The Brighton Lindy Hop festival has ran for the past 4 years, so this year we think it can be called an established event.
If you are not familiar with the dance Lindy Hop, the dance came out of Harlem in the 1920s. It was the merging of both the Charleston dance and the break-away.
At the time it was shunned, as most new dances have been at the time of their inception. However, this new dance complimented the fresh new swing music of the era perfectly, and has certainly stood the test of time. Today, Lindy Hop is a popular social dance, both here in the UK and worldwide.
The dance split over time to produce Jive, West Coast swing and East Coast swing to name a few.
While some say Jive is easier to learn, Lindy Hop allows more movement for the leads and requires less spinning from the follows.
We went along to the Brighton festival to see how it was looking and let you know what is involved.
The itinery comprises of a social dance on the Friday night, 2 classes per level Saturday morning, an all-level 'taster' class after lunch, then another per-level class to end the day.
The main social dance and any competitions happen on the Saturday night.
Sunday is normally the same set-up as the Saturday for lessons, with some form of social dancing on the Sunday night, in this case at a bowling alley.
Dance teachers rotate between class levels so everyone gets at least one class with each teacher.
The Brighton festival uses a couple of venues, a bespoke dance studio in the Marina village for the daytime lessons, and the Unitarian church for the social dances in the evening.
Lizzy Abrahams is the organiser and when not running this, or one of the other dance festivals, she teaches Lindy Hop and ballroom dancing. In addition, Lizzy also hosts hen parties, works with individual students and trains couples for wedding first dances.
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