Dreamy Dancing
20 articles
For last year’s women’s rights day, I wrote an article about 6 things I can do daily to defend women’s rights while dancing (french), by making the dancefloor a more respectful and inclusive place for all. This year, I’d like to present a list of initiatives, videos, books, article of […]
It was on july 5th, the preview of Lætitia Carton’s movie Le Grand Bal, in the small Luminor, cosy movie theater in the Marais, historical neighbourhood of Paris. It was followed by an amazing streetball organised by Paris Bal Folk, featuring Aurélien Clarambaux and Tony & The Sof. The screening was sold out, […]
As a woman dancer, following and leading, I have a general opinion regarding the reasons that can drive women into taking the lead. I’ve had my share of looking for partners, waiting, sitting, and even subscribing for waiting lists of festivals or lessons where equal number of leads and follows is […]
If you ever watched the TEDx video of Trevor Copp and Jeff FoxLiquid Lead, at the beginning of the conference they typed ballroom dancing in Google and pointed out the result showed exclusively heterosexual couples, with a strict gender role division. It also appears that some adds for dancing are also far from […]
Since my first excursion in Portugal in 2015 for Forrò de Lisboa and Andancas, I can’t help myself to go back every year to try a new festival. Portugal and especially Lisbon is beautiful, sunny and warm, and they know how to organise simple and joyful events full of friendly people. In […]
In France, in the lost triangle between Grenoble, Gap and Valence there is a little and cute village between mountains and vineyards. The trip isn’t easy to achieve but Châtillon-en-Diois, that small medieval village, is invaded once a year in may by dancers from all Europe. That festival is very […]
For several months now, the video below went viral amongst dancers. The speakers, two professional dancers are explaining a concept existing for decades in social dancing but unusual / partly ignored / rarely put in words before : if you get rid of the gender roles of partner dancing, then […]
The band announced a mazurka. The room is filled with people looking desperately for a partner. “I always dance the first and the last mazurka with my girlfriend / boyfriend” say some people. With years passing, I have the feeling that bal folk’s couple dances, especially mazurka, are transforming under […]
When we talk about dancing, we come up with various subjects like social relations, fun, musicality, pulse, variations, spins, good or bad dancers, connection, leading, following… And from time to time, there is a person saying “dancing changed my way of holding myself and my confidence, made me think about […]
If you want to start something else but you don’t know what, prepare yourself, I have A LOT of ideas. I started to dance 9 years ago and I couldn’t stop. I tried a lot of different dances, as a follower and as a leader, and even now when I […]
There is something truly amazing happening in bal folk dancing for several years now. People going to festivals across Europe, probably noticed the huge numbers of bal folk bands of superb quality. Lately, I felt really amazed by the richness and creativity in bal folk when it comes to music […]
Next october, a new edition of the fantastic bal folk festival Cadansa will take place in Duiven, The Netherlands. A quite big and magical event only Dutch could have invented. These past years, I have attended to several events in The Netherlands, from the regular bal to bal folk and […]
The question always end up when i pronounce the word « tango » in front of uninitiated persons « but why do tango dancers always make such a long face when they dance ? It is not a very friendly scene, isn’t it ? » I thought a lot about […]
As i spend too much time on youtube, i always find some amazing videos of people dancing. I’ll try to explain what captivates me in that video. Let’s talk about one of my favourite tango video. Even if usually, i would prefer improvisation to routines, because it feels more natural and spontaneous, in […]
As i spend too much time on youtube looking for dances videos, i had a period looking for “first dances videos”. After a brave search in my awefully difficult quest of finding beautiful wedding dances, here is an example of 3 dances i find especially sweet and beautiful. I still try […]
August 2015, after a short visit of Lisbon, I am on my way to an amazing dance festival in the mountains : Andancas. In the hotness of Portugal countryside lies a multidanse/multi activities festival lasting a week and full of hippie like people, ready to party. How to go there I […]
I often take days off from work for long weekends. My colleagues are asking “what are you doing for the week end?” and the answer is often “on my way to dance in Belgium / Netherland / Portugal / England / Ireland/ somewhere lost in France”. Quite difficult for some […]