start 2025 in the Roaring Twenties

Por its eighth edition, the traditional New Year’s ball, organized by the City of La Rochelle, will take place in the Old Port, on 1^is January 2025. This popular festival brought together 4,000 people in 2024. Since the death in 2020 of Christian Larsonneur, alias M. Larsène, who had hosted the event since 2016, several artistic companies have taken over to host the evening. This year, it will be the David Rolland Chorégraphies dance company that will make participants vibrate to the rhythm of music from the 1920s and 1930s with “Le Bal fou des Années Folles”, starting at 5:30 p.m. commemorating these years of carefreeness and freedom, a bit unbridled, after the First World War.

Joyful and participatory performance

The entertainment and atmosphere will be provided by four dancers and the live performance of six musicians from the group The Sassy Swingers who play the same jazz as in the interwar period. For twenty-five years, the David Rolland Chorégraphies company has strived to have an original relationship with the public through its artistic and cultural offerings. His pieces also have in common the writing of game scores as a driving force for interpretation and the activation of collective memories with musical, literary or cinematographic references, as well as different degrees of reading.

“When I founded my company in 2000, I wanted the shows to be linked to a form of joyful and participatory performance by making the spectators dance,” explains dancer and choreographer David Rolland before continuing: “The idea of ​​a ball on the theme of the Roaring Twenties emerged during confinement with the desire for a post-Covid party and at that time, there were not too many shows on the years 1920-1930. »

Double dégenré step

Participants are invited to come dressed up with their most beautiful feathers and sequins, and to let themselves be guided. “We have fun learning very easy dance steps, alone or in pairs, like the charleston, the one-step or the foxtrot, but we also reinvent a lot of dances, notably a false tango, a degendered paso doble , a liberated waltz…”. “The Crazy Ball of the Roaring Twenties” will also be a moment of sharing the sociology of the time through song lyrics on the feminist movement, for example. Videos of archive images will also be broadcast. “Finally, we realize that we know a lot of hits from those years like “I wanna be loved by you” which was covered by Marilyn Monroe or “Singin’ in the rain”. It will be very joyful and very sustained, you will have to be in good shape! »

The event is free and open to all. The evening is scheduled to kick off at 5:30 p.m. and will end around 9 p.m. Brioche, chocolate, fruit juice and mulled wine will be distributed by the City. Please note: in the event of unfavorable weather, the ball will be postponed.