The Grand Ball of Europe

Le Grand Bal de l’Europe, the Grand Ball of Europe commonly known as “Gennetines,” is a folk dance festival held each summer at a farm outside of Moulins, France, about a 2 ½ hour train ride south of Paris. It features traditional dance forms, known as balfolk, from various regions of France and Europe, plus a variety of other styles of music and dance.

I had heard great things about the festival from a couple of well-traveled dance friends and, realizing that its dates coincided with the dates my daughter would be at sleepaway camp, decided to go for it! My partner and I planned to be there for eight full days of the two-week-long festival. We had only our medium-sized backpacking packs with us, containing just the essentials: tents, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, dance clothes, travel laundry soap and towel, dance shoes, toiletries, and a rain jacket. (I decided not to bring my backpacking camp stove when I found out that there would be tea and hot water available—otherwise, I would have had to look into where to purchase camp fuel in Paris upon our arrival.)

With few other lodging options nearby, Gennetines is mainly a camping festival. When we arrived on the fifth day, it was raining and difficult to find a spot for our tents that was not pressed in on all sides by other tents. The combination of space and proximity to the bathroom seemed nonexistent, but we settled on a thin grassy strip to the side of some RV parking that was still about a quarter-mile walk to the bathroom and washing area where people brushed teeth and washed their faces, dishes and clothes.

There were around 3,000 attending the festival this year, yet somehow the environment remained calm. The people around us were very pleasant and fairly welcoming to us as newcomers, and I felt there was a lovely community spirit. The air was fresh and the sky and fields scenic. We had sheep grazing just across the fence from our tents.

Most of the attendees were French, so almost everything was in French, but there was also a presence of Germans, and later in the week, I heard voices speaking Spanish and Italian. I also met a couple of lone Americans and Brits. I loved bathing in the melodious French language during the workshops, though some minimal translation was offered in a couple of workshops I attended where there were non-French speakers present. Since my French is good, and maybe partly due to my appearance, I enjoyed and got a secret thrill from the fact that people who I met and danced with were surprised to learn I was American—several of them telling me they’d guessed I was perhaps Belgian.

The dance was run in a streamlined way, taking into account waste and care for the environment. To get inside the workshop and dance area, you needed a special armband, which was cut and replaced each morning. And to purchase food or drinks inside the festival area, you did not use cash, but meal and drink tickets, which had to be purchased at a booth outside. So, no worry about carrying or handling cash amid the crowds. At the cafeteria, there was no disposable dishwear or napkins, and after eating, you had to scrape and also pre-wash your own dishes and tray using a scrub brush, then wipe your tray dry with a hanging towel before returning it to the cafeteria, where it would be used again for the next meal. Unless you brought your own, there were no napkins, and no plastic water bottles—everyone filled up their own bottles from the faucets where they also brushed teeth and washed clothes. These actions, though work, all felt very natural and satisfying.

In addition to witnessing care for the Earth, I also felt cared for as a human body at Gennetines—the body, of course, being the vehicle through which we all experienced the joyous dances and tunes. The food was a lovely and major part of this, and something that was especially important to me after a recent cancer diagnosis. For a reasonable cost, you could go the the cafeteria with a meal ticket and get your choice of a combination (on a points system) of an entrée salad, including lentil and quinoa options most days, baguette, vegetables, a fish or meat, a starchy main, and the option of fruit, dessert, cheese, and fruit-flavored or plain yogurt with no added sugar. If you preferred to purchase or prepare your own meals, there were various stalls set up outside the festival entrance featuring tasty, local, fresh, options: organic fruits and vegetables, including local fresh figs, kidney bean salads, tofu in herbs, quinoa/sesame crackers, and sparkling unsweetened ginger and iced tea drinks, in flavors like pineapple lemon ginger, peach sencha, and raspberry matcha. There were also bakery goods including whole wheat, buckwheat, flax and gluten free breads, and pastries with little sugar and made from whole grains at least in part. I remember looking up the word sarasin, buckwheat, and feeling a thrill, as if this small, dark, gluten-free loaf marked as being made from rice and buckwheat had been created especially for me!

