Herräng offers a most extensive total program covering anything from traditional one week full time programs to short spontaneous visits, including classes, social dances, theme parties, talk shows, cabarets, performances, contests, films, documentaries–all inside the historical- as well as the contemporary concept of primarily African-American vernacular jazz music and jazz dancing. A selection of highly experienced teachers will be present, and a highly experienced and dedicated line of organizers and staff personnel will also be present to make it all happen. The ambition is no doubt high, every possible effort will be made to build up and maintain a serious level of spirit and general quality.
The below approximate basic overview over any given week in Herräng gives you an idea of the twenty-four seven daily schedule of the 2018 Herräng Dance Camp.
DAYTIME IN HERRÄNG
The daytime profile of Herräng includes the strong majority of all classes, but also offers the full assortment of all our side-arrangements including food, drinks and general services. Herräng furthermore has a country-side location which opens up for excursions, beach life by the open sea and natural activities in general.
CLASSES
The one week programs will offer classes from Sundays until Fridays, the short week program (only two in existence) will cover from Monday until Wednesday, and weekend programs will operate from Friday evenings until Sunday afternoons. In average, all these programs come with three classes per day in the approximate interval of ten o'clock in the morning and seven o'clock in the evening, except for the one week half time programs which operates in the interval of 17.00 and 21.00 every day. Please observe that all classes are held in English with limited possibilities of any form of translation.
NIGHT TIME IN HERRÄNG
The night-time profile of Herräng includes a battery of planned activities as well as a battery of spontaneous activities. The starting point–except Fridays–is the Daily Meeting at 21.00 in our main building, Folkets Hus. From there on the party is on until the last guests are strolling back home somewhere around the time of the first morning classes. At this moment night-time Herräng shakes hand with daytime Herräng and underlines the well-known fact that Herräng never sleeps while the camp is on.
DAILY MEETING
Daily Meetings are performed at 21.00 every evening from Saturday until Thursday every week. These meetings have a long and successful tradition and have over the years become an institution. The main purpose of the meetings is to pass on some overgrasping information and some swing dance education, but very often they end up more in the landscape of general entertainment and herrängish talk show.
EVENING DANCE
Social dancing in Herräng starts at around 22.00 (right after the Daily Meeting) every night of the week, and goes on until the early morning. Herräng offers three separate dance floors: the Ballroom, the Dansbanan and the Library. Depending on the actual class programs, appropriate music will be played to match the different dance styles. Herräng offers a large variety of qualified deejays and often live bands to form the foundation for the social dance side of the program.The evenings in Herräng are always very good for social dancing, and sometime even spectacular from different themes and extra-ordinary deejays or bands. In general one floor always offers solid Lindy Hop music, one floor offers music for whatever additional discipline (Balboa, Boogie Woogie or Slow Drag) a given week might offer, and finally, one floor (often the Library) offers Lindy Hop music in an obvious party setting (Midnight Ramble), but with a special touch of for instance be-bop, latin swing, rhythm 'n' blues, New Orleans, Harlem et cetera.
LIBRARY TALK
Since a handful of years, Herräng offers a Sunday to Thursday series of discussions, interviews, film shows et cetera, under the umbrella name of Library Talk. The programs start at 22.00 and normally last for about an hour. This is the forum where the past meets the present, and where history moves into our contemporary setting.
CINÉMATHÈQUE RED CAMPER
On a more or less daily basis, Herräng offers the possibility to watch different documentaries and full length movies, normally related to jazz music and vernacular jazz dances. The preliminary hours for the shows are 22.00 (documentary) and 24.00 (full length movie), five days a week.
SPECIAL THEMES, EVENTS AND HAPPENINGS
During any given week, Herräng will offer many different additional attractions such as contests, cabarets, performances et cetera. These activities are sometime scheduled in advance, but in many cases they are scheduled on the spot once in Herräng. Among the scheduled ones, the following might be worthwile to pay some extra attention to: band nights (often Sundays, Mondays and Fridays), Masquerade Night (Thursdays), Cabaret Blue Moon (Thursdays), Savoy Night (Fridays) and general theme nights six days a week under the umbrella name of Midnight Ramble.
CRASH COURSES
Most evenings will, in addition to the regular classes, offer additional classes in different dance forms and adjacent activities of general interest. These classes are sometime taught by our regular teachers, sometime by students interested to pass on this or that. The occurring subjects are not planned in advance, but are, once in Herräng, advertised the same day as they are scheduled to happen.
MIDNIGHT RAMBLE
An established highlight of the evenings that will continue to move on even further into the party aspect of life. Starting at midnight six days a week, the Midnight Ramble will host illustrious theme parties including dancing to be-bop, latin swing, rhythm 'n' blues music et cetera. These theme parties will most of the time take place in the Library, but from time to time the activities will move into the upstair ballroom.
CABARET BLUE MOON
The tradition of presenting a Thursday night cabaret in Herräng is since the early 1990s an established institution. The focus of the cabaret will very much support the idea of making the show into a students performance spot, while the camp personnel take care of the surrounding logistics. And, for those of you planning to participate on stage, please keep in mind that the audience in Herräng is both grateful as well as forgiving! Accordingly: warmly welcome to participate in the Herräng students' Cabaret Blue Moon of 2018!
MASQUERADE NIGHT
Since many years existing Friday night theme and masquerade parties have been replaced by Savoy Night, we will for the summer to come, introduce Thursdays as the Masquerade Night, starting at midnight in direct connection to the Vaudeville Amateur Nite. These parties will not include any outdoor- or indoor installations nor substantial re-constructions, but they will offer and demand the element of a classic masquerade. Accordingly: please bring whatever it takes for you to create a disguise that will make you kind of anonymous.
Themes 2018:
Week 1 - To be announced
Week 2 - To be announced
Week 3 - To be announced
Week 4 - To be announced
Week 5 - To be announced
CULTURAL ACTIVITIES
The camp has a long tradition of offering one serious sleep-in morning of every week, Wednesday. At the same time this day is not only about sleeping, it's also about the possibility to perform cultural activities; a boat trip into the archipelago, a bike ride to a medieval church, a visit to a nearby ice-cream restaurant, a flamboyant cow safari or an excursion to the mines of Herräng. The alternatives will vary from week to week, but will always offer good possibilities to focus on something else than dancing for a while.
SAVOY NIGHT
Well, every night in Herräng has a distinct breeze from the historical landmark of swing dancing, the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. At the same time, we want to even further emphasize this fact by finishing each week with a glamorous dress-up extravaganza, all in the spirit of the immortal home of happy feet. In short words: Friday nights in Herräng will this year once again come without a masquerade- and installation theme, but will come with a spectacular party which won't finish until the rooster has been screaming for a looong time ...
