Countering Erasure

Aja Burrell Wood, around 7:20 into this conversation centered around Jazz & Social Justice, talks about “music already being inextricably linked to our humanity” and then shares at 7:50 that “communities have to affirm themselves” because the “humanity of Black people in the United States was under fire, constantly under threat and constantly not recognized let alone not affirmed.”

This led us delving into Cultural Affirmation where we kept being pointed toward the topic of erasure, where Kevin Coval writes that “erasure is a kind of violence, and violence is one of the tenets of white supremacy.” And erasure can harm us all. We can lose out on learning kinesthetic and cultural elements, we might be forced to assimilate into a singular ideal shaped by white supremacy.

Examples of erasure within the Denver swing scene include “The Death of Lindy Hop” and “The Swing Revival” as conveyed by Denver Swing Dance’s site in 2015 which echoed how many talked about Lindy Hop. Generations of Black folks continued to dance Lindy Hop but their contributions mostly went unacknowledged as organizers favored storytelling centering white viewpoints. Or organizers, such as ourselves, continued masking the name Lindy Hop under appropriated names.

As Fiveable shares on Cultural Affirmation, “affirmation fills in what is missing. It makes room for stories about ordinary life, resistance, joy, language, migration, religion, foodways, and political struggle. In other words, it widens the picture so a community is not reduced to one narrow image.”

So what are some ways to counter erasure and move toward affirmation? Here are some of our ideas:

• Using dance names bestowed by the Black communities that helped form them such as Lindy Hop

• Share that these dances, the music, the songs, the personal stylings were forged by being in community. While we love celebrating individuals (and we still can), we find it’s important to center them within the community. This is a good post to read if you have access to it.

• Engage in robust storytelling by telling fuller stories yourself, bringing in an expert or organizing a group outing to a place like Black American West Museum & Cultural Center. Another good resource is Chisomo and Bobby’s vlog, Integrated Rhythm, especially their latest (at time of writing), "Bouncing at the Savoy.”

• Identify and question dominant narratives as you ask - “who does this center and why?”

Think Like A Geographer - Marketing for Denver's Swing Scene

I’m currently reading Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba and Chapter 4 is “Think Like A Geographer” where they share the following from Ruth Wilson Gilmore:

“One of the things that thinking like a geographer can do is help people see, pull back the veil that makes something that’s social seem natural, and something that sometimes is natural, seem social.” Geography, she said, helps people ask the question, “Why is this place the way it is? Why is it like this?”

About My Vantage Point

I, Kenny, moved to Denver in January, 2005, eager to move to a bigger dance scene and improve my dancing, both Lindy Hop and West Coast Swing. The quality of dancers up and down the Front Range was superb.

By the end of my first or second month in town, I had co-organized the Colorado State Swing Championship, helping that event turn a profit for the first time in some years. From there I worked hard to be asked to join 23 Skidoo, started being part of the regular Mercury Cafe DJ rotation, founded my first national weekend event, taught workshops run through 23 Skidoo, and began teaching regularly at the Mercury Cafe in 2008 or so. I learned up close the marketing efforts Dan & Tiff were pouring into building up their business, their community. It made an impact on me that still resonates today and affects how I market Swingin’ Denver and shared my learnings when helping start schools in Melbourne and Madrid. I’m grateful too for my time within the Swing Patrol ecosystem in London, Berlin and Melbourne getting to see what this organization does which included showering King’s Cross Station with flyers in advance of new classes there, participating in borough parades and how they scouted venues.

Marketing Then

Daniel Newsome, a former Denver swing scene organizer, wrote on his now defunct website in a 2014 blog post titled Why Scenes Sometimes Succeed and Sometimes Fail,

“There is a mindset I see frequently that I call ‘fighting over how to split up $.25 instead of making $1 for everyone.’ I would encourage anyone who needs to work with other promoters, venues or dance schools to try and build their own markets. Try to increase the size of your community, not subdivide it further. If you have a love for what you do and a vision for a better community, I assure you that there are enough students and dancers for everyone.”