My body also felt nourished thanks to qigong and tai chi workshops that were interspersed amid the dancing. It was so calming and healing to focus on the body, especially with the extra strain from sleeping on the ground and doing a lot of unfamiliar dance, plus the habituation/acclimatization our bodies had to do to adjust to the new time zone and environment. I had done some tai chi previously, but had never done qigong, and I found that I really loved it. One of the concepts the teacher emphasized that stood out to me was intimité avec soi, intimacy with oneself. Yes, really connecting with the body, being one with it is important to me, and is also the first step to being able to connect well with another.

There was no cell reception in general across the festival grounds, so I left my phone off the whole time and it was refreshing that folks were not glued to their devices; I barely saw phones except for some people recording videos of model dances during the workshops. (There was no electricity available save for a single outlet in the restrooms reserved for razors, and there was a phone charging station but you had to pay minimally in tickets to use it.)

At one of the central tents there was a whole wall dedicated to bulletin boards, where people could post messages to one another, like looking for ride shares to Paris, or in the direction of Germany, on such and such a date. Also missed encounters, suggestions and comments, poetry, and sondage—a poll: Is the music too loud? The weather forecast was posted on another board, with the daily schedule. One person left shoes for sale, on the honor system. The physicality of the writing and reading information at a centralized location seemed wholesome, so refreshing in contrast to everything in our outside lives being individual and isolated on our own phones and other devices.

I was trying to think how the Grand Bal differed from an American festival, and all I could name was that it seemed more relaxed, maybe more streamlined, with less waste, less angst, and possibly more openness and friendliness. It felt healthier, with no french fries or other junk food around (except for ice cream you could buy with drink tickets). Instead of lemonade or soda and beer, some people purchased bottles of wine, also with drink tickets, and had that with their dinner. Eating was outside—on the lawn, or at tables with white plastic chairs. When it rained, people crowded under the tents, whose sides were open air but could be folded down if needed. My partner and I had dinners on the lawn serenaded by lovely live classical guitar music.

The attendees at Gennetines were more casual than dancers at American festivals, in that, for instance, many of them didn’t worry about having specific dance shoes that they changed into on the dance floor—they just wore their regular sandals or light casual sneakers. This gave more of a community, welcoming, anybody-can-do-this feel, rather than a feel of exclusivity. The more laid back feel was heightened for us by the fact that no one was wearing masks or seemed to be concerned about COVID—an attitude that was different for us, and slightly concerning, but that felt certainly refreshing after years of it being such a concern and often making dance gatherings impossible.

During down time, when there were no workshops, you could hear musicians practicing in small groups or on their own on the lawn amid the tents and buildings. A couple of instruments that stood out there were the accordion and the hurdy-gurdy, also a quieter type of bagpipe. Unfortunately, my tent was not in a shaded area and was much too hot of a place to hang out during the day. If I needed to rest, I had to head to the side of one of the big lawns or to the petit bois or “little woods,” a small wooded area that was a favorite for napping and quiet conversations.

The cost of the festival was only 21 Euros per day—much less expensive than festivals I’m familiar with in the States. Yet, I was surprised to see very few children there, with a whole age segment of folks around my age, who might have had such children, kind of missing. There were plenty of older (child-flown?) and younger (childless?) folks, though. Perhaps because there are no organized activities for kids, and no childcare for them? It did lend to perhaps a calmer and more dance- and music-focused atmosphere.

What was the dancing like, you ask? One evening, when we first arrived, there was a band playing a mix of Breton music and hiphop, which was amazing to experience. The Cajun music I heard and danced to was also great, and I really felt the Louisiana party spirit, especially when they taught the “Zydeco cha cha” and it emerged again during a nighttime dance. There was even contra dancing! It seemed different than contra in the States, but it was definitely recognizable as such (though of course the calling was in French). A highlight for the musicians seemed to be the boeufs —literally, “beefs,” which were jam sessions that they participated in until the wee hours, even 4 or 5am.

But yes, the dancing at Gennetines could be characterized as mostly balfolk. At family dance camps in the US that my daughter and I had attended, there had been talk, and occasional late-night sessions, of balfolk, of which this festival seemed to be the center. So many different types of dance were present within balfolk, and others outside of that genre, besides. There were usually four or five workshops going on at the same time, and multiple dances occurring simultaneously in the evenings, too. There was Breton dancing, dance from central France and Gascony, also Irish set dancing, English dancing, Israeli and Greek dancing—so many folk dances to try! It was cool to actually do the mixer Chapelloise that I’d done at dance weeks and contra dances, in its native country, with French people. There were also waltzes in different time signatures, which was an interesting challenge.

