How Many Lindy Hoppers are There

I've been wondering about this question for a while but with a little free time I finally got around to having a decent crack at working it out with some GIS and statistics.

The short answer: by my estimation about 120,000. Read on for the longer answer.

Where are people Lindy Hopping?

This is actually a somewhat difficult question. Scenes are constantly starting and folding - such as scenes in college towns in the US and those where expats are the primary drivers and consumers.* Plus the advent of the travelling lindy hopper has led to many camps being held in places that don't have a regular scene. For this purpose a "scene" is a location that actually has some form of regular Lindy hop be that classes, social dancing or some other organising activity.

Herrang only has dancing 5 weeks out of the year - that doesn't count. (photo by Rikomatic)

My starting point was the World Lindy Hop Map which I supplemented with maps for countries and smaller scenes including the LA Lindy Hop Map, The Lindy Hop Map Australia, Lindy Hop and Swing Dance in Italy, and the UK Lindy Map.

Next was quality control.

I ended up removing a whole bunch of points. There were plenty with incorrect geocoding (e.g. suburbs of cities that were coded to small towns, country entries sitting in the middle of nowhere etc.), I also did a fair bit of checking to ensure currency of schools, events, etc.** Finally I did a bunch of research to add new venues, website links and cover as broad a geography as possible.

The final result was 827 organisations, dance schools or other evidence of regular lindy hop activity in a particular location. I'm sure I've missed plenty of organisations in local areas - but my mission was to see if a location had lindy hop, not how many dance schools/societies were there.

Guess the map projection and you get a gold star.

As I don't plan on keeping this updated I'm not going to put it on google maps. However here is the data in kmz and shapefile format for those who wish to use the data in your own projects and maps. I've made my best effort with this data, but it's necessarily incomplete and the locations are rather approximate - don't use this for driving directions or holiday planning without further research!

How many Lindy Hop scenes are there?

Obviously, these locations aren't all individual scenes. Recognising that some scenes are supported by 1 large organisation and others by many smaller ones I wanted to get at the number of geographically independent scenes.

First I gathered venues to the nearest urban locality (using data from Geonames) - all those that were within about 15-20km I considered to be part of that locality. I merged a number of these together where the localities were separated by less than 30km - considering that this is probably the maximum distance (as the crow flies) for there to be enough mixing amongst venues for them to be

The answer - 463 scenes spread across 58 countries (or 59 depending on how you count Taiwan) and a range of self governing territories (e.g. New Caledonia, Hong Kong and the Åland Islands).

From this we can see that Lindy Hop is an activity for the relatively wealthy in the world - here is a chart of lindy hop prescene graphed against the Human Development Index***:

How many lindy hoppers are there?

Given the data I've generated here's a related question: How many people could lindy hop if they wanted to? To assess geographic access (leaving aside demographic and cultural factors that affect access) to the above listed venues I applied the World Population Layer to determine the number of people living within 15km of a lindy hop venue. The result: about 308 million people.

Now onto the number of lindy hoppers. Rather than try and guess the average scene size (which can be tricky) I've applied some fancier statistics and a Monte Carlo simulation to get a bounded guess. There's a more complete explanation and the code I used in a short R script I wrote here.

The assumptions I made are:

• The size of lindy hop scenes are lognormally distributed. (Not bad - but without any data on actual scene sizes is untested)
• The largest scene size is 5000. (This has been oft quoted in relation to the size of Seoul's lindy hop scene but London and LA/Orange County could also have sizes somewhere in this vicinity)
• The median scene size is somewhere between 50 and 150.
• The total number of scenes are 463.

The Monte Carlo simulation generated a stochastic set of 50,000 international lindy hop communities by randomly sampling the median scene size (from a uniform distribution) and then randomly sampling individual scene sizes (from the lognormal distribution) to get a total population of each. This then allowed statistics to be generated

This gives a median of 118,000 and a 90% chance of the "true" number being being between 82,000 and 153,000.****

Only 2% of lindy hoppers made it to Frankie 100. (Photo by hoptothebeat)

So now it's over to you. Can anyone else come up with a better answer?

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* South Asia is a great example. I know of Lindy Hop being taught at one stage or another in Kathmandu, Mumbai, Dhaka, Chittagong, Bangalore, Dharamsala and Delhi at one time or another but combining short ex-pat contracts with a culture where partnered dancing is highly unusual it typically hasn't stuck around.