From my point of view, him and Tiffiny Wine were go-getters, growing swing nights at the Mercury Cafe into the well known venue behemoth some of us recall it as.

He also talks about the concept of seven touches and they had the resources and drive making this happen. “There is a rule in sales that you must ‘touch’ someone 7 times before they become a client. A touch can be a seeing an advertisement of yours, hearing about you from a friend, an email, a phone call, a Facebook invite etc. make sure that you’re pushing out enough information about your classes and dances that people will hear about it more than once and ideally 7 times.”

Dan’s aforementioned linked blog post shares how much marketing materials they had plus two college students driving all over metro Denver leaving flyers so people could discover swing nights at the Mercury Cafe. You can see the typical investment they made HERE with images of their Guys and Dolls Workshop material. There were such a variety of touch points for people to discover that the Mercury Cafe was the place to be for a wide swath of individuals first discovering swing dancing.

Another great place to peer into the past is using the Wayback Machine tool for 23Skidooland.com and DenverSwingDance.com. You can also catch a glimpse of the forum with 1,000+ users back when every swing scene had a b2b board.

Marketing Now

Marketing then did a lot to grow and support Denver’s swing scene because, from my POV, Denver Swing Dance, as built by Tiff & Dan, was where scene participants could gather physically and digitally to dance, socialize, get snarky and discover new events. But technology evolves, lifestyles change, exhaustion can set in, new organizers spring up.

Things have been feeling quieter pre and post-pandemic on the marketing front. Print marketing materials are slim, websites are outdated, little progress has been made treating better the Black social dances we dance. New(ish) elements that have been pleasant surprises include:

• Sticker nights through Swing Nights launching in 2023

• The Triplestep starting and continuing in ground level public spaces and being an inspiration with their social media marketing

• Four calendar guides - DenverLindyCal, DenverDanceCal, Alpine Groove Guide, the live Google Doc of local dance events that’s cooperatively sourced.

• Blackness and Blues events at Move With Ease (suspended operations)

• The immense hustle Joseph Snowhawk lays down promoting his swing dances at the Avalon and how he treats his musician talent.

People speak of fractures but when your main informational hub and gathering space pulls back from their monumental efforts, folks will create new communications methods while others disperse. And, as is shared in Let This Radicalize You:

“As important as these (social media) platforms are, overdependence on them weakens our movements. We need to practice a diverse spectrum of outreach methods in digital spaces and in physical spaces, and we need to do skill-buillding work in our movements around those methods. Sometimes, we need to be literal about meeting people where they are at. Think about all the places people congregate in person and remotely where conversation is possible, from restaurants to school, parks, porchees, places of worship, street fairs, text message threads — and so many more.”

Compare current marketing efforts to this book excerpt - are we meeting people where they’re at so they can organically be introduced to an opportunity to learn how to Lindy Hop? Are organizers sharing their events in Colorado Swing Dance, Denver Jazz Scene, Five Points Neighborhood or Denver Dance Classes (as examples for where people are)? Are organizers providing more than a week’s advanced notice as to who is teaching or providing music (as of 7/18/26, 9 days after publishing, some lead times of 7-10 days being seen)? How and where do citizens discover swing dancing?

Transactional Relationships

Or does it feel that organizers expect you’ll support them simply because they exist? Do they want your allegiance and, if so, what do you receive from giving it?

Around two years ago, I was in the room with a local company’s operations director and social impact administrator as they discussed the feeling they were engaging in transactional relationships with their customer base. In other words, it weighed on them that they weren’t promoting their events more than two weeks in advance which meant they weren’t getting their customer support base excited nor amplifying new customer discovery potential. While paying for the performing talent is an investment, it’s only a piece of the puzzle. To them, it perhaps felt like they were seeking short-term gains instead of cultivating a sustainable community where it invests in the participating people.

