Why Do the French Still Dance Le Swing?

LONDON, Aug. 29, 2008 — -- As I was about to travel to Brittany in France for a wedding recently, I realized in a panic that I had to brush up on my rock 'n' roll swing dancing skills -- as no French wedding is complete without dancing "le rock."

I told my British and American colleagues who said, to my astonishment, that the rest of the world had pretty much given up swing and "boogie-woogie" dancing a few decades ago.

So as I was skimming through the green pastures of Brittany aboard the Train a Grande Vitesse, or Very Fast Train, I set out to find out why the French have kept the swing dancing tradition alive to this day.

And after dancing "le rock" at the wedding to some appalling 1980s tunes for an entire night (check out my video to see what it looks like), a few glasses of Champagne under my belt, and later having spoken with a few experts -- sober this time -- I think I have unraveled the mystery of the love story between the French and rock 'n' roll swing dancing.

Swing dancing -- known in France as rock 'n' roll, or simply "le rock" -- is incurably old-school, and that's exactly why the French love it.

This love story goes way back, according to Aix en Provence-based dance professor Vincent Ravigneaux.

As American GIs came and liberated France from Nazi occupation at the end of World War II, they brought along a few cultural golden nuggets that included chewing gum and, of course, boogie dancing.

At the time, legendary American dancer Frankie Manning was shaking America's dance floors and hearts with his Lindy Hop dance -- the ancestor of rock 'n' roll dancing. Manning is now 94, and he still dances.

The French youth embraced Manning's moves immediately.

In the blink of an eye, the good old French music hall artists Edith Piaf and Charles Trenet became has-beens, and trendy French youth began to dance the Lindy Hop in the caverns of the hip St. Germain district of Paris.

Shortly after, when rock 'n' roll was officially invented by Chuck Berry and Elvis and the like, the French kept dancing boogie-woogie and Lindy Hop, but they started to call it "le rock."

"The cultural impact of Elvis Presley and rock 'n' roll on the French was huge," Ravigneaux told ABCNews.com.

"In the 1960s, the French used to dance le rock, not only in clubs, but also at village dancehalls and guinguettes," he said, referring to balls often held on riverbanks in which accordions are a must.