Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Satie Saurel
Occupation: Musician
Location: Jules Bistro, 65 St. Mark's Place
Date: 2:15 pm on Tuesday, Aug. 5

I’m from France. I was born in San Diego, and I grew up in France — in Nice. My father lives in Chile and is an astrophysicist. Because of that I was born in California, because he was working at Palomar Observatory. My mom, she lives in Nice and she works for the mayor.

I was 4 years old when I left San Diego and I grew up in France till my 20s. I started ballet when I was four because I had one foot that was inside the other, which was a problem when I was walking. So the doctor told my parents, ‘She can wear shoes to rectify the feet or she can try to do ballet.’ My grandmother was so happy because she was a dancer. My father was against dancing. He hated dancing. So they brought me to the first ballet class and I said, ‘Yeah I want to do that!’

Also, at home I always had too much energy, so it was a way to channel it. I always feel like a 5-year old child. I always need an audience to do my shows. They told this to the ballet teacher and the ballet teacher said, ‘You should try the theatre.’ So I started the theatre at 7 and at 9 I did the vocal and ballet.

I’m a singer/songwriter. It’s kind of step-by-step that I arrived to be a singer/songwriter. When I was 9, I went to a theatre musical company. Theatre musical is vocal, theatre and dance — the three together. I toured with them from 9 till 17. Monday morning you’d go to middle school and in the afternoon you’d go to dance classes, vocal classes and theatre classes. I was doing ballet, contemporary, jazz, and tap dance. It was every day, school in the morning and dance in the afternoon. It was super nice. During holidays we went to Tunisia, Italy, around France.

I travel a lot. I love to travel. I love to move. I moved to London, Paris, New York for a year and a half, after I went to Barcelona, Germany, the Bahamas, Montreal and I came back here last year. In London, I was waitressing and taking some dance classes. It was a bad experience for me, then, one day I did the audition for Euro Disney. I moved back to Paris because I got a job as [the character] Maleficent. She is a villain. It was fun. Ha Ha Ha. The children were afraid of you. I loved it. It was so cool. You were with children everyday. You just had fun everyday, life is beautiful, you know? At the same time I was doing a school of musical theatre in Paris and after that I did an audition for the cabaret because I love to dance, to be nude, hey!

After I did the audition for Moulin Rouge I broke my leg, so I stopped dancing. It was permanent. I can dance but I can’t anymore put my legs over my head. So I said, ‘OK, I can’t dance now. What am I going to do in Paris?’

So I moved to New York. It was better for me to record my album in New York. You have really good people here to work with. I came here and I took some classes, did some audition for a theatre musical, but it was always, ‘No French accent.’ I was taking the vocal classes and I met this teacher and she told me to be part of an international choir with her, so I did that. I sang at Carnegie Hall.

I had used cover songs and I thought I could have my own show with my own songs. I started to take piano classes and I started to co-write my own songs with my ex-fiance. When we broke up I started to write my own songs in French, so now I have some French songs and some French-English songs. In April, I found a producer and we’re working on my first music video here. I didn’t work when I was with my ex-fiance, so after we broke up I needed to find a job. I couldn’t afford an apartment here, so I first went to the Bronx and I rented a room, but I did not have a [closet] in my room. I was putting all my clothes and luggage in the French restaurant that I was working at. After one month of doing that I finally had enough money to find an apartment on Allen Street, with no window — nothing. It was horrible. Then I moved to Chelsea. In Chelsea it was kind of a cage for a bunny. Four months ago I moved around here. I love this area.

I found this place, Jules Bistro, that has live jazz. I’ve been working here for one year and I became the manager [during the summer]. Every night we have live music, live jazz with no cover charge from 8:30 to 11:30. Every day you have music. What is good is that you can sing. For the third set, when it’s less busy, I say, ‘Can I sing a song?’ It’s kind of cool because we don’t rehearse, so they need to feel me and my work. What I hate in jazz is the same tempo and they don’t want to change and they hate to follow a musician. So I stop them and we have a laugh. And now that I’m the manager, they can’t say no.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.