Marketing the future

As scene participants contemplate Denver’s venue disruptions which includes Colorado Swing Dance Club’s July 3 closure and Swing Nights losing The Pearl, I find marketing to be a concern. Again, Dan has some great advice from this 2014 blog that’s worth exploring. I’d also encourage the following:

• Explore how The Triplestep started and grew with intentionality

• Broaden who you follow within your “capital C” Community. If you’re following mostly dancers instead of local establishments, you’re likely only viewing content from people you know through the dance scene. That’s fine to support your friend but you also need to build your audience.

• Interact with your Community, meaning local businesses, Front Range venues, adjacent scenes, content creators you like. And by interact, I mean like and like back, comment, repost, share to story, share content you like on your Facebook page, etc. Be a participant, give back, be a supporter and cheerleader. If you’re an organizer, pop into your IG settings and review your interactions. If you’re a community member, consider interacting with your swing orgs’ posts, reposting what’s happening, sharing directly with a friend, even seeing who they’re following and supporting in case you’d want to do the same.

• Create printed materials (pay artists, avoid AI and generic Canva images modeled after white bodies) and distribute heavily!! Increase marketing, increase accessibility.

• Ask for advice from a wide range of scene participants. If you don’t know all the spaces where people interact, ask and find out. Develop your curiosity.

• Share dance opportunities in dance, music and neighborhood Facebook groups.

• Create a Google Business Profile, market there, add photos, utilize the announcement option

• Invest in advertising with Google and/or Meta

• Consider offering discounted dance lessons on Groupons and equivalent platforms

Summary

There are so many ways to market and it’s exhausting to do it well in order to create a sustainable gathering place. It’s why I don’t run weekly classes and monthly dances anymore outside of Swingin’ Denver’s strategic partnerships.

When I suspended our 2022 events ahead of my holiday market work and second child’s birth, I had some hope to restart. It literally felt like I was getting up from a reclining position on the sofa to only sink back down. I knew I couldn’t market to the fullest of my ability and didn’t know who to ask, who to rely on. Marketing well, in my opinion, is consuming, tiring work and there’s still the uncertainty if there will be a payoff, whether emotional and/or financial.

While I accepted seeing my marketing mentors pull back all those years ago, I didn’t understand it. I do now. I get it. And they were in a good position to pull back. Over the years it seemed a scarcity mindset eventually set in and entrenched itself rather than gathering enough ingredients to make more “pie.” The students are out there. They just need as many touch points as possible to find you.

Financial Story of the Inaugural Lindy Bop

Have you ever wondered about the financials of running an event? Max S, Von B and I (Kenny N) would like to share the details of running Lindy Bop, an event we co-organized together February, 2025.

Why Lindy Bop?

Lindy Bop was conceived to be a safe space for those that value Black history, solidarity with workers, internationalism, accessibility, liberation and joy. Three distinct elements brought these aspects forward:

• The event copy - “Come dance and celebrate Black History, Black Ourstory, and Black Futures!”

• An accessibility guide

• Max’s welcoming speech centering the night on freedom with each other, liberation and joy

Financial Breakdown

We hope that providing this event’s financial transparency might also inspire others to run their swing events centering Black American social dances. Please note that we collectively decided to donate profits to The Abolition Garden and the instructors chose to donate their time.

For payment convenience, we provided three in-person payment methods - credit card, venmo and cash along with a pre-purchase option via Humanitix instead of Eventbrite since we value their mission-forward platform. Although we set the ticket prices low to increase financial accessibility, if we were to repeat this event in the future, we would consider the practicality of sliding scale ticket prices so that anyone who wants to attend can.

The Labor Involved

Additional labor included designing social media posts using Canva, creating marketing copy, sending out at least one email newsletter, sharing the event with friends and acquaintances, recruiting volunteers, prepping class material, bringing PA equipment and planning safe space contingency plans. 