**It doesn't help that there are literally hundreds of dance schools and other organisations out there whose websites seem to have been created back when geocities was popular and left unchanged (except for content updates). Seriously people, if wordpress is too hard for you spend the money on a web designer.

*** And in those countries with Medium Human Development the lindy hop tends to be located in wealthier cities. This is probably also the case with lindy hop in countries with High and Very High Human Development.

**** The average and the mode were also about 118,000.

The Twenty Most Watched Lindy Hop Videos

Next year will be the 10th anniversary of YouTube and lindy hop on the platform has certainly come a long way since this.* By my estimation lindy hop videos have been watched somewhere between 70 million and 200 million times on YouTube.** I thought I'd compile a list of the most watched swing dancing videos on YouTube.

I chose the top 20 videos by views (including aggregating the views from more than one copy of the film) that feature a reasonable amount of lindy hop or authentic jazz dance content (i.e. if it's "the swing", it ain't included). All these videos can be considered 'popular'*** to some extent given their large audience.

There'll be plenty on this list that's familiar - and maybe some that aren't:

1. Fast Swing Dancing - ULHS 2006 - 6.9 million views

The first video in YouTube search results for lindy hop comes from 2006 edition of the most influential lindy hop competitions in the contemporary scene. This is far from the only badass ULHS video on YouTube (ULHS also features two other videos in the top twenty) but it has been up there for 8 years and sure accumulated a lot of views over that time.

2. Denver Airport Holiday Flash Mob - 4.0 million views

This was the most viral lindy hop video of 2011. This was part of a big PR campaign by Denver Airport and the power of a marketing machine has helped push this into the number 2 spot.

3. Hooked On Swing Dancing - 2.7 million views

The music here is kind of square and the poster has basically cut together a whole series of classic B&W film clips of mostly white dancers (though it does finish with highlights from Hellzapoppin').

4. Whiteys Lindy Hoppers .. Hellzapoppin - 2.6 million views

The greatest lindy hop routine on film performed by Whitey's Lindy Hoppers and choreographed by Frankie Manning. This clip has inspired recreations and competitions and it remains the most referenced and loved clip of contemporary lindy hoppers.

5. Charleston -- Original Al & Leon Style!! - 1.9 million views 

Demonstration of classic Charleston steps by Al Minns and Leon James at the Savoy Ballroom. This was filmed by Mura Dehn as part of her legendary Spirit Moves documentary. Only small excerpts of this exist online - the full documentary is almost six hours long and only viewable at a small number of institutions. This video's popularity probably has something to do with the numerous remix videos (typically with modern electronica overdubbed) that have been made - note that I haven't included these in the view count.

6. Swing Dancing from the Movie Twiced Blessed (1945) - 1.8 million views

This film features some of the best swing dancers from Southern California during the 40s many of whom continued to dance and teach Balboa and Lindy Hop during the revival. The dancers are Hal Takier & Alice Scott, Lenny & Kay Smith, Wally & Mousie Albright, Freda Angela Wyckoff, Bob Ashley, Chuck Saggau.

7. Lindy Hop funny instructional video : Groovie Movie (1944) - 1.6 million views

This short film shot in 1942 again features great Southern California swing dancers (including many of those in the clip in the number 6 position). It's well known for its comical style and spoof of dance instruction techniques.

8. Lindy Hop Dance – Charleston meets Lindy Hop - 1.5 million views

From the 2007 Jump Session Show (put on as part of Camp Jitterbug, it is the best annual revue of authentic jazz dance) Annie Trudeau and Max Pitruzzella perform a fantastic routine of Charleston and Lindy Hop.

9. 1920s Charleston - 1.2 million views

The wonderful Sharon Davis compiled this video of vintage clips of people dancing Charleston. Though it's been online since 2009 I'd guess that it's views have shot up recently thanks to the Gatsby effect.

10. Shim Sham - 1.2 million views

Frankie Manning demonstrates the Shim Sham with Erin Stevens. This is by far the most watched Shim Sham video on YouTube, though there are many, many other videos out there.

11. Swing Dancing to Bill Haley and the Comets (1956) - 1.2 million views

Although this one is definitely getting into boogie and rock and roll there's still enough recognisable Lindy content that makes this the only 50s film to make the top twenty.

12. Caravan Palace - Dramophone [OFFICIAL VIDEO] - 1.1 million views

I debated about including this one as it is electro-swing music. However Caravan Palace does work quite a lot with Lindy Hoppers and there's some of the best featured in this music video. With the popularity of electro-swing in Europe it's odd that this video doesn't have many more views.

