Burgundian Wave

After last week’s blog, I have had a number of questions about the caption to the photo of Cees. What is the Burgundian wave and why did you take a photo of Cees not quite doing it?

Well the Burgundian wave (Ban bourguignon in French) is done as a sign of appreciation during most, if not all, events round here. For example “let’s do a Burgundian wave for the organisers” - everyone stands up and we do it. “Let’s do a Burgundian wave for the caterers” - so we all stand up and do it again. “Let’s do the Burgundian wave for… well who the heck cares let’s do it anyway” - so we all stand up and do it yet again. It is probably one of the silliest things I have been talked into joining in with in my life, but it is great fun.

So what is it? First a bit of history. Legend has it that it originated in a café called Le Marais in Dijon in about 1900 and whilst it fell out of fashion during the war, it re-emerged with greater strength all around the region in about 1945. It is described as a song/action which consists of 5 notes, 2 onomatopoeias and 9 hand claps. It involves raising your hands to either side of your head and wiggling them back and forth whilst singing the song to a cute little tune, then you have to clap nine time in groups of three claps, wave again, clap again and at the end of our the local version, you raise your right hand and shout “hoy”.

I managed to find a website which actually gives the lyrics, so you can study these and learn them to join in with the video.

La la la la lalalalalère
Lalala Lalala lalala lalalala
La la la la lalalalalère
Lalala Lalala lalala

So altogether now….. just click and join in the fun…



Back to Cees’ photo last week. Cees is not a great one for things like this and so he manages to get away with not joining in most times, but last Sunday he did. I just missed him wiggling his hands, he’d already moved on to the clap, but it was an event worth recording for posterity. I hope you agree.