(Teck) Tonic Youth

Last summer Yoann, my super-hip 17 year old French nephew was dismayed to hear that I had never heard of Tecktonik, the new-ish dance craze apparently sweeping my native France, with the heart of the movement in the capital Paris where impromptu dance-offs are taking place everywhere from La Defense to the Tour Eiffel… Some call-it a hip-hop & techno inspired mash-up style - it looks mostly like accelerated "voguing" by glam-rock & punkish looking youths, from where I'm standing.

Yoann proceeded to educate me on the origins of the movement: the legend says it was created by a bunch of bored kids who started to come up with new dance moves in a suburban nightclub called the Metropolis - and let me take a moment here to explain how surprising this sounds, considering back in my day, the Metropolis was one of those dreadful venues where you'd usually end up if a/ you'd missed the last metro into town and were therefore condemned to an evening with all the losers that hang on the edges of the city - b/ you were underage, and / or had been turned down by absolutely every other club - c/ you'd been dragged there against your better judgement by a bunch of your girlfriends who got you drunk on rum in order to render you less hostile, and been sentenced to an evening surrounded by the strangest mix of spotty youngsters and questionable looking older men in shiny polyester suits. But I digress. The reality is more likely to have something to do with the two boy-geniuses credited with launching the movement (and making a mint from it all), through their club night and subsequent clothing line called TCK - nowadays other specialist shops have opened their doors to the 15-25 year old fans of the craze who can live, breathe, have their hair done and get all their kicks in a strictly Tecktonik fashion.

As far as I can gather, public opinion is evenly divided on tecktonik between those who see this as a laughable no-future fashion glitch for a mostly young, white, suburban middle class crowd (despite the fact that the trend has existed for several years now, and managed to spread from the Parisian burbs all the way to Belgium, Germany and Northern Italy, largely thanks to YouTube) and those who applaud the good-natured enthusiasm of its followers. Personally, seeing these young boys and girls with their brightly coloured skinny jeans, spiky belts and ironic haircuts rehearsing their moves in the R.E.R made me laugh more than anything else - ok, mostly with them, but still sometimes at them. The music may be dreadful and the dancing itself may leave some feeling dubious, but I do like the fact that the "teams" - as they are known - take over the streets of Paris on a whim, and manage to remain optimistic in a nation known for being so critical and for not necessarily encouraging individual expression. You may get away with wearing a mullet in London, but in Paris let me tell you, it's an actual act of courage to go out dressed as these kids do. It's also interesting that their introduction to dance music and club culture is strictly innocent (and rather athletic) - quite a change from the drug-fuelled early 90's rave scene from whence techno & dance music once took off. So I am poised and ready to see what the future holds for Techtonik and its addicts - last I saw, it was being embraced by the mainstream French media and pop song routines were being choreographed to include the brand new moves. So here we go. In Eastern Europe in the meantime, there's always the "jumpstyle" craze…