About us

Swing Dancers at the Thames Festival 2006 (Photo: Heather Kightley)Swing Dancers of London (SDL) is a social group originally created on Facebook by Heather Kightley in 2007.

The group aims to organise the occasional free events for swing dancers across London, as well as helping to promote events organised by other swing dance organisations.

Swing Dancers of London has grown strongly, and the Facebook group now has over 1,000 members as of July 2009. This website has been created to complement the Facebook pages and open swing dance to a wider audience across the web.

 

Join our Facebook group

Our facebook group is still where it’s at. With discussion forums, photos and video clips of recent events, join our group to find out more.

FacebookJoin our Facebook group

Heather’s SDL Mission Statement

Isn’t it about time Facebook had a place where Web 2.0-compatible swing dancers in the capital can network and share information about events and dances?

I intend this group to have links to all the different venues/groupings in London – and be populated and informed by people who dance there – if I’ve missed anything good off my initial list, do inform me and we’ll update. I wouldn’t presume to say I know about or attend everything that’s going on – though that’s definitely something I aspire to!

What we dance

Swing dance refers to a group of dances that developed with swing jazz music in the 1920s through to the 1940s.

The most popular of these dances is include the Lindy Hop, also sometimes referred to as the Jitterbug, and was fashionable in the USA and the UK in the 1930s and 1940s.

Other dances in the swing genre include the Charleston (a dance made popular in the 1920s), Balboa, Blues and Jive.

More details on these dances and their history can be found at Wikipedia on this page.

What we do

Although we have been primarily a social group on Facebook, we have also organised events open to anyone interested.

These events have ranged from free outdoor dance events to supporting events organised by other swing dance organisations in London.

Our key objective is to organise events that will expose and promote to non-dancers to the dance we all love as well as being of interest to swing dancers across London.

Some of our events include:

  • Bomb the Bank, a free “Lindy bomb” that takes place in various places in London, including the South Bank;
  • Swing Dance Picnics, a free afternoon out at one of London’s parks

Swing Dance Picnic (Photo: Juliette Carter)We have also supported and helped to promote events arranged by other organisations (either formally or informally). These include events such as:

  • The Surrealist Ball at the V&A (informal)
  • National Theatre’s Watch This Space events (informal)
  • Oasis of Swing (organised by Would You Dance?)
  • 6th “Brit hop” London Lindy Exchange (organised by the London Lindy Exchange)

We also organise the occasional dance nights, giving a chance for our group members to gather socially, as well as promoting free events across London.

Photo Credits: Heather Kightley and Juliette Carter