Comments on: Dance scene from Band of Outsiders

By: Yann

Yann — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:25:30 +0000

During the 1960’s there was many differences between an original american or english dance and the interpretation of continental Europe. When chubby Checker came to Paris, with the title of the Inventor of the Twist, the french youth disliked coz’ he doesn’t dance properly the twist. The dance of the Godard movie IS a madison… in french acception.

By: John Hopper

John Hopper — Mon, 25 May 2009 20:06:09 +0000

A nice slab of French cinema. I think I too will go out and get hold of a Godard movie, or maybe I’ll just sigh a lot and stare out of a cafe window.

By: iinekore

iinekore — Sun, 24 May 2009 03:42:41 +0000

that is so great. it would have been wonderful to see this at that art event:)
i now want to go down to video ezy and rent that film.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Sun, 24 May 2009 00:41:24 +0000

That’s interesting! It seems that everyone refers to this dance as The Madison, but I just looked up the Madison on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_(dance) and it says this:
“In a famous sequence in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1964 film Bande à part (Band of Outsiders), the main characters engage in a dance, which is not named in the film, but which the actors later referred to as the ‘Madison dance’.[8] The music and choreography are, however, unrelated to the Madison.”
Whatever it’s called, I like it. I looked up the other dance you mentioned, and is this it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubpEe0HIoZY
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpwG0GTketI

By: Eva

Eva — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:41:58 +0000

This is what I learnt as Madison at that time. It did not stay in fashion long enough to let us dance properly. It was followed by another — was it “Letkis”, the rather stupid version of a Finnish folk dance named “letka jenka”? Look out for that if you work for the Ministry of Silly Dances.