Time has flown by since Beantown and we are still working on our follow-up and going through a ton of photos. The spirit of Lindy Hop was alive and well at camp this year! What a fantastic week with so many wonderful moments.

Beantown Highlights

Here is a selection of just some of the many highlights:

Friday Night Instructor Demo

Seeing all of the instructors together filling the floor was truly amazing. So much talent all in one place! Seeing it on paper is one thing. Experiencing it in person is another! A great start to the week to come.

Camp Social on the Winthrop Lawn

The cool breezes, the beautiful view, a chance to relax and just enjoy time with other campers.

Beantown Bounce

Awesome from start to finish. Listening to Norma rave for a good 15 minutes afterwards was the icing on the cake. She kept mentioning how her spirit had been renewed. What better compliment could there be? Kudos to Evita and Michael and all the performers and crew who contributed to such a spectacular show!

Bobby’s Presentation with Norma

I may have seen all the dance clips before, but never with Norma’s off the cuff comments full of interesting information and a participant’s point of view. Priceless!

Taryn’s Performance in Beantown’s Got Talent

When we added Maduka and Taryn Chidebelu-Eze to our camp staff, we had no idea we were getting such an amazing talent on campus. Taryn treated us to several wonderful performances during the week. My favorite was during Beantown’s Got Talent. Watching her young son singing along with a huge smile and much pride in his face was truly special.

Class Performances

The class performances at the end of the week are always a camp highlight, although this year’s were extra wonderful. Rose provided an excellent setting and the audience was the best ever giving a rousing standing ovation after each group.

Special Award Presentation

This year we added two special awards, Top Student to Jonathan Chen and Spirit of Lindy Hop to Cynthia Simonds. My favorite part was when Cynthia ran down from the back of the room to hug Jonathan, not knowing that she was soon to be called up for her own award. If that didn’t confirm we made the right choices, I don’t know what would. Thanks to Dave Lasagna for the insight to pass the mic to these two wonderful recipients. If there was anything that brought us all together, it was this moment. This one gets added to the all-time best Beantown moments EVER!

Wednesday Night Last Dance

Closing out our last dance with Gordon Webster is a guaranteed fun night! The last 20-25 minute version of “I Like Pie, I like Cake” included a sing along, a jam, some unique improvising from Gordon, and even some crowd surfing from Josh Mclean. You couldn’t plan this stuff if you wanted to!

Happy Campers

Seeing everyone at camp, catching up with friends, meeting new campers, watching everything enfold, seeing the happy faces, feeling the positive collective spirit, having that sense of community. The pure joy is what brought us to Lindy Hop and why we still do it!

Beantown Thanks

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us at Beantown this year, everyone who supported us and encouraged others to attend, our amazing staff and awesome crew and every single person who chipped in one way or another. We appreciate every one of you and could not do Beantown without you! In addition, we must send a huge thank you to Patrick and the entire Endicott College staff for providing us such an amazing environment and helping us to have the best camp possible.

Beantown Campers, you have once again exceeded expectations! We wish you all the best and hope to see you back in 2014!

We are excited to announce that three new Ambassadors of the Frankie Manning Foundation scholarship program will be joining us at Beantown Camp this year! Rafal from NYC, plus Alexis and Cyle, both from Cleveland and members of Valerie Salstrom’s Junior Jitterbugs, will all be attending for the whole shebang.

Judy Pritchett asked us to pass on this quote from the Frankie Manning Foundation:

Beantown Camp embodies the continuity of Frankie Manning’s spirit and values, both in the excellence of its classes and its upbeat, fun atmosphere.

Please be sure to join us in welcoming  Rafal, Alexis and Cyle to camp this year! In addition, Josh, one of the 2012 Ambassadors, will be back this summer.

Beantown Camp Information.

Be sure to check out the camp forum for ride sharing and other information. This is a great way to communicate with other campers and maybe organize a door-to-door airport shuttle or request a ride from a local.

For our local campers, we would really appreciate if you check the forum to see if there are any visiting campers you can help out. It is wonderful when we all work together to make this an amazing experience for everyone!

Beantown Camp Forum.

The countdown to Beantown Camp opening day continues! Only 2 weeks to go.

For everyone planning to attend who has not yet completed a registration or an Endicott Reservation, it would be a huge help if you get your registration and full payment in ASAP! There are packets to assemble and the college has rooms to prepare. We want your complete camp experience to be smooth sailing from the moment you arrive and the more we can do in advance, the easier for us to make that happen.

If you are registered and would like to add a competition, now would be a great time to do that! Got soul? Why not sign up for the Soul division? That does sound like fun!

Join us for our 17th year! Camp runs from June 27 to July 4 with multiple registration options. If you’ve never done the full week, this will be the year to do it. There is so much that you will not want to miss!

Check website for all the details and registration.

The countdown to Beantown Camp opening day is on. Only 3 weeks to go. Reserve your spot today!

Included among the many awesome activities scheduled for Beantown are some fun competitions for all levels during the weekend. It is still possible to sign up! The competitions always come with a fantastic, supportive audience. Divisions include a nice mix of Novice, Intermediate and Advanced J&Js, Strictly, Solo Charleston and Soul! The competitions are scheduled so that we have loads of social dance time with excellent live music on both Friday and Saturday night. (That would be Baby Soda and the Campus Five in case you have forgotten!)

We are honored to have so many wonderful events sponsoring the competitions and providing prizes for each division as well as a couple of special awards. They are all truly awesome! Be sure to check each one out for your future event plans!

• International Lindy Hop Championships
• Boston Tea Party
• Lindy Focus
• The Dirty Dozen Weekend
• Dirty Water Lindy & Blues Exchange
• Hart & Soul Weekend
• Canadian Swing Championships

Beantown is very fortunate to have support from our local and neighboring sponsors and friends. We appreciate every one of them!

• Dom V and the Swing Out Big Band
• DanceNet
• Boston Swing Dance Network
• Boston Swing Central
• Swing City
• Providence Swings
• Connecticut Swing Dance Society
• Hartford Underground
• Vermont Swings
• Got2Lindy

Check out more info on all our sponsors.

Join us for our 17th year - it’s going to be phenomenal! (Really, seriously, it is!) Camp runs from June 27 to July 4 with multiple registration options. If you’ve never done the full week, this will be the year to do it. There is so much that you will not want to miss!

Check website for all the details and registration.