In summary

Another note is that our event ended up running during a heavy snowfall which led to reduced attendance. In the end, we felt fulfilled and gladdened about our collaborative event.

Resources for "Is Charleston A Swing Dance"?

From our response on Westie Discussion of the Day:

It is a swing dance and it can also be defined as a vernacular dance (meaning you make visible African-American rhythms on the dance floor) or a traditional dance (something that is rooted in tradition, but wholly alive).

One good resource is Margaret Batiuchok's dissertation (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rUe7jHb0c7VFlu8fNL-cgYe0pv4IYk3P/view?usp=sharing) featuring Black Lindy Hop elders with information such as "Frankie Manning said Lindy came from the Collegiate which looked like closed position Charleston"

Another resource is iLindy discussing the connection between Charleston and Geechee culture - https://ilindy.com/blog/origins-of-the-charleston/ - thanks to enslaved Africans being able to keep a greater portion of their West African traditions due to being isolated from white slaveholders.

I'd also recommend Steppin' on the Blues: The Visible Rhythms of African American Dance (Folklore and Society) as it builds correlations between HBCU marching band culture, Charleston, solo jazz and the concept that Moncell Durden often talks about that you carry your cultural heritage in your blood DNA which is why you'll see seemingly "unrelated" though related movements occur within Black dance traditions.

This leads me to Moncell Durden's documentary Everything Remains Raw - https://www.moncelldurden.com/film.

Exploring 6 vs 8-Count Patterns

A Redditor recently posed the questions on the r/swingdancing sub-reddit -

“Since many students have asked for it, we will teach a class (beg/int level) with this topic: How do dancers recognize the difference between 6 and 8 count steps?

Our final goal is to understand: It is not about 6 or 8, it is just about: Is the next one a step-step or a triple step.

How do you approach this topic? Any good excercises, you would teach? Any good ressources/videos which would help us to prepare this class?”

Here are some thoughts we had and shared:

• dance to lots of music, giving students freedom to explore

• walk the room, making observations, personally noting success with students, making inquiries when it appears that the outcome was different than one of the partners may have been wanting for themself and explore that.

• acknowledge that how you make African-American rhythms visible on the dance floor (Jacqui S. Malone's definition of vernacular) is up to the individual though you'll provide rhythm ideas as the teacher

• one place where we discuss rhythm choices is the passby - it can be accomplished with the QQSS rhythm or QQS triple step or QQ triple step triple step rhythms.

• a place for decisions related to the length of a pattern likely along with rhythm choices is the send out and gather. You could do a send out much like an 8 count gliding step made linear where the indication to keep going is the leader adding to the momentum to get a walk walk. And for the students, it's good to note that we're co-creators in this event rather than having "gotcha!" moments.

For a visual example on how the second to last suggestion is employed, we have this recap video of our Beginner Lindy Hop class where we’re teaching a variety of patterns, rhythms and dances. Note that the triple step on the passby is a choice either partner can make and it might feel like a call to the other partner to respond to. Whether you do or not, is up to you!

So what do you think of our suggestions?

Lindy Hop on the Continuum

This morning I asked my son to point where the past is and he pointed behind him. As to where the future is, it’s in front of him. In the book, A Myriad of Tongues by Caleb Everett, we learn that the USA is WEIRD or Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic which makes us weird “when contrasted to the bulk of human societies that exist or ever have existed.” Chapter 1, titled “Your Future Is behind You,” explores the many ways cultures judge time and tense.

But why talk about time? For the past few years, I’ve seen an increase in how Lindy Hoppers and West Coast Swing dancers market themselves. One is past or vintage and the other is modern. Can you guess which is which? For me, both dances are quintessentially of the present though confusion typically arises when a swing dancer inevitably states they “swing dance,” the person asking jumps to a conclusion and the swing dancer might experience frustration. I’ve gotten around the confusion by using the given name of the dance and, if I sense the need for futher explanation, provide that “I dance Lindy Hop, a dance created by Black Americans in the 1920s still danced today to swing music” or “I dance West Coast Swing, a partner dance danced to Top 40/Billboard charted music.” If it comes to it, I might even do a brief dance demo as a means of explaining as their baseline grooves are aesthetically different.

