Herräng 2015

Well... the issue is not where to start but how to finish before it becomes a thesis! I've decided to cheat by splitting my Herräng write-up into a few blog posts because I just don't think anyone has the stamina or desire to read a tome, and I'm certain that a single, short and sweet article just wouldn't do the whole thing justice!

Herräng was incredible. Utterly, utterly incredible.

I am sure people are used to me returning from a weekend workshop or something of that ilk and glowing about it, but Herräng was not just two days of dancing - I was at it for two whole weeks.

And after half a month of Lindy hop, swing and jazz with a sprinkling of slow drag/blues, shag, balboa, tap, street, and myriad other dance styles I'm not quite sure how to contain the hyperbole.

Forgive me if I sound as if I'm the first person to discover some previously unknown oasis - Herräng has been running for 32 years and with close to 5,000 dancers in attendance this year it is patently obvious that there are many others who have been there, done that and blabbed or blogged about it - but this was my first Herräng experience and it's impossible for me to be cool and nonchalant when it felt similar to my first excursion to Walt Disney World.

Arriving at Herräng! It was actually sunny most days - just not this one...

It got off to an interesting start flying out of Belfast when an admin error meant that 84 people attempted to check-in for a flight with only 78 seats. A few were convinced to wait for a later fight (there was no danger I was going to be one of them!) and we got away without too much delay but the knock-on effect meant arriving late in Amsterdam where I was told by an automated kiosk that I had missed my connecting flight.

Thankfully that wasn't actually true - the 'missed flight' notice is apparently just a  cruel prank  standard procedure when there is so little time between connections - but I was advised that if I actually wanted to make my flight I would have to adopt a considerably accelerated attitude to catch it.

I did. And we even arrived in Stockholm early, but then my luggage took an age to come out, leaving me just five minutes to navigate my way across five terminals in a strange airport in the hope of catching my Herräng shuttle - or else I would have to wait another four hours.

I arrived at the meeting point about 10 minutes after my shuttle was scheduled to leave and frantically searched for a waiting vintage horde, or a large sign, only to find nothing. So I made a dash for the coach stops in the hope I might see someone or something I recognised. Again I didn't, but what I did see out of the corner of my eye was a giant dancing banana enticing a merry band of travellers onto a small bus.

It was worth a punt so I legged it in their direction, legs flailing wildly, only to be asked as I approached "Are you Adam?!"

I have to thank Chris Gandhi for stalling the bus just long enough so that I could make it on, and after finding a seat beside the one person I recognised - Lucille Pinteaux, one of the pros from the most recent workshop I attended in Galway - we were off!!

The drive was a straight-forward affair but it allowed us to sample a bit of the bucolic Swedish scenery and eased us out of civilisation and into the beautiful bubble that is Herräng.

Woodside on the left, Folkets Hus on the right. Rather handy!

I checked into the camp and then moved into my home for the next two weeks at the Woodside - a purpose-built accommodation block which was about as close to luxury as you can get in Herräng as it was right beside Folkets Hus, where most of the action happens, and I only had to share four walls with one other person. And even then I only had to share for my first week as after that I had a private room all to myself!

My roommate was one of the other Frankie Manning Ambassadors, Tamisha Anthony from New York City, and she was incredibly sweet and a lot of fun to chat and hang out with (there were many failed attempts at naps when we were both in the room at the same time). As was a recurring theme throughout Herräng I was curious to learn how everyone's home scenes compared and it was really impressive to hear Tamisha's ambitions to establish herself in what is probably the most competitive Lindy hop market on the planet in NYC!! (all while also working as a freelance illustrator and designer - check out Tamisha's website: Puffed Sleeves!)

The queue for the daily meeting! With the Lindy hop shop in the background.

Tamisha and I then headed down to Folkets Hus to join the queue (at around 8:20 pm) for the 9 o'clock daily meeting and I must say that these meetings were one of the many highlights of the day.

They were compèred by Lennart Westerlund, whose slick hair and composed and shadowy initial presentation on the Folkets Hus stage elicited more than a passing resemblance to Hannibal Lecter before his fantastically dry and entertaining humour became evident and rendered him much more like a Swedish Dr Fraser Crane.

(It's worth mentioning that Lennart is arguably one of the most influential figures of the modern swing revival: he was one of the earliest members of the Swedish Swing Dance Society, a founding member of the famous Rhythm Hot Shots, one of the original masterminds behind establishing Herräng Dance Camp [and still very much a part of its organisation today], and the man responsible for bringing Al Minns and then Frankie Manning to Europe. He's also a peerless MC.)

The daily meetings served to share any important information with the camp (plumbing issues, taster classes and other activities that were on, schedule changes, guest speakers, etc.) but was also a variety show in its own right with live performances from the pros and the Herräng Chorus Line, video clips from days when swing and jazz were in their pomp, impromptu interviews with VIPs, and additional entertainment from Lennart, and it was all of a genuinely high production value that had me thinking that I should really go to see more shows at home.

Lennart with the results of the shoe survey!

As I was there longer than one week I was also impressed that none of the material was rehashed but was completely original every night. In Week 3 a theme of the meetings revolved around some genuinely interesting swing statistics that I am keen to share in a later article, many of which came from a PhD study by one of the dancers Ahter Sönmez (I thought my PhD was on cool stuff but doing one on Lindy hop is a whole other kettle of fish), but some of the research for these statistics was a bit more 'in house' including asking the female pros how many pairs of shoes they brought to camp: Alexandra Alhimovich topped the board at 14!