13. Gap Commercial - Khaki Swing - 1.0 million views

Air Steps, bullet time and neo-swing - the pinnacle of the 90s revival. Gap made a whole series of commercials featuring its khakis in the late 90s (including Soul, Go-Go, Country, Rock and Hip Hop) but this one has seen more YouTube views since its 2006 upload than the rest of them combined.

14. Slow Club - Two Cousins - 1.0 million views

Reminiscent of the Spirit Moves this 2011 music video features Ryan François and Remy Kouakou Kouame. It was one of the most popular videos for 2011 and remains in the top 20.

15. Tricks & Airsteps for Swing - Dance Clip - 800,000 views

Though this is just a promo video for an instructional DVD on aerials it features 5 minutes of various air steps. Nearly all of the videos in this list feature some sort of air time so that might be why this film has so many views.

16. ULHS 2006 Charleston Finals Dance-Off  - 800,000 views

ULHS represents again with the 2006 (the same year as the Liberation finals which hold the number 1 spot) finals of the Charleston competition.

17. ILHC 2013 - Invitational Strictly Lindy Hop Finals - 700,000 views

This film got picked up on 9GAG and has since accumulated many views. I didn't realise this one had gone viral that way until Mikey mentioned it during the Frankie 100 livestream.

18. ILHC 2011 - Champions Strictly Lindy - Finals - Spotlights - 700,000 views

ILHC again, this time coming in with slightly fewer views in a much longer time span.

19. The Basics of Lindy Hop - 700,000 views

I'm surprised an instructional video has made it's way into the top 20 (and one with pretty poor production values - which the maker does admit!) but here it is.

20. ULHS 2005 - awsome!!! charleston-finals - 700,000 views

Rounding out the list is yet more bad-assery from ULHS and the fourth Charleston video in the top 20. Just goes to show that the world thinks solo dancing is pretty awesome too.

* YouTube doesn't make it terribly easy to search for old videos. This was the first one that I could find that hasn't subsequently been deleted. Yehoodi's 7th Anniversary Red Carpet celebrations was a close second.

** I worked this out by gathering data on youtube views of "Lindy Hop" videos of the top 10 search results and then the 20*k th search result (for k=1:25) fitting a power law function (R^2=0.99) and integrating this function between 1 and 200,000 (approximately the number of search results). The 70 million is the mean number whilst the upper bound was based on the standard errors. I figure that the loss of videos without "lindy hop" in the title or description will be made up for by the false inclusion of "the swing" videos.

*** As I noted above the distribution of views of lindy hop videos appears to follow a power law (at least for videos with more than 10,000 views) so there doesn't appear to be be any sort of threshold, above which one can call the video popular. I also use the term popular here rather than viral, which typically denotes a rapid accumulation of views.

Who's on first? Performance order and judging bias in Lindy Hop contests

Making decisions is hard. Judging in contests is a hard form of decision making - there's so much to consider. What's worse is that your own brain will try and prevent you from making the best decision. For example every time someone has to decide on information being presented to them, the order of the presentation of that information can change their decision.

A variety of studies have found this 'performance order' bias in everything from the Idol series, Eurovision and figure skating and music competitions. This bias isn't inconsequential either, in events where careers can rest on the outcome performance order bias can have a significant impacts.

So what about Lindy Hop competitions? Does the order of appearance matter?

Judging - an unenviable task (photo by Jerry Almonte)

In the spirit of my previous post on electoral methods I've delved into the data so you don't have to. My source: results from the 2013 and 2011 European Swing Dance Championships (most of the other major contests I've looked at don't provide the performance order with the official results - if anyone has the data and wants to send it to me to include in the analysis I'd be happy to expand it). This provides a dataset of 30 contests with between 4 and 15 individuals, couples or groups in each contest.

For analysis I've converted all the placings into standardised scores to enable comparison between contests of varying lengths.

Here's what the data looks like:

You can see that the number of competitors in gets rather smaller for the larger events, but you can visually see a slight rising trend even when you discount the results in larger divisions.

To test whether this was just a statistical quirk I set up a multi-linear regression model with an order variable and two additional variables to see if there were any effect of appearing first or last in addition to to the performance order effect.

Here's the model statistics:

	Estimate	Standard Error	T Statistic	Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)	-0.35908	0.15729	-2.283	0.0234
First	0.29989	0.22564	1.329	0.1852
Last	0.08663	0.21062	0.411	0.6813
Order	0.06666	0.02848	2.34	0.0202

This table is only for statistics nerds - otherwise you can ignore it.