To quote Moncell Durden - “The name of the dance is lindy hop. The name of the dance is not swing dancing. Swing dancing is what you're doing. You're swinging to the swing band.” In other words, be specific and name the dance. Moncell, in The History of Line Dances, formerly on YouTube, also states “There is such a level of erasure when calling it swing dance or jitterbug and you’re doing such a disservice.”

On the subject of erasure, there is a potential for harm caused by labeling Black dances “past” or “vintage.” On pages 80-81 of Fear of Black Consciousness by Lewis R Gordon, Lewis writes -

• “Another concept demanding illumination in the study of race is ‘modern.’ The term is so equated with being European and white that it is rarely defined otherwise. If, however, the modern belongs to now or the present, how, then, could those moments of the past belong to the present? Shouldn’t they be, in relation to us, ancient?

• No people have reason to question their belonging to the present unless their legitimacy is challenged, as by conquest or colonization. If a group is promised no future, its present is jeopardized, and belonging becomes a feature of its past”

If we use labels such as these on continually practiced Black social dances like the partnered Lindy Hop or the solo Suzy Q that have been transformed over the years, are we saying the Black creators only belong or matter at the time of origin or mass adoption by white populations?

Let’s also reflect on excerpts from Marie N’Diaye’s paper, Rhythmic Resilience: An exploration of the African American Lindy Hop Community in New York City, USA:

• She (Mickey Davidson) also explained that as the originators are transitioning, new “elders” from the global scene (which I understood as the ‘new heirs’) started to take more space and present their version of the story. A story which seems to ignore the young Black dancers present in the scene at the time

• Mama Amaniyea was next to answer and seemed surprised at the term ‘Dark Age’, about this period of time she stated that “it was very lit to us, you know, we never stopped” and that in Baltimore “jazz continued, Big Bands continued. We had Hand Dancing here”. When it came to learning to partner dance she explained “we didn't go to school for stuff like that”. Dancing was something “you did in your living room, or the backyard, or the Black community you live in, wasn't in schools during that time.”

• “Just because it got off of mass media, they think that everybody stopped. And we, we would [dance] in places where other people didn't want to come into those neighbourhoods because they were scared. But that's where, our light has always been. You can have a dance at a church, at all of the different social clubs that were in our Black community. Everybody danced, even when Frankie retired from the post office, the postal workers used to give some slamming parties, him and Scotty. And you know, and when we got to a certain point, we got invited to some of those parties. But that's what cultural art is.” Ms Mickey

Again from Amaniyea Payne in an interview with Sugarloaf Stomp where she also asked “who do you suppose kept the lights on” for Norma and Frankie to return to. :

• “It was our golden age because we were working with the greats. It was being fed spirit and knowledge and humanity all at once”.

I think, rather than plucking these dances from the past and labeling them as such, we join in the continuum acknowledging their long-standing traditions having kept the “lights” on. And, if you’re a guest within the culture like me, you use language that speaks to the Black practioners’ experience. Let’s end on what Rennie Harris, Co-Director of Hip-Hop Studies at CU Boulder, shares here:

The origins of Street Dance are embedded in the social and political histories of marginalized communities. It is a testament to resilience and ingenuity that, without the support of mainstream institutions, communities crafted expressive dance forms to articulate their lived experiences. The term “Street Dance,” is a euphemism for community dance; specifically, it refers not to movement on physical streets but to the neighborhoods and social spaces in which these styles developed. Take note that when referring to the streets, its in reference to the community or neighborhood, not the actual street. This linguistic framing underscores Street Dance’s role as an embodied cultural archive—an enduring repository of Black and Brown histories, struggles, joys, and resistance.

