Alicia

From the first time I wrote to the 'Swingtown Rebels' I was in touch with Alicia. She answered all my questions about payments from overseas and the locations of the venues patiently. I felt very welcome from my first email :-).

"Just a cool photo, showing all the energy at a dance :) (from Portland Lindy Exchange 2 years ago)"

When she found out I was coming over from Melbourne with no clue where I was going and how to get back to my friend's place in Huntsbury late at nights, she made a real effort to help me out with contacts.

I already liked her a lot from the way she was writing to me before we even met :-).

It was a pleasure to meet Alicia in person in Christchurch and we had a nice chat while I was on my volunteer shift on the last night. There was no doubt she was the one that could help me out with some answers about the 'Swingtown Rebels'. 

Not only that though, I wanted to find out a little bit more about herself too. Here her answers to my questions we exchanged again via email when I was back in Aussie:

"Me and Michael a few years ago we did a "Bear necessities" routine - which kind of sums up what I love about lindy hop - tons of fun, fairly ridiculous at times, and impossible not to be happy!"

How long have you been dancing?

4 and a half years

How did you come across swing dancing?

A guy in my office used to play in a swing band that played for the Swingtown Rebels every 6 weeks and used to always nag me to come along, and I was always like "oh yeah, some day..." then I ran out of excuses and went, and thought "wow, that's awesome...but I could never do that". But I was intrigued, so after several months of going to the 6 weekly band nights I started taking classes.

What's a dancing experience you'll never forget?

That's hard! The cool thing about dancing is there are so many of those moments! I have to say that the Sunday morning at Canberrang last year dancing out in the sun with a live band and a bunch of crazy folk in animal onesies (reinstated my bear suit!) was one of my happy moments!

Or pretty much everything at Pocket Change last year - it was so much fun! Ooh no, I know! It was always my main motivation for learning to lead so I can dance with my little sister - and this year I convinced her to start dancing and went over to Hullabaloo in Perth where she lives and had so much fun dancing and hanging out with her.

How do you fit into the picture of the Swingtown Rebels :-)?

I've been involved for a while in organising the weekly classes, and am on the committee for running our exchanges.