Herräng Dance Camp
Encyclopedia
Herräng Dance Camp is the largest annual dance camp that focuses on African American jazz dances such as Lindy Hop
, boogie woogie
, tap
, authentic jazz
, and balboa
. It is owned and run by Lorenz Ilg and four members of the Harlem Hot Shots: Frida Segerdahl, Fatima Teffahi, Daniel Heedman, and Lennart Westerlund. Each year, the small town of Herräng
, Sweden
is transformed into a multi-week dance camp attracting world-famous instructors and dancers alike.
Similar to many dance camps, the format varies slightly each year but is traditionally held for four to five weeks in late June through late July. For numerous years Herräng Dance Camp has been the largest Lindy Hop dance camp in the world, with a reputation for offering both the highest standard of teaching and attracting the best social dancers from around the world. While the camp holds nightly social dances with music by live bands and DJs from around the world, the main focus of the camp is on dance instruction. In 2007, over seventy instructors were featured during the five weeks, including dancers from the swing era such as Frankie Manning
and Norma Miller
.
With over 1,000 people attending the camp each summer (over twice the official population of the city of Herräng
), the camp assembles a significant amount of infrastructure each summer to meet the needs of the large number of dancers. Some of the most noticeable additions to Herräng during Herräng Dance Camp includes several cafes, a full cafeteria serving buffet-style meals, a shop for dance supplies, accessories and daily essentials, bicycle rental, housing of various standards, nightly entertainment, airport limo service, and more.
, Sweden
. It attracted around 25 participants and was taught by John Clancy from New York.
Having had a successful event in its first year, the camp saw its attendance boost to nearly 100 students in its second year. For the following five years, the camp grew in popularity in and around Sweden, and was only attended by Swedish dancers.
and another by the traditional organizers, the Swedish Swing Society.
For the 1989 camp organized by The Rhythm Hot Shots, Frankie Manning
, a surviving member of the swing era, was invited to teach at the camp. Since 1989, it has been a continued tradition to invite surviving members of the swing era. Most notably, Frankie Manning returned to Herrang every year until 2007.
The competing dance camps were held for five years, until 1994, when the two groups held the first unified Herräng Dance Camp. During the 1990s, the camp gained greater international attention, beginning to attract a sizable number of dancers from countries outside of Sweden and Europe. Some of the largest non-European countries represented included Japan
, Australia
, and The United States.
, München, Prague
, Berlin
, Hamburg
, Copenhagen
, London
, Paris
, Brussels
, and Amsterdam
. Even without an officially organized trip around Europe, many of the instructors continue to travel to sites around Europe, teaching and dancing at the local scenes in many European cities.
After twenty-four consecutive years, one of the main facilities used by the camp was rumored to be closing and thereby threatening the existence of the dance camp. In response to the rumors, the 2006 camp saw an unprecedented 1,200 dancers attend over the four weeks the camp was held. In 2007, the camp continued and celebrated its 25th anniversary and unveiled that the camp would be officially expanding from four weeks to five weeks. Though returning to a four week program in 2008-2009, HDC has offered a five week program since 2010.
Lindy Hop
The Lindy Hop is an American social dance, from the swing dance family. It evolved in Harlem, New York City in the 1920s and '30s and originally evolved with the jazz music of that time. Lindy was a fusion of many dances that preceded it or were popular during its development but is mainly based...
, boogie woogie
Boogie-woogie (dance)
Boogie-woogie is a form of swing dance and a form of blues piano playing.-Terminology:The name boogie-woogie is used mostly in Europe; the closest thing in the US is probably East Coast Swing. What today is called boogie-woogie would during the 1950s have been called rock'n'roll...
, tap
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
, authentic jazz
Jazz dance
Jazz dance is a classification shared by a broad range of dance styles. Before the 1950s, jazz dance referred to dance styles that originated from African American vernacular dance. In the 1950s, a new genre of jazz dance—modern jazz dance—emerged, with roots in Caribbean traditional dance...
, and balboa
Balboa (dance)
Balboa today is commonly used both as a term to describe a fusion of dances that originated in Southern California during the 1920s and 1930s, and also referring to a specific dance from that era that was the original Balboa .The original Balboa dance is a form of swing dance that started as early...
. It is owned and run by Lorenz Ilg and four members of the Harlem Hot Shots: Frida Segerdahl, Fatima Teffahi, Daniel Heedman, and Lennart Westerlund. Each year, the small town of Herräng
Herräng
Herräng is the northernmost locality in Norrtälje Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 443 inhabitants in 2005. It is located along the coast at the bay Singöfjärden, 40 kilometres north of the municipal seat Norrtälje....