Lindy Hop is Smooth

Do our readers pay attention to the west coast swing world? We do as a result of our Lindy Hop journey occurring nearly simultaneously with our West Coast Swing journey so we’re cognizant of the attempts to embed this notion of renaming WCS to “Modern Swing.” Folks are always trying to create differentiators with their marketing terms to set themselves apart but there can be this feeling of Othering at times especially when you realize that Black contributions and kinesthetic values are potentially being whitewashed. Here are some of our thoughts as conveyed in response today’s discourse:

Here's a good article about the Savoy vs Hollywood style debates - https://swungover.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/savoy-style-vs-hollywood-style-a-fight-to-the-death-hopefully/.

One point to make is that Hollywood style was pure marketing that also referred to itself as "smooth" in order to contrast it with Savoy. This echoes how Skippy Blair utilized language to create differentiation between swing dance styles. Now look at this old school Lindy Hopper, George Lloyd - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqMiAIkCyIE The man was smooth and glided along the floor. This is just one of a myriad of examples, but Lindy Hop as born out of the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem was smooth. This echoes one of vernacular dances' values - the aesthetic of cool. Even Frankie Manning taught and spoken out about Lindy Hop being smooth.

One of the key differences too is that Black Lindy Hoppers mostly danced fast, athletic, showcasing airsteps in a lot of movies. White lindy hoppers got to do a lot of social dancing and frame their dancing in such a way for the camera, i.e. slotted.

It's fine to acknowledge regional differences but we need to be wary when we're echoing talking points that Other Blackness.

And labeling or attempting to rename WCS as "Modern Swing" seemingly ignores all the swing dances happening now in various regions of the country. We're all modern people living in a modern age bringing our modernness to bear on the dances we dance. It's kind of silly.

The Power of Transformation

A hot recent topic on iLindy’s Instagram was this post where Gabriela asks “Do we want to keep promoting the story of "Lindy Hop is for everyone", or do we want to establish clear values that we expect from people who want to be a part of our community?” It’s worth reading, listening to and sharing. Here are are thoughts originally shared as a comment on this post:

We're of the opinion that since Black social dances are transformative when taught acknowledging their roots, history, theirstories, kinetic/social/community values, everyone can be initially welcome (there are exceptions). Since this isn't necessarily centering whiteness, white supremacy, patriarchical, hierarchical values, people will learn to likely self-select out though they may experience transformation.

You Drive, I Navigate?

Ever since I was introduced in 2010-ish to Brandi Guild’s concept of the follower as the driver, leader as the GPS unit, I’ve been utilizing that analogy when talking about dance roles. It’s more reflective of the interpersonal dynamics that happen on the dance floor and those dance values shared by Lindy Hop’s Black creators, past, present and future.

Recently, I had the opportunity to embody those values during a one-on-one software training session. My default would have been to show with the expectation they’d take notes, mental or written, and then see if they could duplicate my efforts but instead of I offered if they’d be willing to drive with my navigation. It went rather well with both of us having a bit of a struggle at times, me making sure I was communicating my IRL practice and her experiencing trial-and-error. Much like a dance, either person’s initiation can land us in a new place but we adapt and attune.

What's Your Worth

20+ years ago I was in the green room pre or post-performance where I learned the owner of the studio I was working for was earning $400 for each of us for a 3-minute performance alongside a big band at a dinner where the KC Chiefs cheerleaders were also making an appearance. It was a classy affair where us swing dance performers saw $0 of that income. Why? Because we had a verbal understanding that, in exchange for performing across metro Kansas City, we’d receive free training at our weekly practices and had access to all the group classes the studio offered. It took me a few years to realize the math wasn’t mathing and I was being taken advantage of in a way.