Besides group dances from various regions of France, the two main partner dances we had to learn to participate well in the nighttime balfolk dances were the “Scottish” (pronounced skoh-TEESH), which I only figured out later was the dance schottische (pronounced SHOT-ish in the US), and the mazurka, which I had seen in the 2018 French documentary film on this festival called the Grand Ball (Le Grand Bal) about this festival, and wondered what it was. In the film, it looked like close partner dancing to a 1-2-3 tempo, so seeming somewhat similar to a waltz, though with a closer hold, and a bit of a hop. One way folks were doing the mazurka at Gennetines seemed more traditional, with more bouncing, while another way was more freeform, with maybe some Latin influence in the style of movement and connection. I was able to follow these two dances okay at the festival, though it was confusing that some people seemed to be doing a definite hop step in the mazurka and others interpreting it much more smoothly.

For a few of the partner balfolk evening dances, there was a standout accordionist by the name No&Mi who mesmerized packed tents of hundreds of people with her solo instrument. Dancing mazurka, waltz, and others to her playing was a very special, almost hypnotic experience. She plays into the pauses and there is a vitality and real understanding of the complexity of feeling and human experience in her music, though I’ve never before been a particular fan of accordion music. After we returned to the States, I saw a video she posted of one of her much-appreciated performances at the festival, and I am actually visible there dancing there near the stage: https://fb.watch/oZuQVabZfY/

My partner in that particular dance was experienced in the mazurka, but it wasn’t a problem for me to be new to it. The community spirit was present in general with people’s tolerance of newcomers, helping them along in unfamiliar dances.

The only dance where that wasn’t the case, in my experience, was the polka, which they called “polska.” On two occasions, I found a partner to dance with who, upon learning that I didn’t know the polka, then declined the dance, explaining that it was too complex for a newcomer to jump into without prior knowledge. I felt slighted at this, but after trying a segment with someone I’d danced with previously who was willing to take me on as a follow, and getting dragged through a few whirling circular figures that were interspersed with the regular step, I saw that yes, it would be pretty hard to do that well without having done it before.

I’d seen in the Le Grand Bal documentary that there was discussion some years ago about women being able to do the lead role and not having it assumed that a woman would be in the follow role. I did appreciate the flexibility and the being asked in several cases which role I’d prefer. As in the video above, I danced with women several times and we did various things in terms of lead and follow, sometimes switching on and off, or other times one of us leading or following the entire dance.

While wandering alone among thousands of people could feel isolating at times, I also noticed that there were so many interesting-seeming people present at the festival with nice, open dispositions. I had good conversations with a young German woman who connected with me about her love of fusion dance, a man from Florida who is an Irish dancer and teaches Gaelic, and a French woman who now lives in St. Lucian in the Caribbean because she loves the water and has nearly sailed solo across the Atlantic. The dance connections I formed with various others were palpable—not much, if any, conversation needed. When you find your connection through the body, through shared interpretation of the music, you know it—and then look eagerly to dance with the same person if you encounter them another evening at another dance.

Forró was a Brazilian partner dance I had never experienced before. Since I had explored zouk and enjoyed it some years back in Asheville, I had a feeling I might like it—and did I ever! Actually, more so than zouk, which I had found to have too much of an imbalance between the lead and follow roles, with all the head whips and body undulations expected of the follow, while the lead remained relatively steady in stance. Forró sessions at the Grand Ball had live music with great rhythm, and the dance was close and sensual like zouk, with heads often leaning on one another while dancing in close embrace. The partner dynamic seemed more balanced, too. Although, I must admit, I often seemed to be doing more of a Latin-fusion-style dance during the night dance sessions than anything they’d taught during the workshops! I wonder why forró seems to be more popular in Europe than in the US.