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
is transformed into a multi-week dance camp attracting world-famous instructors and dancers alike.
Similar to many dance camps, the format varies slightly each year but is traditionally held for four to five weeks in late June through late July. For numerous years Herräng Dance Camp has been the largest Lindy Hop dance camp in the world, with a reputation for offering both the highest standard of teaching and attracting the best social dancers from around the world. While the camp holds nightly social dances with music by live bands and DJs from around the world, the main focus of the camp is on dance instruction. In 2007, over seventy instructors were featured during the five weeks, including dancers from the swing era such as Frankie Manning
Frankie Manning
Frankie Manning was an American dancer, instructor and choreographer. Manning is considered one of the founding fathers of the Lindy Hop.-Early years:...
and Norma Miller
Norma Miller
Norma Miller is an American swing dancer known to many people as The Queen of Swing. The daughter of parents from Bridgetown, Barbados, Miller was born and raised in Harlem, New York. She was interviewed along with dance partner Frankie Manning in Ken Burns documentary Jazz...
.
With over 1,000 people attending the camp each summer (over twice the official population of the city of Herräng
Herräng
Herräng is the northernmost locality in Norrtälje Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 443 inhabitants in 2005. It is located along the coast at the bay Singöfjärden, 40 kilometres north of the municipal seat Norrtälje....
), the camp assembles a significant amount of infrastructure each summer to meet the needs of the large number of dancers. Some of the most noticeable additions to Herräng during Herräng Dance Camp includes several cafes, a full cafeteria serving buffet-style meals, a shop for dance supplies, accessories and daily essentials, bicycle rental, housing of various standards, nightly entertainment, airport limo service, and more.
1982 - 1988: The Beginning Years
The first Herräng Dance Camp was held for one week, starting on 1 August 1982, and was organized by the Swedish Swing Society, a swing dance organization based in StockholmStockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. It attracted around 25 participants and was taught by John Clancy from New York.
Having had a successful event in its first year, the camp saw its attendance boost to nearly 100 students in its second year. For the following five years, the camp grew in popularity in and around Sweden, and was only attended by Swedish dancers.
1989 - 2000: The International Swing Revival
With the growing revival of African-American dances such as Lindy Hop in the late 1980s, the camp began to gain international attention. In 1989, two separate camps were organized in Herräng, one by The Rhythm Hot ShotsThe Rhythm Hot Shots
The Hot Shots is a collective name for two closely related Swedish dance companies based in Stockholm, Sweden: The Rhythm Hot Shots and the Harlem Hot Shots. The Hot Shots specialize in faithful reproductions of African-American dance scenes in American films from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s...
and another by the traditional organizers, the Swedish Swing Society.
For the 1989 camp organized by The Rhythm Hot Shots, Frankie Manning
Frankie Manning
Frankie Manning was an American dancer, instructor and choreographer. Manning is considered one of the founding fathers of the Lindy Hop.-Early years:...
, a surviving member of the swing era, was invited to teach at the camp. Since 1989, it has been a continued tradition to invite surviving members of the swing era. Most notably, Frankie Manning returned to Herrang every year until 2007.
The competing dance camps were held for five years, until 1994, when the two groups held the first unified Herräng Dance Camp. During the 1990s, the camp gained greater international attention, beginning to attract a sizable number of dancers from countries outside of Sweden and Europe. Some of the largest non-European countries represented included Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and The United States.
2001 - present: The Modern Dance Camp
With the growing worldwide adoption of the Internet, the dance camp went from purely paper registration in 2000 to an online-registration system in 2001. As part of the internationalization of the dance camp, the dance camp had grown to four weeks of instruction and dancing and, in the 2001, 2002, and 2004 dance camps, the "Herräng Swing Bus" took a number of instructors and dancers alike to various popular European destinations including ZurichZürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, München, Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, and Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
. Even without an officially organized trip around Europe, many of the instructors continue to travel to sites around Europe, teaching and dancing at the local scenes in many European cities.
After twenty-four consecutive years, one of the main facilities used by the camp was rumored to be closing and thereby threatening the existence of the dance camp. In response to the rumors, the 2006 camp saw an unprecedented 1,200 dancers attend over the four weeks the camp was held. In 2007, the camp continued and celebrated its 25th anniversary and unveiled that the camp would be officially expanding from four weeks to five weeks. Though returning to a four week program in 2008-2009, HDC has offered a five week program since 2010.