France in resistance, episode 3: singing and dancing in hiding?

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France in resistance episode 3 singing and dancing in hiding

In France occupied by the Germans, young people defy all prohibitions to find themselves in clandestine balls. In the Vercors, Brittany or Champigny-sur-Marne, girls and boys meet in the fields, in the courtyards, in the barns or the back rooms of cafes to dance and sing to the sound of music. ‘accordion. Appointments to meet up between girls and boys for a waltz or a kiss, and leave at full speed because it’s curfew time!

But why were balls banned while dance halls remained open in Paris? What do these authorizations and prohibitions tell us about collaboration and the Vichy regime? What ideology does Marshal Pétain, head of the French state, defend in a France that has not been republican since July 1940? And what interest represented the clandestine balls for the resistants?

With the participation of ethnologist Jean-Paul Le Maguet, Raphaël Chotard, singer accordionist and Manuel Mingot Nicaise, archivist at the National Resistance Museum in Champigny-sur-Marne. And the analyzes of the historian Laurent Douzou, co-author of the Clandestine Fight in France, published by Seuil.

To discover :

National Resistance Museum To Champigny sur Marne

Thanks to the historian Alain Quillévéré, associate researcher at the Center d’Histoire Sociale des Mondes Contemporains (CHS), for his invaluable help and his research on clandestine balls.

Thanks :

– Pascal Lamigemusician, for the testimonies of dancers and musicians in clandestine balls during the Second World War, recorded between 2009 and 2010 as part of his show “ Rave Musette » : Lucienne Pelissardfrom Saint-Andéol, Odette Mouthde la Mure, Paul Borelfrom La-Chapelle-en-Vercors, Camille Archinardfrom Pont-en-Royan, John Vellerde la Mure.

– The Museums Center of the city of Tulle and the “People and Culture” association, for the recordings made as part of the exhibition “Shared memories, for a history of clandestine balls in Corrèze during the Occupation”, which is is held to Tulle in 2016. Jeanine Picarddaughter of accordionist Ricou Valade, deported on June 9, 1944 on the day of the Tulle massacre.

– Lisa Le Maguetdirector of the film Clandestine balls. Interview with Maurice Renaudat filmed in 2018 at the Museum of the Resistance and the Deportation of Cher in Bourges. Produced for the traveling temporary exhibition “You won’t go dancing anymore!” Clandestine balls 1939-1945”.

– Courtesy of Tetra Media Fiction for the distribution of the extract from ” A French village (season 3, episode 6 “The Blue Java”).

In images, in pictures :





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