We have been dancing together since 1997. It was during a workshop arranged by the New Swing Generation in Hamburg that we detected our love for swing dancing. From then on half of our lives consists of travelling from class to class, workshop to workshop, swing event to swing event. From Munich to Mainz, Amsterdam to Brussels, London to Scandinavia, Boston, New York, and there of course, Herräng, the one-horse-town near to Stockholm, Sweden, is the place we love as it is the place where once a year the swing era comes into being and swingsters, Boogie Woogie people from all over the world and trainers such as e.g. Frankie Manning, Chazz Young, Steven Mitchell & Virginie Jensen, Ryan François & Jenny Thomas, Chester Whitmore, Rob & Diane van Haaren, Angela Andrews, Peter Loggins, Rusty Frank gather for a 4-weeks swingsperience©. Herräng´s inhabitants got used to Frankie chequing in the supermarket or Norma Miller ordering a Coke at the ” snake bar” and to people in weird training clothes, singing, tapping and dancing in the streets. What ´s normal anyhow?! Many summers we had the chance to experience this swinging melting pot of music, nationalities and dance.
Our aim in our classes and workshops is to let people participate in this wonderful atmosphere and to share our joy with them. We teach Lindy Hop (Savoy style), Charleston, Balboa, Shag and linedances in courses, workshops and private lessons. After several lindy classes at VHS Aachen and a 4 years regular class at La Danza, Cologne we held various workshops at different institutions. 2001 we choreographed a lindy hop scene for the comedy “Internet Romanze” by Hindi Brooks at Grenzlandtheater Aachen and particpated in the movie “Barfuss” in 2005. Something you shouldn´t miss is the regular swingtime party, the opportunity for everybody into Lindy Hop, Swing, Boogie, Jitterbug, Charleston, to dance and of course, listen to Jazz music or enjoy loungin. Well, the local TV (WDR) found out about our Lindy Hop acitivities and made a feature about us. To cut a long story short, it´s no use to theoretically describe Lindy Hop, you have to experience it yourselves. It´s impossible to fence it in words, in rules, in counts, just as Dawn Hampton, famous jazz singer, bandleader and cousin of Lionel Hampton always likes to say, ” Don´t count, feel! The only count I know, is Count Basie!”