At 60 years old, she takes over the turntables to bring new atmosphere to the dance floors of southern Sarthe. With the lifting of health restrictions and the return of the party, Katia Daguenet, aka DJ Katia, will find the evenings of the holiday, birthday or wedding committees. An ancient vocation, implemented break for more than 30 years, with which she had reconnected for a few years, but that the Covid-19 had stopped dead. Today, his order book is filling up again. And she hopes to have the field free to continue the family tradition of ambianceurs.
His family has been making the Sarthois dance since the post-war period
From 1945, his grandparents Albert and Marcelle Richard began to make the people of Sarthe dance with Le Châtelet, a “mobile floor” that they moved throughout the department. Then his parents took over in the 1960s with no less than seven floors. Musette, yeyes, disco… The “Richard balls” follow fashions, adapt. So much so that at the end of the 1970s, his father bought a disco-mobile called the Manata: “It was a special metal structure for a discotheque, a traveling disco. We stayed in a town for three months, it was the maximum time. Then we left for another town and so on, all that in the south of Sarthe. ”
Born on a dance floor or almost, Katia naturally takes the turntables of the Manataat the age of 17: “Dad thought I had animation in my skin. So he said to me ‘you try and we’ll see’. It was a little complicated at the start, he scolded me two or three times because it was wrong. I listened to him, I made good sequences… And we walked for seven years together. And it’s true that it worked because there were always people there. I’m glad I did this for my parents.”
Katia cuts the sound… Then puts the sound back on
In 1984, after seven years behind the decks, Katia cuts the sound to start a family and work in the bakery… Until her return to the stage in 2016: “At the request of my children and their friends, for the Bercé association too close to the wall, which was doing an animation in Saint-Pierre du Lorouër, I went back on stage. But at the start, I accepted for a single evening. Except that following that, I had the request to redo animations as a DJ. And I wanted to resume. “
Katia therefore puts the sound back on. With the same equipment as when it started. That of Manata: “I work with my two vintage turntables, which means with the vinyls of the time, I have more than a thousand of them. My speakers too. My mixer, I changed it because it was tired. But I even took my helmet back for nostalgia…” Proud to ensure continuity, in honor of his deceased parents in 2016 and in February of this year, Katia also does not forget to evolve with the times: “I didn’t want to but I had to put myself on the computer too because there are songs that we don’t have on vinyl. And then when there are young people, they want rap , lots of new music… So I listen to all requests, I download songs and I offer the public what they want to hear.”
Ambience the retirement home?
The municipal employee of Courdemanche becomes DJ Katia One week-end out of two only. Because she also wants to keep time for her three grandchildren. A disco granny who has always “20 years in the head” and who does not hesitate to put on the show with the family: “My grandchildren love it when grandma plays disco. That’s it, it’s continuity. I’m so grateful to our parents for giving us a somewhat bohemian childhood, in music, alongside fairgrounds, merry-go-rounds… We keep this spirit a bit.” So how far will she go? “To set limits is to die, I don’t want that. As long as I can do it, I will do it. Even with canes, I will turn on the turntables… To liven up the retirement home! “ And why not the future booms of his grandchildren?