#guinguettes

[netlex]

Marcel Bovis : Guinguettes on the Seine 1935

[retrogeographie]

Joinville-le-Pont.

[sogladiatorpenguin]

"Les guinguettes": exercice de compréhension orale (FLE)

"Les guinguettes" : exercice de compréhension orale (#FLE) #Français #PimpYourFrench

Vous ne connaissez pas Karambolage? Qu’à cela ne tienne : ce programme hebdomadaire de la chaîne franco-allemande ARTE explore des thèmes qui rapprochent ou séparent les cultures allemande et française. Les vidéos sont courtes, suivent des thèmes (objets, traditions,le rite, l’expression…) et sont accessibles à des niveaux B1-B2.

You are learning French but you never came accross the TV series…

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[maisonlosseau-blog]

Le magnifique jardin imaginé Léon Losseau et dessiné par Jules Buyssens (inspecteur des Palntations et Jardins de la Ville de Bruxelles), est en pleine restauration. Les travaux sont menés par le Service des plantations de la Province de Hainaut. Le jardin pourra bientôt accueillir les prochaines Guinguettes qui se dérouleront tous les week-ends durant l'été à la Maison Losseau. #visitmons #artnouveau #maisonlosseau #hainaut #hainauttourisme #visithainaut #guinguettes (à La Maison Losseau)

[newstfionline]

French travel back to simpler time

By Devorah Lauter, Los Angeles Times, June 28, 2011 Champigny-sur-Marne, France--A few feet from an overgrown path that hugs the banks of the still, green Marne River, two fishermen doze in a small wooden boat under the buzzing wings of insects. Awakened on a humid late afternoon, they raise a beer and shout, "Bonjour!"

A little farther on, the riverside path winds toward a tiny island covered with trees, and the muffled sound of music.

The trees break for a clearing, revealing a terrace set with red-and-white checkered tablecloths on picnic tables under wisteria-covered trellises. Two musicians play old French tunes on an accordion and guitar. Strings of colorful lights and paper lanterns glow against a darkening sky as guests arrive.

Cross a pale blue metal bridge and enter the past. The Ile du Martin-Pecheur guinguette brings to life the old open-air dance halls that thrived on the rivers around Paris in the early part of the 20th century. Now guinguettes are finding new fans in a fast-paced modern world.

This is a place that feels far removed from the capital, where people come to feast on fried fish and wine, and dance in the middle of the day to songs their grandparents knew by heart.

"We're looking for authentic things, simple things, that give us a real break from the weekday stress at work," Nathalie Cicolella, 47, said as she leaned over a table where she sat with two friends who at the Martin-Pecheur, a 20-minute train ride from central Paris in Champigny-sur-Marne. "This is our patrimony, our French heritage, and it's still here. You can't get more French than this."

In their heyday, hundreds of guinguettes (gan-GET-ts) were perched along the banks of the slow rivers that loop through the Parisian countryside (where owners avoided town taxes).

During a roughly 100-year span encompassing the belle epoque and the first half of the 20th century, they were magnets for young, working-class people who were drawn by the low prices, fresh air, cheery accordion music and hourglass-shaped women flirting in their Sunday best.

"At the time, Paris was dirty, and stifling," said Jean-Yves Dupin, 58, manager of the Martin-Pecheur. "People escaped Paris on the train from the Bastille to the banks of the Marne, which was called the Train de l'Amour."

But by World War II, most guinguettes, with their accordion-animated balls and checkered tablecloths, had disappeared. Parisians took fewer train trips on weekends, preferring to drive farther away. Industrial and urban development invaded much of the Seine River, where grassy banks morphed into concrete platforms and pollution discouraged bathing. A younger rock 'n' roll generation shrugged at their parents' taste in music.

Still, guinguettes never became extinct, experiencing a revival in the early 1990s among aficionados--many of them nostalgic retirees, but some of them also young romantics--hoping to bring back something that had been lost.

Dalmia Lamouri, 50, doesn't know the traditional guinguette dances but likes to come watch the couples at Chez Fifi.

"I like the working-class side of it. The way people relax and enjoy. Cheap eats, fried fish. The guinguette was the poor man's ball," she said. Her family didn't introduce her to the French tradition--"They all speak Arabic," she says--but she got interested through friends and keeps coming back.

One reason young adults are a minority at guinguettes is that it's less common for them to learn the traditional dance steps. Guinguette balls with accordion music, and the waltz musette, a faster, body-hugging version of the waltz, are played on weekend days, and sometimes nights. Dances include favorites like the Charleston, tango, cha-cha and rumba.

On weekend nights a lot of guinguettes also have rock bands and other entertainment more in tune with current trends. Salsa dancing on Saturday nights is one of the attempts to attract a larger range of customers to Martin-Pecheur.

"Until now guinguettes were corny, aging, but for the last 10 years there's been an increasing interest among youth," said Christine de Klerk, 44, who organizes events for a guinguette association.