Herräng 2010, Week 2, Tuesday

This is very much old news, but I’m still going through the Herräng photos. I was just going to write some text to go with the flickr-album, but I ended up with more text than practically readable in the flickr small column format, so I modified it a bit and posted it here instead.

Tuesday (the 13th of July) was a terribly hot day. Sweaty classes, including a “special” one. Later I escaped to the beach, where I met some of my most stylish friends, enjoying the afternoon with style. Nice Retro Fashion Show during the meeting. Blues night, so no dance photos! (Well “Slow Drag Night” with the new official Herräng terminology, to emphasise that old style music and nothing modern will be played.)

The 13th class
Here comes one of my (hopefully very) few rants about Herräng 2010: The idea of a “13th class” was very appealing - instead of the 12 classes we were paying for (or working for) we got 13, where one of them was something completely different, to introduce some randomness and fun. Some classes petted a boa constrictor, some gave massage to each other, yet some were comparing candy from different countries. We, we were told to make one row out of several in a paint-by-checkboxes giant Frankie-portrait, on the asphalt in front of Folkets Hus, in the blistering midday sun. As the “cult” part of the lindy movement is the thing I have the most objections to (add that I have too little sun tolerant facial pigment) this was not my favourite activity. Although of course, I participated and had kind of fun convincing myself and others that this was not a bad working-in-a-group practice - fake it until you make it.


Almost everybody drawing


Drawing


Well deserved break



At the beach
The beach was, for understandable reasons, well occupied. As mentioned I encountered some friends who know how to do anything with retro style. They kindly shared a glass of well-known sparkling wine with me. Listening to “Champagne Galop” on a portable wind-up phonograph, while drinking champagne, in the shade on the beach next to the world’s best dance camp - one of those “life could be worse”-moments :)


Winding up


The portable phonograph


Champagne


Retro Fashion Show
A returning theme at the evening meetings has been to have a short retro fashion show, with clothes that can be ordered through the Lindy Hop Show.











To be honest I don’t remember who made these clothes, but I do know that one of the companies which does make retro style outfits suitable for dancing is Swing Outfits, so it could have been them. (p.s. Take a closer look at the cup in the last photo, and you will find another returning theme :)

Blues Night
Blues (slow drag...) night was very good! At least after some hours, when we had moved down into the library. Up in the main hall it was way too warm and crowded, and too many beginners / people that were not that interested in blues (don’t misunderstand - I’m a beginner myself, but I know I like dancing to / trying to dance to blues music, which some beginners who haven’t tried find out that they don’t).


In the Mood for Blues


Blues Morning


Dancing all the way until the last blues dj gave up, which was ~7:30, as can be seen above. (Or, of course, in the photo meta-data, but all my Herräng photos are one hour off, since I never switched to daylight saving time.)


Walking back


Going to back to shower (no sauna week 2 - it was broken for one full week ): and finishing the “day” with breakfast at Yum-Yum. Then sleep - horay for Wednesday = “cultural activity day” = sleep until afternoon.

Visit the flickr-album or the Herräng 2010 collection for more photos!