Welcome to a Swing Dance Festival for Queers and Allies!
We are happy to announce the return of Gothenburg Queer Lindy Festival 20-22nd September 2024! Welcome to a festival where we acknowledge, and celebrate the queer expressions of swing dancing.
Practical:
When: September 20th to September 22nd 2024.
Where: Gothenburg, Sweden
Location: Forum, at Doktor Fries Torg 7. This is our main venue and the home of West Coast Jitterbugs. All parties and most classes will be at Forum.
Price: Solidarity pricing, see Tracks and Registration
Registration opens May 25th at 8pm (CET).
This webpage is currently under construction. For more info and updates, check out our Instagram or Facebook page.
The booklet is here!
Now, with only a week until we all meet i Gothenburg, we are happy to present the booklet of 2024. The booklet contains all info you should need for the festival.
Click on the image to the right or in the menu above to find the booklet.
The booklet is made by Pauline Muñoz-Olsö for Swinging Spring 2024, edited by Isac Bergenwall for Gothenburg Queer Lindy Festival 2024.
Special Guest 2024:
許閎傑 Hung-Jie Hsu (Jason) [he/him]
Special guest this year – 許閎傑 Hung-Jie Hsu (Jason) [he/him]. Following his research, Jason wants to film some of the classes and interview some of you/us during the festival. He will also be available to book for private tuition.
“Be sassy and be jazzy!” Freedom of expression characterises Jason’s teaching and dancing! Jason will show you not only how you can connect to the music and express yourself through improvisation but also how to feel free to do it. Moving from a local organizer and gender equity activist in the Lindy Hop community in Taipei, I was relocated to Europe in 2022 to pursue my current study in Choreomundus – International Master in Dance Knowledge, Practice and Heritage. My research focus is on queer dancers’ lived experiences and the reconceptualisation of safe spaces in the Lindy Hop community with traditional ethnographic methods.
Besides my academic life, I am still actively engaged with Lindy Hop communities through participating, competing, also teaching internationally across Taiwan and major European cities, such as Amsterdam, London, Oslo, and Dublin. This rich experience motivates me to learn more about the culture and history of the dance, bringing out deeper conversations between my own queer identity and the dance itself.
Check also out his work at Switch Tapei (First Lindy Hop and Gender Equity Online Platform in Asia) @switchtaipei_pridevoice and his podcast Swing 大小事｜PrideVoice. Full bio on our homepage.
#gbgqueerlindy2024#queerlindy#queerlindyfestival#jasonhsu#lindyhop#lindyhopfestival#swingdance#queerdance#gothenburgqueerlindyfestival
Why Don’t You Take the Stage?
Do you want to perform during the festival? That’s awesome! We, of course, welcome lindy and jazz performances, but also all kinds of other artistic expressions. Do you have a drag persona longing to take the stage, a vouge routine or maybe a poem you want to recite? We especially want to welcome new artists to enter the stage.
We are hoping to fill our evening parties with a variety of queer expression. Therefore we want to create a kind of semi open stage. Send an email to queerlindy@wcj.se with a short pitch of your performance and if you would need any technical equipment (i.e. a microphone, playback music etc) for your routine.
An Inclusive Dance Floor
Make sure to read through the Code of conduct before signing up for the festival.
Our goal is for the Gothenburg Queer Lindy Festival to be a fun, welcoming and inclusive festival for all participants, both during class time as well as on the social dance floor. We want queers and people of color to feel welcome, wanted and comfortable.
In order to create a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, we have established a code of conduct that applies to all the participants at the festival.
We want you as a participant to take responsibility for your actions and to be respectful when you meet other participants at the festival. We all have different knowledge and experiences and we hope that you will be considerate of this. Sometimes you make mistakes, despite good intentions. When this happens, please apologize.
You can always talk with the organizers if you feel unsafe or uncomfortable.
Is this Festival for Me?
This swing dance festival is a space for queer dancers and allies on all levels of dancing skill.
If you are a queer dancer, or a queer person wanting to learn lindyhop in a queer space, this festival is for you. If you are an ally who support the vision of the festival, this event is also for you.
The creators of early swing music were black. The dancers of early lindy hop, the people we look at for inspiration were black. A lot of them were also gay, lesbian and/or trans people. As contemporary dancers in the lindy hop culture we should not disregard or minimise the fact that many of us are guests in a culture created by these people 100 years ago. Most dancers then were black, most dancers nowadays are white. They did not care about the norms we have today on leading and following.
With this event we are celebrating these black and queer people who in today’s society still are underprivileged in one or more ways. If you’re not African-American, remember who created the dance. If you are cis and hetero, and want to learn more about how to better accommodate for queer dancers in your community, be very welcome, but remember that you are a guest in the queer space we are creating together.