Lecture online – Dance Traditions from France (in English)

Circle dances and branles from centuries past; dances in lines and squares that trickled down to French villages from the contredanses of the Parisian court; 19th century couple dances with the radical idea that you can dance face to face with your partner…

These traditions of music and dance were once a part of everyday lives in rural France. People in each region had their own ways of dancing and their own music for the dance, reflecting the great variety of local cultures found across the country. As France modernized, though, these traditions started to disappear. Tastes in music and dance changed, bagpipers and hurdy-gurdy players put away their instruments, and village dances became mostly a memory. But the 1970s brought a revival of interest in France’s many regional cultures, and now people all over the country are playing the old music and dancing the old dances, with both an…