We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams. Albert Einstein
In this newsletter:
- Mullum & Gold Coast Socials
- Brisbane Workshops
- Swing Dance Worldwide Directories
- Swing On In goes to Italy!
- Qld Lindy Exchanges and International Workshops
- Blues On Broadbeach
- Cooly Rocks On
- Swingin at the Savoy – The Memoir of a Jazz Dancer
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Mullum & Gold Coast Socials
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GOLD COAST VINTAGE VINYL SOIREE
Saturday 25 May
Saturday 22 June
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Brisbane Workshops with Swing Patrol Brisbane
Our pals at Swing Patrol Brisbane are running a series of Workshops throughout 2024 and they have asked us to come and teach the ST LOUIS SHAG! It’s one of our favorite dances but have not taught it on the GC for ages so here is your chance to learn something new and bust out ont he social dance floor! LINK TO DETAILS AND HOW TO BOOK HERE
What is it:
The St Louis Shag is another great partnered swing dance, derived from the Charleston. The style originates in Missouri USA, where the southern tradition of jump music and boogie-woogie music was prevalent and popular.
The St Louis Shag is commonly danced to music with a fast tempo, making this style a good choice for a social and party atmosphere.
Date: SATURDAY 4 MAY 2024 – 10.15 – 1.15PM
Venue: BRISBANE LITHUANIAN CLUB 49 GLADSTONE RD, HIGHGATE HILL QLD 4101
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Swing Dance Worldwide Directories & Destinations!
There are lots of you travelling more and more and including a class or workshop or social dance in your world itinerary so I thought I’d share with you a couple of awesome resources for dnce events around the world particularly swing dance events.
- SWING DANCE OZ & NZ – A great pal Rob Bloom started this about 20 years ago and has kept it so up to date with the history and dance events everywhere so it is a great source of info.
- SWING CALENDAR – A newish world wide directory of events.
- SWING PLANIT – This one isd a bible for most international travellers and has been around for a good while.
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Swing On In goes to Italy!
A couple of Swing On In gals are headed over to this festival and there is serious FOMO happening already so Melissa and Isabel you better keep us up to date with all the shenanigans and can’t wait to plan for next year with you! Check out their destination!! Ray and I are definitely going for 2025!! Click through to the dance camps… who’s coming with us?
Sizzle Reel Here: https://youtu.be/ljee9RREiGY?si=TQn1VFON4-VSRo1N
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Qld Lindy Exchanges and International Workshops
Don’t want to go overseas just yet to get your Lindy Hop fix? well we have two home grown Queensland Swing dance Exchanges and Festivals right here:
FRIDAY 3 MAY – SUNDAY 2 JUNE 2024.. This exchange sold out last year and was loads of fun so go and get amongst it and get your tickets today!
3 days of jam packed social dancing! 4 Live Bands, 3 days and nights, lots of free activities also. TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
FRIDAY 26 JULY – SUNDAY 28 JULY
This new workshop/social dance exchange will be a first for the GC and its super exciting to be welcoming 4 fabulous international dance teachers to our stomping ground! 3 days of high level learnings, 3 nights of social dancing. Tickets on sale on Monday 8th and you can get them HERE
FRIDAY 16 – SUNDAY 19 MAY 2024 – Broadbeach Gold Coast
This is always such a great jam packed event. It’s all FREE, put on by the City of Gold Coast and there are tonnes of grat bluesy bands to swing dance too! Lots of swing dancers get along to this event each year. we will let you know next newsletter which events we will be dancing at!
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Cooly Rocks On
- 5 – JUNE 2024 – COOLANGATTA
5 days of nostalgia, social dancing, vintage shopping, live music, cars, pin up pageants and so much more. Swing A Billy Ray (Our Ray) will be the DJ at both the Moonlight Swing Dance and The Beachside Hop PLUS.. our Swing On In dance Troupe “The Halfbreaks” will be performing a new jazz routine for you all! you can find out everything and get your tickets HERE
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Swingin at the Savoy – The Memoir of a Jazz Dancer
Norma Millers Story. I was gifted this book when it came out in 1996 and devoured it straight away! I could not get enough of the hisory and thee fabulous stories told about this new dance I was obsessed with called the Lindy Hop. Many year it has sat on my special book shelf along with some other favorites I will share at a later date but wanted to spotlight this gem as I am about to start re-reading it again! The link to get your own copy is HERE and I have popped some amazing info and insight into the larger than life person Normal was through the obituary written by the New York Times below. Lindy Hoppers really do live longer you know! Frankie passed away at 95 and Norma Miller at 99!
Here is a New York Times Obituary Story about Normal Miller which gives you great insight to her legacy, the impact and the history of her lifelong passion for Lindy Hop from the age of 12! This link might ask you to sign up so I have included an excerpt here and I will put the whole article in full on our website as a post for you. Its great reading!
Story by: May 6, 2019 for the New York Times
……………………” Norma Miller, who danced the Lindy Hop on Harlem sidewalks as a child, and as a teenager dazzled crowds on international tours in the 1930s and early ′40s doing the same kicks, spins and drops that had made it a Jazz Age jitterbug craze, died on Sunday at her home in Fort Myers, Fla. She was 99.
Her longtime manager and caretaker, John Biffar, announced her death.
Among the cultural prodigies who arose after the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh’s “hop” from New York to Paris in 1927 — hence the dance’s name — Ms. Miller, known as the “Queen of Swing,” was the youngest recruit and last survivor of the original Lindy Hoppers, the Herbert White troupe that broke in at Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom and popularized the Lindy Hop in Broadway shows, on tours of Europe and Latin America, and in Hollywood films………………………”
PS: We also have a rare copy of the DVD Queen of Swing which we will show again on the big screen in our studio soon.
Til next time kids, have a fabulous weekend and hop to catch up on the social dance floor soon!
Chrissy & Ray xx