Finally -- if you've been to France lately -- and noticed young people flailing their arms wildly -- don't worry.
They were just dancing Techtonik.
The World's Gerry Hadden describes the latest dance craze from Paris.
The last time the French came up with a dance this popular was the 19th century
Then it was the can-can.
Now it's Tecktonic. No more women in frilly petticoats. This is young people swinging and spinning their arms around their heads as fast as they can. To a relentless beat.
BAROUZDINE: "Because the movement is very fast, goes very fast. You use more your arms than your legs. Your legs are just there to stabilize. Everything is coming from the upper body."
Alexandre Barouzdine is Tecktonic's creator. The 32 year old Parisian developed and honed his Tecktonic dance style in nightclubs about 8 years ago. Today he runs a growing Tecktonic franchise from his headquarters downtown. HQ is a barbershop. A Tecktonic barbershop.
A 19 year old who gives his name only as "Dadou" is here getting his haircut, Tecktonic style. When he leaves he'll be sporting an Iraquoi...a sort of gelled up Mohawk with the hair left long in the back.
Dadou says, Tecktonic is a dance. But you also have a certain style of dressing, a way of wearing your hair. It's a passion. It helps me blow off a lot of steam. And all without drinking or drugs he says. Because Tecktonic parties are strictly drug free. Barouzdine says Tecktonic's clean image was a struggle to establish...in part because Paris nightclubs were awash in illegal drugs.
BAROUZDINE: "Ecstacy was major problem for us at beginning. That's why it was hard. When the owner tried to clean club of drugs we had a drop of turnover around 50 to 60 percent.... But in end we were happy to have a clean club where people were coming to have just fun and dancing and meeting each other."
To keep others from throwing Tecktonic parties, Barouzdine actually copyrighted the name early on. And now he's turned Tecktonic into a brand.... with its own line of merchandise.
Across town at the offices of TF1, France's most popular private TV station, marketing director Guillaume Lascoux sifts through a pile of Tecktonic products. Day-glo T-shirts, hats, sweatpants, an energy drink...even a Nintendo game.
LASCOUX: "If you are in the Tecktonic movement you won't be seen as a bad boy or a rebel. It is just like a hobby. Some play tennis, football. Tecktonic is the same. It could be seen as a mixture between culture and sports."
Yet some in France have turned sour on Tecktonic and Barouzdine. They say copyrighting - then commercializing - a cultural trend is in bad taste.
These dancers are dancing what they call Milky Way. To the untrained eye their dance looks just like Tecktonic. And that's their point. This video was filmed in a square right next to Tecktonic headquarters. It's one of many online challenges to what some consider Tecktonic's cultural hegemony. Barouzdine just shrugs them off.
BAROUZDINE: "I would say most of the critics coming from France. In rest of the world none. I guess it is part of the French culture I guess we are very famous for that."
Barouzdine isn't overly worried about home town criticism...in part because he's busy taking Tecktonik abroad. It's already big in former French colonies in Africa and the Caribbean... and in Japan. His next conquest...the U.S. Barouzdine says his website is getting thousands of hits from Americans each day. And he's in talks with Janet Jackson and Moby about working together on some projects.