These data show that there appears to be a small performance order bias in these results - but though it's at the level of significance that could get you published in certain social science journals I'd be hesitant to say that it exists for sure.

On the other hand, beyond the performance order bias there appears to be nothing special about appearing first or last.

Converting out of standardised scores let's look at what these results could mean in an actual contest or let's say 12 people. If the differences between everyone's score is similar (which is not really realistic, unless there's a tight contest) - this effect could mean the difference two places if you appeared first instead of last.

From xkcd - full comic here

What could be going on here? Firstly it could very well be nothing. The order bias is only just within the normal 95% p value - which is not nearly as impressive as you might think. More data could cause the effect to disappear.

EDIT: But, not so fast, remember how there were only a handful of divisions with large numbers in them? There was only a single division with 15 competitors and only a single one with 12. What happens if we repeat the analysis with them removed? (and thanks to one of my FB friends for suggesting this analysis) Here's the results:

Max size	Estimate	Standard Error	T Statistic	Pr(>|t|)
15	0.06666	0.02848	2.34	0.0202
12	0.085237	0.034704	2.456	0.0149
11	0.07006	0.03885	1.803	0.0729
10	0.06518	0.05556	1.173	0.243
9	0.08808	0.06351	1.387	0.168
8	0.06139	0.07081	0.867	0.388
6	0.005641	0.124636	0.045	0.964
5	0.333	0.2568	1.297	0.202

 Again - tune out of this table if you're not a statistics nerd

Remove the two largest divisions and the order bias effect quickly disappears. So we can be reasonably confident that there is no performance order bias for competitions smaller than 10 or so entrants. For larger divisions we've really only got two contests to go off - this is really not enough data to be able to say one way or the other.
 
It's reasonable that if judges are affected by a recency bias then this may only appear in larger contests. But there are also other explanations besides a recency bias on the part of the judges. Audience reaction could change throughout an individual contest and this could subtly bias the evaluations of the judges.

So how could we find out if there is an order bias? More data on the largest divisions could help but the ultimate would be a controlled experiment. Judges would watch performances on video and in different orders for each group of judges. You could also implement this in actual competitions which would effectively control for any performance order bias present, but such a radical change to judging practices is unlikely to catch on.

If you're a competition organiser and you don't randomise the performance order of your competitors, you really should. If an order bias does exist then it's easily something that could build up over time and give some people (for example with names at the end of the alphabet) an edge in landing that all elusive international teaching gig. Releasing judge scores may also help - some research suggests that increased transparency, the idea of someone looking over your shoulder, can help reduce unconscious biases.

Sadly the major international lindy competitions aren't consistent in this practice, both ILHC and ESDC have posted individual judges scores previously but not for every year (and the ILHC results do not contain performance order - and appear to have been taken down), the National Jitterbug Championships, the US Open, the American Lindy Hop Championships, the Canadian Swing Dance Championships, The Snowball and Lindy Shock do not.

I'm not talking about that sort of bias

There are potentially a range of other biases that could be relevant to Lindy Hop competitions such as reference bias (where a judge gives a higher score to a person they are familiar with - though it's unlikely to occur at the highest levels where the competitors are all familiar to the judges), difficulty bias (where more difficult routines are scored higher, even if difficulty is scored separately), in-group bias (a close relative of reference bias - where a person is judged more favourably because they share the same dance school/city/country/race etc. with the judge), the halo effect (where one element of a persons character, such as attractiveness, influences assessments of other elements of their character), memory-influenced bias (where past performance influences current assessments) and groupthink (where a group of judges reaches a false consensus - this isn't a problem when each judge scores independently, which appears to be the practice for most international comps).

Finally I want to emphasise that I'm not suggesting that judges are behaving unprofessionally. The problem with cognitive biases is that we all have them, they can't be switched off and thus require a lot of cognitive energy to overcome. Awareness and acknowledgement of potential bias can go a fair way to moderating their influence.

For further reading check out this article "Natural Bias, the Hidden Controversy in Judging Sports" or if you're interested in cognitive biases and the psychology of decision making grab a copy of Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow".

If you've read this far congratulations! Have a picture of an echidna:

5 Ways to put the Äwesome in Your Herräng

So registrations are open and it's crunch time (for HDC's servers at least - depending on what you want to go there to do there's still time to make a decision for yourself). In my last post I set out some of the reasons why you might want to reconsider going. I'm not going to rebut myself here (let's be honest, pretty much everyone else will tell you why you should go to Herräng) - I'm really more interested in how your time in Herräng can go off like a frog in a sock.

