Dancing in a Jack & Jill with Joao – Hopaholics Lindy Camp, Sao Paolo, Feb 2014

I’m Rosie (aka Dusty Sioux), a Lindy hop devotee from the East of England who loves dance and all the stories it has to tell.

Lindy hop is an infectious dance to jazz and swing music. From my first ‘rock step’ I was smitten.

This romance opened my curious eyes to world of limitless dance possibilities, movement or physical expression. Whether it be a recognised dance tradition, free-styling to the jukebox after a few ales, gate jumping, ‘Danish dancing’!, hand-clap games in the school playground, Parkour or how an Gaucho mounts his steed. My insatiable appetite to explore this and more began to grow.

So, in January 2014, with my curiosity and itchy feet spurring me on, I decided to set sail to South America – a land where music and dance flow freely I thought – to indulge my keen interest further; the Rio Carnaval in Brasil my starting point.

And my intention from this here? It’s to ‘do’ dance daily: yes physically dance as much as I can trying all and everything new to me (although ‘Passinho’ might be tricky). But also to talk with people about their love of dancing, learn about how the dance came to be, hear the stories of the moves, the rhythm, the music, language, clothing and place.

I’ve arrived with no plan of where to wander other than where this merry dance will lead me.

A friend said, “You’re a Dance Tourist Rosie!”and that seemed fitting. So here we go….vamos!