France’s Tecktonik dance craze

Students participate in a Tecktonik class at a Paris health club. Tecktonik began about eight years ago at Metropolis, a suburban nightclub near Paris’ Orly Airport.  (Richard L. Harbus Rapport / For The Times)

Parisian Christophe Wydra, 13, in the white shirt, at a Tecktonik class. Tecktonik’s biggest critics think it’s a fad that has been commercialized to death or at best is a derivative art form invented to sell clothes to poor kids and exploit their need to feel cool.  (Richard L. Harbus Rapport / For The Times)

Treaxy leads a Tecktonik class. A 34-year-old philosopher who has studied subcultures thinks Tecktonik is a reflection of a more conservative France of recent years, and of a narcissism in the culture that “inspires young people to make videos alone in a garage.”  (Richard L. Harbus Rapport / For The Times)

Cyril Blanc, one of the dancers to invented the label Tecktonik, acts as a DJ at a class on this hot new form of dancing that has taken over the French party scene and dance clubs.  (Richard L. Harbus Rapport / For The Times)