Image by Warky

So here's a few ideas both on and off the beaten path that might make your Herräng more Awesome.

1 - Research and Planning 

There is no ATM (and occasionally other essentials) at the Kuggen (photo by Ralf Brown)

Do your homework. As Herräng is stuck out in (almost) the middle of nowhere being unprepared for your time there can really cramp your enjoyment. A good place to start is my list of Herräng resources. Also make sure you check out the Friday Night Parties for costume ideas. A great resource are friends and people in your scene who have been recently, there's also the forums and the facebook group.

Even if you've been before don't assume that important things. Things get changed every year, particularly with things like registration, camp facilities, safety and security. Make sure you have a good look through the materials on the website, read the booklet you get on arrival and attend the first Saturday night meeting.

Armed with your research, it's time to start planning. Friday party costumes is the big one that everyone works on prior, but if you've got an idea for something cool (like break-away stripper pants) you may need to bring materials (like velcro) or even start scheming with fellow collaborators (if you want a full all-male revue).

2 - Volunteer

The 2013 Crashdown crew (photo by Herrang)

There are many people who keep going back to Herräng and volunteering. I did three weeks last year and can't recommend it highly enough. It's a great way to meet people, learn how the camp works and find out some of the inside information on what's happening around camp (like secret blues parties). If you're the kind of person who likes to get involved and give back, it can be incredibly rewarding. It can also make your time at Herräng much more affordable.

In addition to HDC volunteering you can volunteer for a week in Heaven's Kitchen/Bar Bedlam/Blue Moon Cafe, help out with Mission Impossible (rumour has it that the floating dancefloor will make its long awaited début this year) or the decorations and planning for the Friday Night parties, other random happenings in camp or just generally helping out when there's opportunity.

3 - Take Private Lessons

Finding somewhere to do your private lesson could also prove challenging (photo by Lloyd)

Herräng has one of the largest concentrations of the best lindy hoppers and the best lindy hop teachers of any event in the world. But whilst they might be there, that doesn't mean they're teaching you. You might be in a different class track, unable to be there the full week or just not have those teachers in your stream. If the lindyverse doesn't align in your favour, take matters into your own hands and arrange a private lesson with your favourite teacher(s).

Besides, if you really want to supercharge your lindy hop, then private lessons are a great way to help make that happen.

Private lessons are something you arrange yourself with the teachers - and fair warning they might say no. But hey, you got nothing to lose by asking.

4 - Bring your creative side

People making art of people making music - illustration by Jimbino Vegan

Do you play a musical instrument, dance (something other than Lindy hop), act, paint, do puppetry, sketch, stand up comedy, make films, write, or any one of zillions of other creative pursuits? Then you're in good company. Herräng is replete with tonnes of creative individuals having jam sessions, making movies, doing photoshoots, painting, circus and more.

Collaborate with like-minded creative people, who knows where it might take you. If you need tools, instruments or materials for your craft then make sure you bring them along.

5 - Do something awesome

Ask someone who has been in the last couple of years about the goats (photo by Niko Huttunen)

Herräng seems to be more famous for all the shenanigans that go on there than the dancing. From All of the "This one time at Herräng" and "Only in Herräng" stories need people to make them happen. Sure a lot of the crazy is done by staff, volunteers or in association with the Friday Night parties, but that shouldn't stop you. In fact one of the complaints I heard from a few old-hands at the camp is that regular campers aren't bringing the shenanigans like they used to.

So make something awesome happen - it could be as simple as fixing random posters around the camp;

We never figured out who was doing these (photo by Lloyd)

Borrowing a costume from the prop shop and wearing it for pretty much the entire camp; or something more complicated, requiring a group of people and some planning; like random performances from an 'all-male revue'.

But you should figure something out for yourself. Herräng is a place where you can make ideas happen - enlist the help of some other campers, ask if you can borrow tools and materials from the No-No Box, or even get Mission Impossible involved. If you're idea's good enough you might even be able to get an announcement in the camp newsletter or the evening meeting. And I wouldn't be too concerned about doing something that's already been done - even if it has, only a small number of folk there will have experienced it.

Jazz and Lindy Hop are all about improvisation, well so is Herräng. So do whatcha wanna and have an awesome time.

5 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Go To Herräng

The opening of registrations for the Herräng Dance Camp are just around the corner. Many people are getting ready to sign-up for their summer and plenty more are wondering if for the first time: "Should I go to Herräng?"