After the meeting concluded there was the option of either attending a talk in the Library, featuring one of the big names in attendance that week (Norma Miller, Chazz Young, Dawn Hampton, Chester Whitmore, Ryan Francois... Frankie Manning Ambassadors *ahem*), or going to one of the taster classes, of which there were usually three on any given night.

The tasters were led by camp attendees, often teachers in their own scenes, and covered all varieties of dance: slow drag, blues, balboa, collegiate shag, St Louis shag, solo jazz, tap, street, hip-hop, west coast swing, traditional Polish dance, as well as additional speciality classes on things such as 'dips on a crowded floor' and 'advanced flirting.'

And then after these had finished, normally at 11pm, beginners' hour kicked off allowing the less experienced dancers the opportunity to have the floor to themselves and music at a more accommodating tempo before the rest of us arrived and often stayed there until breakfast the following morning!

As for breakfast and other meals there were a number of options on-site or nearby with a couple of cafés and pop-ups all within walking distance. One of the perks of my Frankie Manning Ambassador Scholarship was that I was given a meal-card that covered breakfast, lunch and dinner in any of the on-site establishments (Heaven's Kitchen, Blue Moon Café, Bar Bedlam, Ice Cream Parlour) and it was immensely convenient - not only did I not have to cook or even think about what to eat but the food was of a pretty high standard (breakfast and dinner were also 'all you can eat!') and the dining tent was one of the best places in camp to meet new folk and get chatting.

It is also were a few of my Herräng highlights took place.

One of my first nights in Herräng Chazz Young announced at the end of the daily meeting that he wanted to speak to all of the Frankie Manning Ambassadors, so I accordingly introduced myself to him and was told that "Miss Dawn Hampton would like you to join us for dinner tomorrow night."

Now there's an offer I couldn't refuse!

Valerie Salstrom was also there and it was really great to get chatting to her, and the following week we also had dinner with Norma Miller and Chester Whitmore, as well as Sing Lim (the primary flagbearer for swing dancing in Asia), and Elliot Donnelley (one of the minds behind the Frankie Manning Foundation and a passionate supporter of Lindy hop).

Getting to pick the brains of Lindy luminaries on a one-to-one level was incredibly special, and I'm going to post another article about that shortly, but even just to hear some of their stories first hand was a fantastic experience. The library talks also facilitated that on top of a handful of lectures that were included in our class schedule from Dawn and also from Lennart.

Lennart's talk covered the background to the growth of Lindy in Europe and the beginning of Herräng whilst Dawn shared a bit about her own past and her love of Herräng before imploring us to always "let the music move you."

Dawn then put on a few of her favourite tunes and demonstrated this mantra herself, despite her obvious frailties at 87 years old, by dancing to Count Basie's 'Splanky' and Jimmy Lunceford's 'For Dancers Only' before queuing up one of the funnier moments of my whole trip with a bit of bhangra and then asking all of us to all get up and dance along with her.

Dawn dancing with Adam Brozowski

For these talks several classes were combined and in my case all of the advanced and intermediate-advanced classes were put together but, when Dawn hit 'play', you wouldn't have known it as an entire room of incredibly talented Lindy hoppers were immediately reduced to looking like an average wedding party. It was a fantastic equaliser to know how normal everyone was and it cracked me up.

Friday nights were the only ones that didn't have daily meetings but that was to accommodate the festivities of the big themed party nights and their associated activities and during my stay these themes were 'Become Your Opposite' and 'Invaders From Mars.'

I have to say, the whole 'Become Your Opposite' theme triggered a minor existential crisis and it was clear that plenty of people were similarly baffled by it as there wasn't much in the way of costume cohesion, aside from a few with their normal clothes on upside-down, backwards or cross-dressed. Either that or I was particularly unperceptive of the nuances in others' outfits but I figured that since I was surrounded by a whole load of folk who didn't know me, they probably wouldn't know who I wasn't... if you follow my logic!

The 'Invaders From Mars' party, however, was a lot more fun, was built up solidly throughout the week and it was obvious that people knew how they were going to turn out. And on top of that, they had bubble football!! I'd wanted to try that for ages so I was literally bouncing around with joy... and then mild concussion.

As for the actual dancing itself - socials and teaching - I'll talk about that in my next article!

Yeah... if you were expecting an article on Herräng to actually mention dancing you may now be feeling a tad shortchanged... sorry! But it's for your own good, seriously, this would have been far too long otherwise. Just believe me when I say that the dancing was rather good. And that would be a chronic understatement.

Also, it would be completely remiss of me not to once again thank the Frankie Manning Foundation for sponsoring my entire trip - flights, accommodation, food, classes, socials, the works! - through their ambassador scholarship but also for consequently putting me in a position to meet so many wonderful people that will surely have a huge impact on my dancing future and hopefully that of my home scene in Belfast.

It was an absolute pleasure to meet and hang out with the other FMF Ambassadors Tamisha, Brendan, Muriel, Josh, and Rafal, as well as so many other fantastic dancers, scene leaders, teachers and pros and I sincerely look forward to crossing paths with everyone again soon!

Frankie Manning Foundation Ambassadors 2015, L-R: Joshua Mclean, Rafal Pustelny, Brendan & Muriel Argent, and myself. Tamisha Anthony is missing from this photo but Frankie is also keeping a watchful eye over our shoulders!