I am looking forward to catching more Tecktonic dancers with funky outfits and Mohawk hairdos on the streets of Lyon, for May Day (International Workers' Day) holidays. Tecktonic is a relatively young street dance, originating in the Parisian suburbs in the 2000's, consisting mostly of arm movement. It's static in the sense that the feet do not move as much as in other forms of dance, yet so hectic that it is difficult to tell what the dancer is actually doing (I realized this when secretly trying to replicate in front of a mirror at home). It's surprising how much our arms can twist and twirl!
Here's the video for A Cause Des Garcons by YELLE with Tecktonic in it (you can download the original version of this song, along with 3 remixes in a zip file, here):
The creators of this dance (two guys are considered as creators because they catalyzed the movement by organizing massive Tecktonic parties, hosting 8000 people at a time) actually copyrighted it and made Tecktonic into a trademark. Tecktonic has "grown" from a street dance to an industry, offering many branded products from t-shirts and backpacks to energy drinks and Play Station games.
However, this witty way of making money has been criticized for robbing the youth of its movement. "When you're young, you dance to tell your parents 'I'm a free man! I've got my sexuality, my desires and they aren't yours!' You dance to express your freedom! But, here, it's not this kind of dance. Because it's a commercial dance. It's a safe dance. No sex, no drugs, no alcohol… It's anti-rock 'n' roll! It's a Sarkozy dance!" - says Vincent Cespedes, a young French philosopher and writer, for BBC News.
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