There's plenty of articles on the internet telling you why you should go to Herräng (especially if you've never been before) and most lindy hoppers you'll meet who have been there will tell you that you "must go".

But, though it's one of the (if not the) major events in the international Lindy Hop calendar, Herräng is not for everyone. I loved my time there and can't wait to go back, but if you're not going to have an awesome time there's not really much point in going - despite many people's regular (and somewhat culturally insensitive) comparisons of Herräng to Mecca.

So besides all the usual reasons (money, time, family/work commitments, a deep aversion to meatballs etc.) here's why you shouldn't go to Herräng.

1 - It's a Camp

With the growing number of hotel events Lindy hoppers seem to be becoming accustomed to living in the lap of luxury. Herräng isn't a hotel event - it's a camp.

Lloyd explores the exciting accommodation options at Herräng

You dance in a tent, eat in a tent and you may very well sleep in a tent.* Much of the common space is outside and despite mosquito countermeasures the bugs feast on many of the camps residents (I suspect that this year with Sweden's rather warm winter will make them particularly bad this year). Herräng can also become rather unpleasant when it rains, as there's little undercover area and mud gets everywhere (including on the dancefloors which make them very dusty). Most of the facilities are set up for just 5 weeks of the year and whilst their temporary nature adds a certain level of charm they don't necessarily function terribly well. Many of the facilities that are found in a city aren't present in a small village in country Sweden like an ATM, somewhere to buy liquor or even at times soap.
If the idea of roughing it for a week or more is not appealing to you, you may not find Herräng so much fun.

2 - It's Ridiculously Social

Free love and pancakes!

Communal showers, communal accommodation*, communal kitchen, communal common space. Herräng is a place where you're around other people all the time. Sure Lindy hoppers have reputations as socially awkward nerds, but that's not evident at Herräng (well the socially awkward part anyway) nor are you dancing all the time (see #4). It's a very social experience and not always easy to get some personal time. If it's sunny it's quite possible to head for the beach or the lake for some quiet alone time, but in inclement weather that's a near impossibility. If you're not a people person or you actually experience social anxiety, and especially if you're not coming with a group of friends, Herräng can be an incredibly intimidating place.

After my 6 weeks there I didn't really want to have anything to do with people for about a month afterwards, which certainly made my travelling through Europe a somewhat tricky business.

3 - The Herräng Flu

HAND SANITIZER from Tor Helmstein on Vimeo.
Everyone knows about Swing Flu - the illness you pick up at a weekend event because close contact with sick people + not eating well + sleep deprivation + disturbed circadian rhythms. These factors are generally worse at Herräng. But there's an additional factor in play at Herräng: When tonnes of people stay there for more than one week the resident viruses get established in the general population, meaning there's way more people who can infect you than at a shorter event.

Now the Herräng Flu (which in reality is probably a collection of sicknesses - i.e. you can get it more than once) may be mild or it may confine you to your bunk in general accommodation. If you're the type of person who normally gets laid out by the flu - this is unlikely to be a fun way to spend Herräng.

4 - You can't actually dance 24/7

Lloyd explores the many things that have been done for 24 hours at Herräng

Although Herräng itself is a 24/7 operation and there are things to be doing for pretty much all hours of the day dancing is not one of those. The evening dances run from 10pm to whenever they finish (somewhere between 4am and 9am) and classes only go for 3 or 4 hours a day. The other hours contain the Evening meetings, Friday party activities, shows, competitions, cultural activities, jam sessions and plenty of random shenanigans. Dance floors are often and regularly co-opted for other activities like cabaret, party activities, talks etc. Now it's all this craziness that makes Herräng Herräng and quite possible to be there doing stuff for a week and not even dance, but if you're the kind of lindy hopper who just wants to dance that could be a bit of a bummer.

5 - The Classes

Stock photo - Nothing implied about this class

Now this one's probably a bit controversial (and was not my experience - but I have heard it enough from others) but not all teaching couples will bring their A-game to Herräng, particularly if they've been there mulitple weeks and its at the end of the camp.

An alternative explanation is that if you've been there for much of the camp, you might be totally exhausted and not be bringing your A-game to classes either. This happened to me at the end of one of my volunteer weeks which was backing onto a class week - exhausted from volunteering I pulled an all-nighter at the Friday party, had a very long volunteer day Saturday and thus performed rather poorly in the peer auditions that evening. I was still happy with the class I ended up in but want to point out that it's difficult for teachers to be enthused when the students are all members of the walking dead.

