The Jam Rooters: “This dance is nice as a genre and it’s also very uplifting, you can get away from your daily routine”

Interviewer: Tell us a few words about your team and the time that you have been active.

J.R: We started as a team 1.5 month ago, in March, we already knew one another as friends, we’ve danced a lot together, we had already built some friendships among us before and now we thought to do it in a more systematized way, more structured and professional. So we added rehearsals every week, meetings and running a Facebook page to our schedules.

 

Interviewer: Why did you choose swing? What makes it so special than other dance genres?

J.R: To begin with, we all started alone, when we began to dance everyone had their reasons. I actually got to know about it through a friend and she told me to check out a new genre and that’s how I got to know this type of music. Then we realized that this dance was really nice as a genre and it’s also very uplifting, you can get away from your daily routine because it brings about a merry mood and gives you strength, a push, what we might call personal motivation. But someone else may start for their own reasons or under different circumstances. We just met, gathered all together at the same place at the same time and said we should start something together.

You get a new experience through a new type of dance, you feel the energy, the joy, the cheerfulness, you get into contact with people, get acquainted, dance, get to know others and it all comes down to what you like and what you feel clicks right, then once you start you can’t stop.

 

Interviewer: Are you a closed group or do you accept new members?

J.R.: We have only just now begun, you build a basic line, a main team, then we don’t know how this will develop later, we will see how it rolls out.

Since we are a group, it’s just us. Now, as far as the dance is concerned, if someone wants to come and dance a song or two with us, that’s different, it’s like a partnership. But for now, it’s just the people in our group.

 

Interviewer: Do you dance any place particular? Can someone come and see you, follow you somewhere, at your shows?

J.R.: We have a Facebook and Instagram page, if something comes up we upload it there, if we are performing somewhere, when and where, and then there are the *social parties* as we call them, at different joints or dance schools, depends whether we get together as a group, otherwise we may dance separately as well.

 

Interviewer: Your performances are in Thessaloniki. Do you think the city is active when it comes to dancing? Is there the motivation to dance?

J.R: I think the city loves swing, there are different places that swingers get organized, plan their own events, take action and go out and dance outdoors, at the streets, at the White Tower, more open and free. These groups are not just about dancing behind four walls.

Actually, it’s good that there was a pretty big push with all the things we are trying to do, especially for people to get to know swing. Whenever someone may get to know about swing, I think it’s a great dance and easy to learn, so the community grows just like that. It isn’t like Latin dances, Latin is already well-known, as a genre. Something similar is happening with swing, just with different music but definitely of a similar approach, with social parties, classes, anything of that sort.

 

Interviewer: When you were invited to participate in TEDxAUTH, what made you say yes?

J.R.: We thought it was a good start, that it is really close to when we started performing as a team and it’s a good start to get to know us as well, watch our first steps, our cautious first steps. TEDx attracts so many young people, you may see it all around you, they represent the ideas that we too wish to spread and we have one as well, towards an audience that is young and active.

Translation: Niki Saridaki

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