"it's good to see happy old people": at the Seine Dock Musette Ball

Leur été s’étire d’avril à novembre. Depuis qu’ils ont trouvé leur repaire en extérieur au bon goût de souvenir des bals populaires, et où les visages sont démasqués depuis peu, il n’est pas question pour eux d’en perdre une miette. Ils ne disent plus leur âge, ou bien en sont fiers. Demain demeure la seule inconnue de ces anciens épris de liberté, bien décidés à embrasser le plaisir pur de chaque jour qui point.

La danse au corps, chaque samedi et chaque dimanche de leur été à rallonge, peu importe la couleur du ciel, ils se retrouvent sur le quai Saint-Bernard, en bord de Seine, dans le 5^e arrondissement de Paris. Ici, ils disent habiter une vie qui leur correspond à nouveau, le temps d’une parenthèse enchantée. De 14 heures à 20 heures, côté jardin Tino-Rossi, au creux du petit amphithéâtre en plein air de l’alvéole dite « numéro 3 ».

On the floor of smooth slabs, which makes pivots, pirouettes and floats easy as on a dancing parquet, takes place the popular Rock and Musette Ball, which brings together again and on average 200 dancers and spectators. They're old people dancing resistance.

"in our time, we danced all the time in Paris, we went to the Moulin de la Galette on rue Lepic, we went everywhere, the city was happier. At the age of 80, Roland, "from the rock family", came here to look for "post-war nostalgia". "during the 'thirty glorious', we had the right to live the best. We didn't have the pain of finding a job, we didn't have a mobile phone, we were freer to really live right now, sort of. We were doing our job-it was serious, it wasn't funny, but then we were going to have fun at the ball. Living in Gournay-sur-Marne, if you have to go 20 kilometres or even 50 kilometres to dance, Roland doesn't care, "I go where it dances", says this "dance addict" for more than sixty years, who refuses to stay in front of his TV, "where you age three times faster".

Winged shoes

They wear sandals, escarpines, sometimes with high heels, barefeet, dance slippers, little ballerinas. They are in moccasins, boat shoes, in comfort sneakers with air bubbles. Their shoes all seem to be winged. Their steps have been mastered for so many years that some abandon themselves to close their eyes, others to look at the sky and sweep the Seine with their eyes, or to speak, to speak, without stopping dancing or laughing.

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