In Conclusion

Herräng is really quite an amazing place - check out the links in my previous post for a better idea of the craziness. If you like camping, being social, doing all sorts of crazy shenanigans besides dancing, are strangely attracted to sick people (or have a strong immune system) and aren't there solely for the learnz then you're probably going to have an awesome time. If not, then it's totally okay to not go. Either way, make it your decision - not someone else's.

* I've had a number of people point out that you can stay in private accommodation which can offer significant improvements in comfort over general accommodation or camping (at a much higher cost too - and it's worth noting that not all private accommodation is created equal, if you're cramming people into your house/flat/cabin it may not be much more private than general accommodation. Also some private accommodation can be a significant distance from the camp and its facilities), but even if you're camping 'in a cabin' the rest of the camp experience is still there.

Herräng Resources

Well I'm officially feeling nostalgic about summertime craziness in a small town in Sweden. Registration for 2014 ain't that far away so in the first of a few posts I may or may not write about Herräng I've put together this (incomplete) list of resources about the centre of the centre of the Lindy Hop Universe.

Official Sites

Official Website (I'll note that they've done a major revamp this year)

(and it would appear that Heaven's Kitchen has a website too)

Social Media

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn 

Blog Posts

I've tried to concentrate on blog posts that have been written in the last few years. There's plenty out there from before then.

Lloydian Dance - Reviews of every camp since 1999 (warning - reading these can be a huge time sink - especially if you've been to Herräng before. Lloyd is also a person of very strong opinions, so tune out if you're easily offended)

It's the Way That You Do It - What's Herräng and 10 Things to Know about Herräng 

Ickeroo's - Top 10 Things To Bring With You to Herrang

Small Dancer Ramblings - Herräng for Dummies (also see this post on the 2011 camp)

Jazz up your life Singapore - The Ultimate Guide to Herräng 2011

Rikomatic's 2011 Herräng series - Day 2, Day 3, Swing Kids, Carling Family, Floorcraft, Flu, Final Day, Food.

Norma Miller's HDC 2012 Review

My World in D Flat - Its the Final Countdown! Herrang 2012.

Videos

Calle Johansson's Channel (the unofficial official Herräng channel)

Herräng on Vimeo

Tor Helmstein's Videos (a number of public service announcements and other videos shown in the evening meetings)

Lindybeige's Herräng series (more from Lloyd - this time in video format)

Chester Whitmore - Blackman and Reefer

Anthony Mak's Why We Lindy Hop - Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, Video 4

Film Festival videos (Herräng the Musi-Documentary, The Creeper, Herrang Hide and Seek if anyone has more upload them to Youtube)

Blues Dancing Educational Video

Audio

Yehoodi Talk Show's Herrang Show

Lonely Planet - 15 min Audio Documentary

10 Lindy Hop Videos Everyone Should Watch

Well I've been slack with the postings as of late (I've been working on some other projects - and am starting my PhD - besides am I ever not slack with posting stuff here) - heck I'm always slack, but here's 10 important videos about Lindy Hop. There's no real criteria for inclusion - I've picked some that are great examples of things, others that are important for our modern scene in various ways and others because I like them. Enjoy!

1 - After Seben 1929
Baring the uncovering of some archival footage (which is possible, film shot at the 1928 Harlem dance marathon - where Lindy was supposedly invented - exists in a vault in South Carolina) this film from 1929 is the earliest example we have of Lindy Hop and features the legendary 'Shorty' George Snowden. With comments from Bobby White:

2 - Hellzapoppin - 1941
The most famous Lindy Hop routine on film. You can also watch the full movie here.I like this version with the musical introduction featuring the genius of Slim and Slam which illustrates the call and response features of jazz.

3 - The Spirit Moves
The most important video documentary of African American vernacular dance. Mura Dehn filmed a bunch of the greats from the Savoy, including Al Minns and Leon James, amongst many other dancers tracing the changes in dance styles across the 20th century. This is just a preview of the DVD (if you're serious about this shit you should buy yourself a copy). There's videos on youtube of various lindy hop related scenes that you can search out as well.

4 - Mad Dog 2002
Badass! was a quality missing during the neo-swing and groove phases that contemporary lindy hop went through - but it's not missing in this routine. It's was pretty influential (I wasn't around then, but those who were still talk about it) and a great example of a throw down everything balls-to-the-wall jam.

