© Stefanie Loos
Luzie: As one of the initiators of the Liberation Dance, how did you come up with this idea? And how are you putting the idea into practice?
Natalie: Our idea was to develop a dance performance with swing dancers 80 years after World War II. We wanted to remember the people persecuted under National Socialism – and especially the Swing Youth who were persecuted. So in 2024, we invited 80 swing dancers from different countries, with a focus on Germany, Czechia and Poland, and then developed this choreography, the Liberation Dance, through a participatory process.
Luzie: Why is swing especially well suited as a medium for political and historical education and remembrance work?
Natalie: Swing and jazz are especially well suited to exploring the history of National Socialism because they show that swing carried, and still carries, values that were persecuted and disregarded under National Socialism – individuality and improvisation, for example. These are expressed in swing dance and come from the fact that swing emerged from African American culture and embodies an individuality that the National Socialists rejected. The Swing Youth who danced to this music or listened to it at the time were persecuted partly because they refused to submit to Nazi institutions. They did not want to march in step; they preferred to dance out of line to their swing music.
Luzie: Why is swing such a good entry point for working with young people?
Philipp: Swing is a subculture, and young people are very often connected to subcultures – because some of them are loosely or more firmly part of a subculture themselves. That might be young people who are active in the punk scene, or who go to Taylor Swift concerts and are therefore also part of a subculture as ‘Swifties’. And this connection allows us to talk directly about young people’s lived realities and build a connection, for example, by asking them: ‘Can you imagine being persecuted for the music you love most, or even for the soccer club you like best?’
