A beautiful dancing tribute to Sartori - member of the Swing Patrol community.
You often hear of requests for a dance group to perform at weddings and birthdays, but it’s not too often that you get a request to dance at a wake. And yet we recently did and what a special tribute it was. It all started when I received a call from Kannan who explained to me that he was having a wake for his girlfriend who had passed away due to cancer. One of her great loves was dancing with Swing Patrol and so he wanted to hire two teachers to perform for the final hour of the wake, as a tribute to his girlfriend and her love of dancing. Sartori had performed at the last Performance Ball at York Hall and had many friends in the Swing Patrol community. I was really touched by this phone call and immediately promised to support the event.
It just so happened that my whole teaching team was meeting for a teacher training and catch up session, so I told them about the request and put the idea to them. Before I knew it, what was originally going to be two people dancing turned out to be the entire teaching team dancing for Sartori’s friends and family. The team were unanimously supportive of doing this gig for Sartori. It was a very sad and solemn day and the speeches were quite powerful. Sartori’s boyfriend spoke about how his biggest regret was not having gone swing dancing with her. At the end, the teachers performed and put on quite the show for that special last hour of Sartori’s wake. as per the wish of Kannan the event finished on a real positive high even though it was naturally really emotionally charged.
Afterwards, when I was having a drink with the team, it was just great to reflect on the impact Swing Patrol had on Sartori. I’m really proud of my team for doing this gig. They gave up their time to do this for free, and most of them didn’t even know her. She was a student at Finsbury Park so the Finsbury Park teachers knew her, along with a few of the others, but the rest of the teachers didn’t. They were so generous and all pulled together to put on a performance in memory of Sartori. It really makes me proud of what lindy hop and the Swing Patrol community can do, and to be part of such a great environment where people just love what they do.
I felt this was worth writing about and wish I knew Sartori better as going on the tributes and speeches this was a very special person with a wonderful passion for life.
The better quality photos thanks to Nikki Zigras.
Thanks to Bernadette Cumento who is assisting me.
You often hear of requests for a dance group to perform at weddings and birthdays, but it’s not too often that you get a request to dance at a wake. And yet we recently did and what a special tribute it was. It all started when I received a call from Kannan who explained to me that he was having a wake for his girlfriend who had passed away due to cancer. One of her great loves was dancing with Swing Patrol and so he wanted to hire two teachers to perform for the final hour of the wake, as a tribute to his girlfriend and her love of dancing. Sartori had performed at the last Performance Ball at York Hall and had many friends in the Swing Patrol community. I was really touched by this phone call and immediately promised to support the event.
It just so happened that my whole teaching team was meeting for a teacher training and catch up session, so I told them about the request and put the idea to them. Before I knew it, what was originally going to be two people dancing turned out to be the entire teaching team dancing for Sartori’s friends and family. The team were unanimously supportive of doing this gig for Sartori. It was a very sad and solemn day and the speeches were quite powerful. Sartori’s boyfriend spoke about how his biggest regret was not having gone swing dancing with her. At the end, the teachers performed and put on quite the show for that special last hour of Sartori’s wake. as per the wish of Kannan the event finished on a real positive high even though it was naturally really emotionally charged.
Afterwards, when I was having a drink with the team, it was just great to reflect on the impact Swing Patrol had on Sartori. I’m really proud of my team for doing this gig. They gave up their time to do this for free, and most of them didn’t even know her. She was a student at Finsbury Park so the Finsbury Park teachers knew her, along with a few of the others, but the rest of the teachers didn’t. They were so generous and all pulled together to put on a performance in memory of Sartori. It really makes me proud of what lindy hop and the Swing Patrol community can do, and to be part of such a great environment where people just love what they do.
I felt this was worth writing about and wish I knew Sartori better as going on the tributes and speeches this was a very special person with a wonderful passion for life.
The better quality photos thanks to Nikki Zigras.
What a wonderful thing to have done. All credit to you Scottie and the rest of your teaching team.
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