5 - Max and Thomas 2007
Max and Thomas of the Ninjammerz showing us how it's done. This routine is actually a parody of a routine done originally by Carla Heiney and Kevin St. Laurent which you can watch here.

6 - Skye and Frida "24 Robbers" - 2007
No list of lindy hop videos is complete without a performance from the power couple of Frida Segerdahl and Skye Humphries. This is one of their more iconic routines (and one of my personal favourites).
Jerry Almonte has a lengthy post about this routine that is well worth reading - in fact if you really want to get yourself schooled on the recent history of lindy hop (and have some time to kill - it's about 70 pages long) check out his Artistry in Rhythm series.

7 - I Charleston Japan - 2009
You've probably seen an I Charleston video (there's more than 40 now) but this one started them all.

8 - The Last Bounce - 2010
Lindy Hop in an arena spectacular? Where else but Sweden of course. The Harlem Hotshots wow the audience in this section of The Last Bounce.

9 - Black Coffee - 2011
There's now a bunch of Lindy Hop videos made by Lindy Hoppers which have rather high production values. This was one of the first I saw and remains a favourite:

10 - What is Lindy Hop? - 2013

It only took 8 years but there's finally a video on You Tube that actually explains what Lindy Hop is (aside from the misleading references to newspaper headlines). Put together by Yehoodi for this year's live broadcast of ILHC it's something you can send to relos and non-dancing friends.

Bonus - Evolution of Lindy Hop - 2010
Karen Turman and Andrew Thigpen's ILHC routine references a tonne of choreography from classic Lindy Hop videos. You can read about the thought process behind it in a series of guest posts (again on Jerry's blog), Ben Yau has an analysis of all the videos and there's also a compilation here.

Yeah, swing dancing is sexist. So what are you going to do about it?

Sexism and misogyny in Australia has been in the news of late (in case you're not from here or have been hiding under a rock). There's also been a whole lot of new discussion in the Lindy Hop community about the nature of sexism in our community. See on blogs for example here, or on multiple stalkerplant threads e.g. here. A lot of the commentary has been less than great, especially from many men (seriously bros, what's up with that? Just try reading it for a change, you might learn something.)

There should be more male voices in this conversation talking about what we're doing to stamp out sexism and misogyny (rather than talk about the problem (or their perceived lack of it), which all too frequently gets done to the exclusion of female voices  - see the all male panel which had it appeared in the Green Left Weekly as opposed to Channel 7's Sunrise would have been ironic as opposed to pathetic).

So without further ado and in no particular order here's what I'm doing/will do:

Follow More
Our heteronormative paradigm of men=lead, women=follow leading to sexism has been covered well by others. Much of the time this is discussed in the context of women leading and everyone solo dancing as a means to end the hetero paradigm. However we're not really going to deconstruct this without men playing their part i.e. men following women, men following other men. Bonus - nobody ever needs to talk about 'balance' ever again and we can make our scene friendlier to people who don't identify as hetero male or female.

I'm going to follow more - I enjoy it and it's fun. And if it helps get rid of some of the bullshit in our scene - that's a bonus to me.

(And if you really think that men leading and women following is the best paradigm, read my other post here).

Dance more with men
See above.

Use my words
This is one I'm getting better at, but I still find myself asking people to dance without actually asking them to dance. I find it really annoying when people do this to me, so I'm going to stop doing it to them.


Volunteer more
In the great western tradition of giving women all the underpaid and under-appreciated jobs women seem to do the majority of the organising and volunteering (at least in the Australian scene). This is bullshit.

So the next opportunity I have, I'm going to stick me hand up to help out at a dance event.

Stop using "There's too few leads men" as an excuse
The idea that leads are this sought after commodity is bad, bad, bad. It creates a sense of entitlement, reinforces conventions about men following or volunteering and leads to general asshat behaviour. So whenever I catch myself thinking this, saying it or using it online I'm going to stop myself and say  'bad thoughts' and come up with the real reason as opposed to the bullshit one.

 
Call other men out on their bullshit
Whether its pick up artists (both in the crazy dips and tricks on the social floor or hitting on women meanings of the word), inappropriate touching, being a jerk or general creepiness I'm going to tell guys when they're doing stuff that ain't cool. Sure it might not make me any friends (but hey, do I want these people as my friends?), but it might help other people call them out too. Peer pressure ain't just what's making you take drugs in high school - it can be used for good here.

Now this is my list. Feel free to use it as your own, but I think its better we come up with these things ourselves. I welcome your suggestions in the comments (and yeah, they're moderated - if you're an asshat it won't get published).