ABSTRACT
Chapter 5, Part One, offers an alternative look at contemporary jazz culture through the role of ‘social’ dance and the influence of European jazz dance revivals, providing a close reading of the centre of such revivals, through an ethnographic and practice-based investigation of the Herräng Dance Camp in Sweden. Divided into two sub-chapters, Part One focuses upon two aspects of contemporary jazz dance culture: the ‘Black Atlantic’ connection between the camp’s organisation and promotion of this revival/continuum, and the ‘old-timers’ or Black American jazz dancers (especially from the Savoy Ballroom) who cultivated long-term relationships with European dancers from the late 1980s. By proposing a swing dance continuum within Sweden, this chapter aims to refocus the role of corporeal jazz cultures within contemporary European jazz cultures.
