24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Dance festival set to swing
Snappy steps and swivelling hips will get the party started when a popular dance event returns.
The Dunedin Swing Festival is staging its 11th edition over King's Birthday weekend, offering big band energy, syncopated beats and buoyant revelry.
Festival director Sibby Dillon said the event's core styles traced back to innovators of the 1920s-'40s swing era.
"African-American communities in different parts of America were responding to the music of the time in different ways."
Swing was freer than more structured forms of dance.
"There's so much more personality, your own personality that you bring to the dance, and that makes it incredibly fulfilling.
"It means that when you are dancing with someone else, you are actually bringing your personality to that dance and they are bringing their personality to the dance."
The festival caters to a range of skill levels, from absolute beginners through to advanced classes.
Age groups are also covered, starting with a free under-5s dance class.
"A lot of us now have little people and we like to involve them in our community as well," Dillon said.
Teaching co-ordinator Kieran Ford said although swing was popular in its own era, the dances had stayed in demand.
"It is the same whakapapa that goes all the way through to hip-hop and disco and house music.
"It is the same story, part of the same culture, one just led from one to the next."
Six experienced tutors will lead 10 hours of workshops — John and Julia Wharington, Miya Miyazaki, Evan Hughes and Jessie Gordon, of Australia, will be joined by Lindy hop star Ramona Staffeld, of the United States.
"She has won multiple awards at the International Lindy Hop Championships," Ford said.
Social events include a blues dance night at Errick's featuring the Whirling Eddys band and the Josephine Ball at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum, featuring Jessie Gordon and her Rinky Tinky Jingle Jangle Jazz Club — comprising local musicians.
Gordon was a multiple Fringe World Music and Cabaret Award-winning singer, Dillon said.
The festival draws enthusiastic dancers from Dunedin and beyond.
Dedicated festival-goers can look forward to seeing familiar faces from previous years.
"I think that community of people is a really special group that comes together once a year here.
"It is definitely very much a party and a celebration," Ford said.
The Dunedin Swing Festival is a supporter of LGBTQI+ nonprofit organisation the Safe Space Alliance.
Funding from the Otago Community Trust helps ensure the event takes place.
• The Dunedin Swing Festival will take place from May 29 to June 2.
Visit for timetables, tickets and registration.
