The Swinging Baltics

So this is an article I wrote for a swing website ages ago. Unfortunately, despite the "editor" saying he liked it, he has yet to bother publishing it, and it has lingered in draft form ever since. Thought I would take advantage of my insomniatic state and publish it myself. Sort of.


THE SWINGING BALTICS
Spend some time in the northeastern European countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (often referred to as the Baltics, or the Baltic States) and you would be forgiven for declaring the people shy, if not a bit dour. But pop into a jazz club and you're likely to see something of an anomaly: amongst the masses of stoic-looking souls firmly rooted to their chairs, and the few bolder ones shimmying on the dance floor, you may find a couple actually dancing together --not only in sync with the music but with each other, doing skillful, coordinated movements and looking incredibly happy. They must be foreigners, you'll think; after all, such dancing surely doesn't exist here, in such a remote place.
Think again. The Lindy Hop has arrived in the Baltics.

The Lindy Hop, which is danced with a partner to jazz music and ranges in style from fast and athletic to slow and sexy, is an African-American dance form which originated in Harlem in the 1920s. Though it's hard to pin down exactly when and how the Lindy Hop came to the Baltics, a lot of credit can go to Ichtiandras Veliulis and Solveiga Griusyte, both of Klapieda, Lithuania. Veliulis and Griusyte teach Lindy Hop throughout the Baltics and Russia; when not busy teaching, they can be found at their dance studio, Club Charlie, rehearsing for performances, coaching competition students, and preparing for their annual pan-Baltic Winter Christmas Tournament, first held in 1992. Further north, Estonia boasts the Estonian Swing Dance Federation, the international, biannual Lindy Hop Snowball Tournament, and its own Lindy Hop and tap dance summer camp; in Latvia, too, you can find regular Lindy Hop lessons and a dedicated group of dancers and competitors

But why, in a region of people well known for their phlegmatic character, has the joyful, uninhibited Lindy Hop become so popular? Both Griusyte and Veliulis state that the Lindy Hop provides them with a sense of self-expression and freedom, sensations which—particularly because they were associated with the West—were often stifled during Soviet times. Griusyte remarked that under the USSR “people were not free…music and dance from the west was forbidden. You could have problems...because of this. I remember one old lady told me she went to a disco. Somebody put on twist music, and soon the [authorities] stopped the disco. But people were listening to jazz music, danced twist, boogie-woogie, maybe Lindy Hop, but they did it secretly. And when the USSR failed, everybody felt free. They traveled a lot, and saw how people lived in the West. Now jazz music is getting more popular in Eastern Europe and Russia. People are looking for new dances—hip hop, argentine tango, etc. Lindy Hop is the new dance for us!”

So if you see a pair of Baltic dancers swinging out, give them some space; they’ve been waiting years for this. No one is going to—or rather, no one can—stop the music anymore.

For more information: http:www.lindyhop.lt, http:www.hot.ee/modus