Two pleasant surprises for me, as someone who tends to enjoy partner dance more than community dance, were the presence of tango and forró daytime workshops and late night dances. I had heard from a fellow dancer in Asheville that the tango can really up your partner dancing skills, as it requires intense focus and connection, and I found this to be the case. What stood out to me in the tango workshops was having to sense what foot your partner is on at all times, and keeping my weight always on one foot or another—not being centered on my two feet almost ever. I had thought I would want to try leading tango, but when I did so, it seemed too difficult, so I ended up following, and that was enough of a challenge. I loved the intensity of the connection and the real attention we both had to pay to the music, and it whetted my interest in pursuing more tango dancing in the US.

My experiences amid all the various forms of dance at the Grand Bal confirmed to me that while I enjoy the community spirit of the collective folk dances, where the focus is on people following the same steps as a group rather than on connection with your particular partner, my heart and passion is in the couple dances—I even stayed up till 2am for the tango and forró dances, when normally my cutoff for things like that is approaching midnight. In many of the other dances, I did experience and appreciate the large-group folk spirit, plus in the folk singing workshops we participated in, singing in Catalan, French, and Breton.

There were just two more days of our scheduled time at the festival before we had planned to take a train back to Paris. But the next morning, after barely surviving the long walk to the bathroom to get water and relieve myself, I returned to our tents and told my partner that I could not spend another day there; I had to leave that morning. We packed up our things and luckily were able to hitch a ride to the train station just with enough time to catch the train going to Paris-Bercy. On the train ride, reunited with phone connectivity, I was able to contact our AirBnB host and arrange to arrive one day early.

We were supposed to stay eight full days at the two-week festival (and yes, this was the only thing we had on our France itinerary! The people I met at Gennetines were surprised to hear this, asking, “You came all the way here just for the festival?”). On the evening of the fifth day, however, I noticed my lymph nodes were swollen. The following day, I did not feel up to participating much in the workshops, and by dinnertime, my body started shaking violently – I started crying with worry and alarm when I noticed that my hand was trembling so wildly that it was difficult for me to use a utensil to get food to my mouth. That night, I had a high fever and more chills and even soaked through my sleeping bag with sweat in the cold night—the top outer surface of the sleeping bag fabric had a wet sheen on it in the morning. The following day I spent laying down on my sleeping mat in various calm grassy spots, my tent being way too hot under the hot sun. My sweetheart brought me food and water. I took the one COVID test I had brought with me, and was relieved to see it came up negative (likely too roasted by the mid-day sun!), but my feverish symptoms and chills continued. The next day, when I was still feeling feverish and spent most of the daytime hours laying on my sleeping mat at the side of a field, I went to ask at the entry booth if they had any paracetamol, the Tylenol equivalent I knew they used in Europe. They didn’t have any to give, nor did they sell any, they told me. They suggested I go to the infirmary, which I did, and there I had a lovely, amusing conversation with two young male nurses who confirmed my high fever (after translating it from Celsius, it was I think 102.3), asked if I wanted to go to town to see a doctor, but told me that no, they couldn’t give me any pain/fever reducer and that no, they didn’t have any COVID tests—that that had been a problem at the festival last year, but not this.

Relieved to have somewhere to rest and stay that was not a tent, we started thinking about the sights we could see the following day in Paris—maybe visit the Louvre? Or the Tuileries Garden? But as it turned out, once the adrenaline of travel wore off, we were so sick we could barely leave our bed. My partner had brought extra COVID tests and we took them. The second line of positivity came up immediately for both of us. We had avoided COVID the entire pandemic in the US, but our one special trip abroad, dancing without masks, got us. Concerningly, it also meant I was going to need to postpone my upcoming surgery – as it turned out, by another two weeks, which was clearly not ideal. But, we got this awesome experience, so I don’t regret going one bit.

If you want to go to the Grand Bal and enjoy it, I’d say you need an appreciation of simplicity, the ability to rough it, a DIY attitude, and a willingness to dive in with the flow. But if you love folk dance and folk music, are blessed with the opportunity to travel, speak French or have the openness to learn a few phrases and sometimes feel like a fish out of water, and can put up with things like little privacy and walking a long way to the bathroom, washing your clothes in the sink, and occasional extremes in shower temperature (frozen to boiling lobster), prepare to have your life enriched by this truly entrancing and life-enhancing gathering.