In that time, life used to dance !

“With a single shot and a simple intuition, Jean-Marie Périer has fixed the dream forever…”
Patrick Modiano

Jean-Marie Périer tells about this “simple intuition” by immersing himself in his memories. By chance (or was it his destiny?), he was given the opportunity by Daniel Filipacchi to take pictures of the happy times in which records and transistors entered the teenagers’ bedrooms.
His photographs were funny and his friends happy-go-lucky. Their names were Johnny Halliday, Sylvie Vartan, Eddy Mitchell, Claude François, Jacques Dutronc or Sheila. And the short-haired Beatles and long-haired Rolling Stones were among them too… Some events he pictured stood out in French history, such as the famous “Nuit de la Nation” on June 22nd 1963, the celebration of Salut les Copains Magazine’s first birthday. When 30.000 people, at the very most, were expected to come, 200.000 attended the show! The morning after, newspaper Paris-Presse ran as a headline “Salut les voyous”.

What is just a passing fancy? Certainly not, for Jean-Marie Périer generously witnessed the beginning of a period that is still perpetuating. Indeed, Johnny Halliday, Sylvie Vartan and Edie Mitchell still pack the house and our memories like wandering through this everlasting past in which rock’n’roll has supplanted tango.

Jean-Marie Périer, with a characteristic tender and desabused cheerfulness, brings this period back for us. Let’s walk with him through the Sixties… In that time, life used to dance!