Herrang is home to the bestest vernacular jazz dance camp/festival in the world. Last few years they’ve followed up the camp with a competition in Sweden – the Battle. I use a clip from a previous year for teaching and papers at conferences.
This year the lindy hop didn’t really blow my brain, but there is some sweetness in the ‘authentic jazz competition’. Mostly in the person of one Zacharias Larsson. This boy is a giant, young Swede – quite possibly the sweetest thing. And my personal jazz dancing hero.
Check out the first clip below. That’s Zach in the white shirt and beige trousers.
(From here).
For my money, he’s the only one really bringing it – less with the show pony, more with the dancing (though he’s certainly not shy of a little showing off).
Look, here’s some more – from the finals:
(From here).
Oh yeah, that’s the action. Try to look past the flailing in the foreground (sorry, friends, but that’s not very interesting stuff – better than anything I could pull, but still… I really am tired of girls dancing dancing sexy and twirling their hands about like belly dancers – HARDEN UP!).
And, finally, peer past (even more) flailing to see him pull some serious sweet action here:
He really is pulling some sweet dancing there. If we were to get all nit-picky, he’s definitely working the ‘authentic’ stuff – as in dance steps which have some historical weight. Technically, he’s a dream. Musically, he’s awesome. And aesthetically – as a package – he makes it all work. My favourite in that last one is the way he works it quite small until the music gets big, then he brings out the nice high kicks (a la cake walking goodness).
He’s not only a nice person and a fabulous dancer, he’s also a fully sick teacher. He and Frida have been long term dance partners (though she’s getting more into the American scene these days). Here’s a photo The Squeeze took in Melbourne in 2002:
That’s them at full stretch, kickin’ it lindy hop style.
