Dancing Sport

It was my dream sport, an activity I could do all my life without getting bored. As I didn’t find an equivalent to it in Paris, I decided to start it in September 2015.

For 2 years, I danced and made people dance, those who joined the Dancing Sport, at Espace Jemmapes on Friday evenings, from 7:30 to 8:30. The manager of the place, Eric Fusberg, welcomed me with open arms; since he had been thinking about this activity for a long time, he was expecting me.

The video of the Dancing Sport was made long before the first session, in anticipation to the project. I always used it as an ad.

The session would begin with a 10-minute warm-up, with many moves coming from my 10 years of judo practice (when I was 8 to 18 years old). After these first moves, we all were ready to dance like crazy. I prepared a 36-minute mixtape, each time different. The rhythm grew faster and faster during the first 4 tracks, then a calmer song would slower the body before going crescendo until the 12th or 13th track. I often played a joke song such as Benny Hill’s race; it was my favorite (and it was quite efficient, actually).

I think that I spent a whole year finding the 400 super-dancing songs (on CDs) in the city media-libraries. It took me even 5 times longer to create the mixes than to dance on all of them. The 1st year, I chose « One Step Beyond » by the Madness to open the sessions. The second year, I chose Stromae’s « Alors on danse ». The first year James Brown’s « I feel good » was the signal for the penultimate song (then you had to give it all!). The second year it was « Think » by the Blues Brothers. I chose hits, songs everyone knew (almost everyone), to be sure it would make people dance during the short sessions. When the mixtape was really good, the dancers would applaud at the end.

Then would come 8-minute long stretching exercises. We went out of the room with red faces and drenched t-shirts. Often, I would go working in a bar afterwards. With sheets of paper, a pen and a glass of red wine on my table, I would think fast, tired in a good way and my brains were oxygenated.

At least 80 people took part to one of the 71 Dancing-Sport sessions. (There was this « Kids friendly » session at Le Regard du Cygne studio where over 30 people joined). But after two years, I didn’t want to book all my Friday evenings. Also, in spite of my efforts to promote it, people didn’t sleep in tents in front of Le Centre Jemmapes to register at dawn on the second year. I still don’t understand why I didn’t meet more people who were interested by this cathartic and energetic activity. I then stopped. I decided I had enough.

There was this ultimate session, on November 9th, 2018 at Le Théâtre de Verre. It was supposed to be the first one of a monthly gathering. This was the session that opened my eyes on the incompatibility between this activity and the weakness of my back. I didn’t want to see the Dancing-Sport as the cause for my back pain, I didn’t want to stop dancing, and yet I was transformed several times into an old rusty grandma.

The final end of the Dancing-Sport was then announced on its Facebook page, that witnessed this adventure from its beginning to its end.