This is where it gets murky. I loved performing swing dancing and thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of performing in front of people. I still do but I make sure I and others get paid or make sure there is meaningful value being exchanged and everyone knows the terms & conditions before providing consent - “yes, I will accept.” Back then I’d likely do those performances for free for the feels and “the glory” but I wish I was taught the value of those services being offered. It made me easy to exploit later on and I falsely assumed that others would do the same - work and train for free.

• A few years back I met with a newer local DJ to discuss rates because a national event was offering them $12/hour to DJ. This person was viewing this offer as experience, practice and paying of dues. We delved into this and reframed their offer as exploitative and undervalueing their work.

• An event producer demanded I make an appearance on a television show to promote an upcoming event I wasn’t part of. It was uncompensated and would take me away from my compensated work. When I discussed declining, they threatened to hire someone else for an upcoming gig I was already hired for and working on so I dissolved that contract and walked away. They exploited my replacements with lower pay than my original quote sourced from performers in LA and NYC.

• A year ago I’m informed that a venue changed their band compensation to be $100/person instead of a fixed flat rate where a band could show up with the right amount of people for more fair compensation. $100/person is the rate I was encouraged to pay on a Wednesday night back in 2014 and that’s increased to a minimum of $125/person and I decreased my typical show from 3 hours to 2 due to musician feedback.

• An Aussie event hired me to DJ in 2012 for $25/hr for a 90 minute set. 48 hours before I was to DJ they informed me I’d have to pay the $35 admittance fee for the dance I was DJing. I quit.

• A Melbourne event whose DJ coordinator was Sam Carroll told me I was going to be paid $30/hour to DJ the band breaks and, since I was expected to contrast the music of the band, the expectation would be that I’d be working while the band was playing and would be compensated for my time listening to the band and the band breaks. She also gave me the band’s set list. Sam’s a badass.

DJs

• In 2006-2008 or so, I was being compensated $20/hour to DJ the Mercury Cafe when slots were highly competitive. Swingin’ Denver rates in 2017-2019 were a sliding scale of $20-50/hour depending if you were a newbie in training versus big events hire you.

• Based off polling in an international swing dance organizers group, those numbers are average with college scenes compensating less

Local Classes

• We were compensating $40-50/75 min classes which is line with our national peers.

Private Lessons

• These vary city-by-city based off your experience and if you’re folding studio rental in your cost and how you’re feeling about that fold. In Madrid, I was charging 40 Euro while the going rate in Zurich was 100 Swing Francs.

• In Denver, I charge between $75-100 + studio rental but your value is your own. If you need to charge a certain amount to make it worth your time or you want to peg it to a certain value based off research/peers in other dance disciplines, do it. Don’t let the value I associate with myself, my other work, my lifestyle determine your worth.

Workshops

• I started at $100/hour but am now at $150/hour. It could be higher based off peers in the space but the number will fluctuate within the state of Colorado for accessibility and the importance of the work dependent on the space. I find it’s important to have transparent conversations about your value and if you’re offering discounts for a specific reason.

Class Pricing

• Back in 2015 or so, I sat down with a long-time Denver swing dancer who asked me why I was devaluing my offerings. I specifically chose to be competitive with the pricing at the Mercury Cafe but she asked to tell her what other dance and movement classes were charges and if I thought I was offering similar or greater value. The answer was “yes” and we increased our pricing while offering student and accessible pricing over the years.

• Lindy Hop and other social dances that emerged from Black American spaces where white people like myself commodified them seem to have devalued pricing compared to other African diasporic dances such as Salsa, Bachata, Zouk. Another example is where African diasporic dances retain the names their creators gave them (for the most part and there are conversations within the Zouk communities) but Black American dances like Lindy Hop might be renamed to Jitterbug to invisibilize their Blackness. I’m unsure what conclusions to draw but this has been on my mind.

Hopefully this information helps someone providing their talent to the swing music and dance community in the future. Your contributions are valuable and you deserve to work with non-exploitative people and organizations.