InvestigationThere are thousands, all over the country, even in the villages, to be hooked on this line dance. Popular, accessible, it allows all ages and social backgrounds to come together and become one, at a time when ties are loosening.
“Right rear shuffle, left rear shuffle, three steps forward, left kick…” Who would suspect, as you walked along the Norman workers’ houses that fringe the village-rue de Damigny (Orne) on this drizzly Sunday at the end of November, that Nashville and the strings of Johnny Cash vibrate there, just behind the door of the Mazeline multipurpose room? Under the garlands of American flags, lined up heels and cowboy boots beat the floor, synchronously, to the sound of Hooked on Country : “Lord have mercy on me, I’m addicted to country music. “ The day before, 120 kilometers away, they were about thirty to honor this tradition of opening a ball, under the mirror balls of the bar-discotheque 6711 of Lèves (Eure-et-Loir). Same communion in 32 times at Nœux-les-Mines, Drancy, Palavas-les-Flots, Grésy-sur-Aix, Yvetot …
List the country balls flyers in France in the month of November alone – dozens per weekend, despite recent cancellations due to Covid – is enough to confirm the ingrained success of this dance. This for twenty years and despite the emergence of other practices, such as zumba. Type “country dance” on Facebook and YouTube: hundreds of clubs with names evoking the Far West – the Tennessee Mockingbird (Villiers-en-Bières, Seine-et-Marne), the Wild Talons (Versailles), the Froggy Stomp (Boissise -le-Roi, Seine-et-Marne) – exchange videos and PDFs of choreographies in various languages, advice, schedule appointments for classes, balls, carpooling …
“Here, we are not sorted in relation to our profession, it is not a criterion of friendship”, summarizes Véronique, 54 years old.
What support this eloquent estimate advanced in France before our eyes (Threshold, 496 pages, 23 euros), by Jérôme Fourquet and Jean-Laurent Cassely: 9% of the population aged 18 and over have already practiced or are engaged in country dance as part of a collective structure ( according to an IFOP survey, carried out in 2019 and 2020 with a representative sample of 6,076 people). If there is no register, the authors identified, before the Covid, some 2,000 clubs and associations in the territory. A real Yankee cultural transplant yet passed under the radar of another part of the country. Because the country cavalry was deployed quietly, beyond the metropolises and a certain cultural elitism, in the intercalary France of village halls, rural homes, MJCs and commercial areas.
Deveines and complexes at the edge of the track
You have 82.77% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.