Leaning on the bar, Marianne, 25, can’t believe it. The young girl, passing through Paris, discovers for the very first time the world of the folk ball, also called trad ball (for traditional). It was a friend who took her to the Dorothyan associative café-workshop in Ménilmontant, where traditional dances are celebrated every Wednesday evening. “Honestly, I expected to laugh a lot, but I got into the game and I think it’s great,” she confides. “I’m quite surprised, I thought that the balls trad were in distress. »
You just have to look at the number of dancers taking to the floor on this rainy November evening to understand that this is not the case. Often associated with musette balls and gray hairs, traditional dances are beautiful and very much alive and vivacious. It is impossible to know the precise number of followers in France: unlike other cultural practices, the Ministry of Culture does not have any statistics on the subject.
There is joy
Au Dorothy in any case, the folk ball has been sold out “almost all the time since 2022”, informs us Antoine, one of the organizers. When the number of 95 participants was reached, Didier Pélaprat, a 75-year-old regular, even went with the people left behind to the bar next door, to take a few steps while waiting for a place to become available. In the steamy room, Florian Karoubi, traditional dance teacher, introduces the “ballers” to the Noirmoutier U-turn. An hour later, around fifteen musicians set up. There jam session [séance d’improvisation, NDLR] starts: challoise, mazurka, gavotte and scottish follow one another, dances punctuated by laughter, cries and applause.
“They are very accessible, even if you have never done them,” assures Eva. At 22, she already has three years of trad dancing under her belt and “can’t see herself stopping.” Like her, Fabienne, a fifty-year-old from Corrèze, was seduced by “the collective, the joy, the inter-generationality”. “Here we can dance in pairs, touch each other, meet up, talk to each other,” continues Saul. “Elsewhere, it no longer exists. Especially in the city! »
Ball of the cities and ball of the fields
In the countryside too, the craze for traditional dances is evident. When he founded the ”Bal itinerant” in Ardèche, Géraud Barralon first found himself facing a deserted village square. “Twelve years later, it’s full and we reach both experienced people and novices,” he tells us. On the other side of France, in Melle (Deux-Sèvres), the ”Bal qui Pique” benefits from the same dynamic: “We have doubled our entries since the first edition in 2009. Last year, we even extended the time slot due to the crowds,” says Julie Couprie, co-president of the association organizing the event.
But it is in Gennetines (Allier) that the success of traditional dances is best observed. Since 1990, the Grand Bal de l’Europe has been organized there, which brings together “dancers from 40 countries” and “is sold out over 10 days, with around 3,000 participants daily”, specifies its creator, Bernard Coclet. As a good connoisseur of the subject, he notes that the dances that take place there “draw their roots from a tradition which is often more dreamed than real”.
#MeToo has been there
Reflecting societal developments, the folk ball effectively adapts to the times. Bernard Coclet thus evokes “the change of approach [à l’œuvre] on issues of gender and consent since #MeToo”. Long associated with male domination, ballroom practices are evolving. Under the leadership of several associations, such as Queer as Folk in Nantes, the concepts of “guide” and “follower” are being called into question. At Dorothy as elsewhere, the roles are reversed and the couples are mixed. This space safe ”, this is precisely what Eva liked when she discovered the folk ball. Yet another proof, if any were needed, that traditional dances are in tune with the times.
Traditional dances, folk ball… What are we talking about?
“We are not even able to agree on the term,” breathes Bernard Coclet when asked about the lack of visibility of traditional dances. Within the community, the expression is indeed debated, because the rural and peasant civilization which saw them born no longer exists. From the rigodon to the gigouillette via the circus circle, traditional dances have transformed with our bodies and our habits today,” explains Florian Karoubi.
Regional, world, popular or traditional: no matter how we describe them, these dances are all transmitted from generation to generation and characteristic of a given geographical area. They are practiced in traditional balls but also in folk balls, “more general” than the first, adds the young professor. Be careful, however, not to confuse them with so-called “folkloric” dances, practiced on stage and in costume, during a show. In a traditional ball or a folk ball, we dance only “for our pleasure”, points out Florian Karoubi.
