain cultural media were born by and for digital platforms. This is the case of L’élu, co-founded two years ago by Constance Arnoult and Anaëlle Malka, passionate about the performing arts – they actually met at the Tours Dance Conservatory (Francis Poulenc Conservatory).
The vocation of their media? Offer, on Instagram, cultural recommendations, mainly live shows. Guides, reports and columns on theater, ballet, opera, but also literary releases and current exhibitions, punctuate the account's publications on the famous photo and video sharing platform.

The French Touch: How was The Eulogy born?

Constance Arnoult: Partly thanks to confinement! This project to launch a vlog, podcast or blog format to share cultural favorites had been brewing in my head for some time. In 2020, when confinement arrived, I had just learned how to do video editing. I used the time available to film myself on my windowsill making literary recommendations. I then published them on my own Instagram account which already benefited from a certain notoriety. Anaëlle's feedback was invaluable in building the concept from its genesis, and refining it!

Anaëlle Malka: The confinement period was conducive to the use of Instagram, the number of views quickly exploded. This was an opportunity for many people to start or return to reading. In fact, we quickly realized our impact! The publication of a video about a book was correlated with stock shortages at certain e-commerce sellers, it was pretty crazy! We received thank you messages for some of our recommendations... the desire to professionalize was then reinforced, which is how we created the dedicated account on Instagram. After several months of work to consolidate the project, The Eulogy came to life!

“We praise what we love”

FT: Initially, you only made literary recommendations. Today, what can we find on L’élue?

AM: There are many things that make up the DNA of L'école and we have many ideas to enrich it. One of the main ones lies in the name: we praise what we love! Constance and I are not so much into criticism, we leave that to others. Simply, if we don't like it, we don't talk about it. And when we talk about it, we do it in the form of reports, interviews, on-camera chronicles… We also offer guides, mostly in written format.

THAT : Transversality is dear to us! We want The Praise to truly reflect our cultural consumption. We certainly have a preference for dance and opera. But very quickly, we joined forces with institutions to strengthen our legitimacy and also extend our expertise to other areas. We can thus talk about ballet, theater, literature and sometimes exhibitions, cinema…

“Our objective is also to dust off the image of live performance”

FT: Who is the praise addressed to?

AM: There is something very visceral in The Eulogy that we want to share with as many people as possible. It makes us so happy to go see a show that we wish everyone would go. Our objective is also to dust off the image of live performance and, with this in mind, to address young people. Instagram works wonderfully for this! The common thread of our media, to achieve this, is our relaxed tone which makes you want to be interested in the scene, in culture in general. We want to learn things too!

FT: In parallel with the media, why did you create the Prix des Eloges, the first edition of which was held on October 16?

THAT : Praise, as a medium, responds to the problems of the cultural institutions with which we have become closer. They too, very often, are looking for ways to attract young people, make themselves known and expand their audience. This is why we organized the Prix des Eloges, an event which promotes classical live performance in a way that complements the media. Our intention through this event was to break down the barriers between complementary worlds, to bring together those who make the performing arts. During the first edition which was held on October 16, we were able to shine the spotlight on performing artists, creative artists, creative artisans, who in our opinion deserve to be much better known to the general public. Here too we wanted a mixed, cross-disciplinary jury of people who share our philosophy, understand our approach and do it with the heart.