During the 2024 National Jitterbug Championships at Camp Hollywood in Los Angeles, Seattle swing dancer Adam Brozowski did something wholly unexpected in partner dance: He leapt across the competition dance floor as his drag alter ego Free’da Follow, wearing a blonde wig, full make-up, and a tight blue velvet skirt.
“That was the first time Free’da ever appeared anywhere, and it was an intentional statement towards awareness for queer people in the dance scene,” Brozowski said.
Swing dance, particularly Lindy Hop, the foundational style of the swing dance family, emphasizes heteronormative “lead” and “follow” roles, as well as gendered language and dress that leave people of other gender identities and sexual orientations feeling excluded. The LGBTQ+ history of Lindy Hop, which emerged in Black and queer spaces during the Harlem Renaissance, is often de-emphasized as well.
Brozowski, co-founder of the dance school Queer Swing Seattle, is an active part of a small but growing global movement to make swing dance more inclusive of LGBTQ+ people. In that spirit, Queer Swing Seattle will host “Swung Out” on June 21, their 3rd annual social dance for LGBTQ+ people and allies during Seattle Pride Month.
Queer-empowered dance
Brozowski first got into swing dance at age 10 after discovering it at Seattle’s Century Ballroom. His teacher was Harlem-bred dancer Norma Miller, credited as one of the creators of the Lindy Hop.
Brozowski travels globally as a swing dance competitor and instructor, and he was used to being one of the only LGBTQ+ Lindy Hop dancers in the room.
“For years, I would tell queer friends, ‘hey, come check [swing dance] out,’ and you look into the room and what do you see? You see men leading, women following, a lot of people are into wearing vintage clothing, which is very gendered,” he said. “They look into that room and they don't see themselves there.”
In 2019, Brozowski and his husband Bradley Barrios, who met while dancing, made it their mission to create a more inclusive Lindy Hop space. Queer Swing Seattle takes an open-minded approach to teaching swing dance and producing social dances.
They teach three levels of Lindy Hop classes out of the Russian Community Center in Capitol Hill, using the “Everybody Leads, Everybody Follows” (ELEF) method.
This philosophy, used by a mounting number of progressive dance schools, breaks swing dance free of the command-and-obey dynamic. All dancers are taught how to dance on either side of the partnership. Different terminology is used to describe roles on the dance floor, too.
“Instead of ‘lead’ somebody, we’ll say ‘how can you empower your partners movement?’” Brozowski said.
Queer Swing Seattle also teaches “switch” Lindy Hop, which is more fluid and leaves room for individual interpretation.
“It’s a modern trend where basically you maintain binary roles, leading and following, and then on a special move you will swap to the other side of the partnership,” Brozowski explained.
Cultivating broader awareness
Unearthing underrepresented history about the roots of swing dance — and jazz music — is another cornerstone of Queer Swing Seattle and “Swung Out” because, as Brozowski notes, many swing dancers forget where the dance comes from.
“Swing dancing, swing music, and jazz music were all beautiful creations in Black culture out of the Harlem Renaissance, and the Harlem Renaissance was incredibly queer,” Brozowski said.
Alain Locke, one of the “chief intellectual forces” behind this vibrant movement of the ‘20s and ‘30s, was a gay man. Singer and dancer Josephine Baker was rumored to have had a relationship with Frida Kahlo. Influential musicians of this era, like Duke Ellington’s orchestrator Billy Strayhorn, blues singer Bessie Smith, and the “Drag King of Harlem” Gladys Bentley were LGBTQ+ people, well before the term came to represent sexual and gender minorities.
During this time, Lindy Hop flourished in Harlem’s Black dance clubs, like The Savoy Swing Club, where it was common to see same sex couples dancing together and after-hours drag shows.
Brozowski gives presentations on this forgotten history at dance festivals worldwide. He also highlights many of these figures in "The Queer Walk of Fame: The Blues, Jazz and Swing," a project he put together with fellow blues and jazz dance instructor. The mobile gallery of portraits and biographies invites onlookers to scan a QR code and learn more about queer swing performers.
A growing movement
When Brozowski started Queer Swing Seattle, they were one of the only organizations he knew of doing this work. In the past seven years, other LGBTQ+-focused partner dance events have emerged across the globe, including Brooklyn’s Queer Swing Dance NYC and Cologne Queer Lindy in Germany.
It's a testament to queer resilience, Brozowski noted.
“We do have more queer dancers in the community and people doing things for queer people. I think you do start to see some trend because we're going to create spaces that feel empowered to us.”
“Swung Out” will feature Christian Pincock’s sextet Baseless Accusation and vocalist Jacqueline Tabor performing music by LGBTQ+ jazz artists, with drag performances and installations that elevate the queer roots of swing dance and jazz music.
Events like this also expand the modern jazz musician’s understanding of the music’s roots.
Pincock, a queer jazz trombonist in Seattle who leads the sextet Baseless Accusation, learned about Gladys Bentley while arranging a selection of her music for “Swung Out." A Black lesbian singer who wore a tuxedo, Bentley openly flirted with women in her audiences and performed songs with explicitly queer lyrics.
Pincock’s approach to composing has changed since he began participating in these events two years ago.
“I'm composing, specifically trying elements that I think will get the dancers moving in a certain way, and it's a conversation,” Pincock said.
Tabor, the Seattle-based vocalist who will be singing Bentley’s gender-bending songs, also learned about the singer through the event.
“I'm still learning my history because it's been buried and it's trying to be erased at this moment in time,” she said. “So, to highlight any voice that has made a difference is, of course, an honor.”
Everyone is welcome
Though she doesn't identify as LGBTQ+, as a Black woman, Tabor feels a profound fellowship with the Queer Swing Seattle community. She sees a distinct difference in the way this marginalized community honors the Black history of jazz music and dance.
“I don't have to explain my Blackness or my femininity or my quirkiness or anything,” she said. “It feels so collaborative at all times and so respectful, and there's so many less microaggressions than I’ve experienced...so for me, this is really my safe space.”
As they center Black and queer people and their art, Queer Swing Seattle consciously centers safety. The organization has a code of conduct, and they also hire licensed mental health therapists as “safety ambassadors” for events like “Swung Out,” in case there is a need to diffuse conflict or facilitate conversation.
“What we say is, anybody's welcome to come, but it is a queer-empowered space, and if that sounds scary to you in any way, then stay home,” Brozowski said. “But if you know how to hang in these spaces and not center yourself and you consider yourself an ally, you're going to have a great time.”
“Swung Out” takes place on Sunday, June 21 at the queer-owned Clock-Out Lounge in Beacon Hill. A Lindy Hop beginner lesson will take place before the dance, at 7:30 p.m., and the band starts at 8 p.m.
