Snapping a photo of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum has long resembled something of a competitive sport, one requiring a gymnast’s agility and a marathoner’s endurance. As Olympic fever sweeps Paris, the city’s cultural heavyweight is limbering up and donning its finest athleisure wear for a full season of sports programming.
Chief among the sporting activities is “Run in the Louvre,” hour-long sweat sessions in which 30 visitors partake in four 10-minute exercises across the museum’s most iconic spaces. Yoga mats and lockers are provided.
The circuit begins with yoga in the Cour Marly and Cour Puget. The cavernous courtyard is filled with sculptures that once adorned King Louis XIV’s chateau. Several strike inspiring poses. For balance, there’s the one-legged lean of Daphne fleeing Apollo as sculpted by Nicolas Coustou. For a torso twist, Philippe Magnier’s sparkling Wretlers offers two possibilities. For total relaxation, try the sprawl of Edme Bouchardon’s Sleeping Faun.
Next comes a dance session—dancehall, to be specific—in the Khorsabad courtyard. The Jamaican musical tradition has its roots in reggae, and the stone trappings of the 8th century B.C.E Assyrian palace make for a somewhat fitting location, since both Assyria and dancehall share an antipathy of Babylon.
Dancing dancehall in the Cour Khorsabad. Photo courtesy the Louvre.
The tour continues with disco in the Salle des Cariatides, once a royal ballroom and named for the four towering female figures that support the musicians’ gallery. The Renaissance palace was King François’s response to the splendor of the palazzos he encountered in Italy in the early 16th century. It replaced a medieval structure and “Run the Louvre” traces this lineage by finishing with some cardio at the foot of the old castle walls.
Running through the end of May, the tours begin before the museum opens to the public each day and have been designed by choreographer and dancer Mehdi Kerkouche.
Mehdi Kerkouche at the Musée Louvre. Photo: Hanna Pallot, courtesy of the Louvre.
It’s far from the only athletic venture taking place at the Louvre. As the museum’s director, Laurence des Cars, recently stressed, the Louvre rests at the heart of Paris and will be at the center of the Olympic games.
This year marks the third time Paris has hosted the Olympics—the last came in 1924—and the Louvre explores this history with an exhibition that opened earlier this spring, “Olympism: Modern Invention, Ancient Legacy.” The show, which runs through September 16, brings together artifacts, both ancient and modern, to show how turn of the century organizers reimagined a lost Greek tradition.
“Run the Louvre” dances disco in Salle des Cariatides. Photo courtesy The Louvre.
One ritual adapted from ancient Greece was the Olympic flame and its contemporary counterpart will be carried through the halls of the Louvre on July 14, two weeks prior to the opening ceremony. The Olympic marathon and road cycling competitions will both pass by the world’s most-visited art museum.
Another marker of the Louvre celebrating the 33rd Olympic Games? It has raised ticket prices to €22 ($23.70), an increase of 29 percent.