These dance steps will mark the year 2023, some say.
These steps are those of Stéphane Voirin, the companion of Agnès Lassalle, a 53-year-old teacher fatally stabbed by one of her students, in her class at Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin high school in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Wednesday February 22.
This is how the man paid a last tribute to his companion, on the forecourt of the Sainte-Eugénie church in Biarritz, after the burial ceremony on Friday March 3.
Right in front of the coffin, he started dancing alone, carried by the song
Love
, by Nat King Cole.
The man was then joined by multiple duos who danced in turn.
Filmed by the press cameras posted in front of the church, the video was widely shared on social networks and in the media.
Of “grace”, “a moment of humanity”, “a lesson in dignity”… In the press and on the networks, the video struck and moved the greatest number.
Many expressed admiration, praised a moment of life in death, lightness in gravity.
If this homage moves so much, it is because it astonishes, because it surprises.
“Faced with surprise, we react in two different ways, specifies Dominique Picard, psychosociologist (1): either we defend ourselves, or we allow ourselves to be penetrated.
And in this second case, we identify with the people in the process of acting.
At the sight of Stéphane Voirin's posture, his dignity, his loving attitude supported by his kiss placed on the coffin,
the viewer enters into empathy with this man bereaved by the loss of his companion.
He projects himself too.
"During funerals, emotion can arise by identification, the funeral awakens in us the fear of losing someone," adds the psychosociologist.
Say with the body
The dance also makes this tribute quite unique and particularly moving.
Firstly because the movements of Stéphane Voirin's body, aerial, instil joy and sweetness in the context of an extremely violent assassination.
Then because the gesture comes to honor what the deceased was.
Agnès Lassalle and Stéphane Voirin danced, often and for a long time.
“We met on a dance floor in 2010,” he confided on February 25 in an interview with the
Sud-Ouest
newspaper .
“The symbol is strong, comments Dominique Picard, the man dances alone because he has lost his partner, he dances with his image, with his memory, when those who join him all dance as a couple.”
The symbol is strong, the man dances alone because he has lost his partner, he dances with his image, with his memory, when those who join him all dance as a couple
Dominique Picard, psychosociologist
The very art of dance also touches beyond words, according to the psychosociologist.
In this tribute, she says with the music and the body what the speeches - and therefore the language - sometimes say at funerals: death is part of life.
The lyrics of Nat King Cole's song, in French at the funeral of Agnès Lassalle, support Stéphane Voirin's declaration of love to his companion and contribute to the emotion.
"We can for example hear 'I will not leave', which can be understood as 'I will stay with you' or 'you will never be far from me'", suggests Dominique Picard.
Reactions related to our conception of death
If an overwhelming majority of reactions praised the beauty of the form taken by the tribute, some commentators expressed annoyance.
“I find it very strange to dance at a funeral”, “The worst pains are silent.
When we suffer from a death we do not indulge in such fantasies”, can we read on Twitter.
These reactions are linked to our conception of death.
In our culture, it must be sad, serious.
We don't laugh, we don't talk during a funeral, we have to be dignified.
So for some, dancing next to a coffin is incomprehensible.
Even more in a context as dramatic as that of the death of Agnès Lassalle.
There were, however, no smiles on the faces of the dancers during the tribute.
Others - a minority - went so far as to see it as an insult, a lack of respect.
“In all civilizations, respect exists insofar as it manifests itself.
The only way to signify that we respect someone is to show it, and to do this, we use the codes of the culture.
Here, the homage comes out of the codes, and for some, of the respect”, adds Dominique Picard.
For some, it is unthinkable to combine the expression of emotions linked to a joyful moment with a time of homage
Sarah Dumont
In terms of behavior at funerals, a form of standard to which we should conform still weighs heavily, underlines for her part Sarah Dumont, founder of the site
Happy End
, a "companion site to better experience death and mourning", which, more specifically, accompanies in the preparation of his departure, in the organization of his funeral and the experience of his mourning.
“For some, it is therefore unthinkable to combine the expression of emotions linked to a joyful moment with a time of homage, she continues.
Without forgetting the fear of what will be said.
When funeral directors offer funeral planners something off the beaten track, it's very common to be told 'it can't be done', or to wonder what people will think."
But according to Sarah Dumont, judgments don't matter.
“When you are fair, when you respect public order and when the homage correlates with the personality of the deceased, everything is permitted.”
(1) Dominique Picard is a specialist in social relations, author of several books on the subject.