We recently connected with Rachel Pitner and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Rachel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

In short, no, I do not wish that I had started my career sooner. I know that I have taken an indirect path to where I am now, but everything shifted towards the arts exactly when I needed it and at the pace that I could receive it. I was not ready for this when I was younger. I have always been a talented dancer, but I wasn’t able to relax into myself in order to activate my power. Internally, I felt that perfection required the denial of myself in pursuit of what I should be and what I thought things should be like. For me that presented itself as the minimization of my gifts and not realizing that living in my gifts would fulfill my calling, which is to help people.

The path that I have taken has caused me to get to know myself and trust myself so much more as well as learn peripheral things that have empowered my art and calling. For one, I don’t know that I would have found Lindy Hop if I had started my dance career sooner because I had an offer as a teenager to pursue professional dance in LA rather than go to college at Agnes Scott. As a teenager and young adult, I knew how good it felt to be in my body and to use it, but I was always a character, and I was never fully myself. Lindy Hop was and still is a dance form that caused me to be present in myself and comfortable with myself and cause me to pursue truth and to find power and courage through my vulnerability rather than the presentation of what I thought perfection was. And, I will continue to grow in this.

I got introduced to Lindy Hop in college, and the journey that I have taken with it through my life has made me stronger, more teachable, more open, more curious, more dynamic, and more myself in all of the aspects of my life. It has made me kinder because I was less afraid of being hurt due to the fact that I had taken the time to get to know myself and know my boundaries and know how to stretch myself. The path that I have taken has allowed me to articulate the spiritual significance of my calling, and that is living in my gift.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a Lindy Hopper. I specialize in teaching, performing, consulting, choreographing, and curating events pertaining to Lindy Hop and the swing era dances. With this, I get the opportunity to build community and enhance people’s lives by guiding them through this journey of self-discovery and self-love offered through these dances. I get to remind people that they are living and ever-evolving pieces of art.

I was introduced to Lindy Hop when I was in college, but I didn’t focus on it until after I had graduated. I am someone who has been dancing all of her life, and I had found home in the dance companies that had dotted my childhood and young adult life along with the camaraderie I had built with classmates from school. But, all of that disappeared as I had known it when I graduated from college and my friends scattered around the globe pursuing their next steps. It was exciting, but I had lost my community. Back then, there weren’t very many high-level dance classes available for adults in Atlanta, and the ones that were available didn’t offer the feeling that we were building something greater than ourselves. You came. You took class. Maybe, you chatted. Then, you left. That was the cycle. It was a difficult place to build community because you weren’t creating anything together, and you were kind of competing against each other.

Then, I got reminded about Lindy Hop, and I got one of my friends to drive me to the “cabin in the woods,” a.k.a. the Garden Hills Community Center, where the weekly dance, that I now run, used to convene, and I attended my first true local community dance. I was struck with the love and creativity that emanated through that place. I got to see people creating things that would have been impossible to do as individuals. I got to feel how empowered I could be by extending my trust and how I limited myself by not being vulnerable. I became curious, again, and I wanted to learn how to listen better and how to react to what people are actually saying instead of what I thought they were saying. That is what partner dancing is, and I think that it is an act of love. So, I wound up loving myself more, and loving other people more, and wanting to give this gift to other people.

Swing dancers can find community all around the world with this network of friends and friends of friends, and you can find yourself. This is how I feel about this art form. This is how I teach it, and this is how I respect the roots of this dance, which is found in African American culture and highlights individuality alongside community.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

In my opinion, art is a source of truth in society; sometimes that truth is uncomfortable, thusly even more profound. Art is a vehicle for understanding and feeling, so I believe it needs to be fully integrated into schools rather than every subject, like math, science, history, etc. being disconnected and existing apart from the culture that created it. Art will help students understand the “why” rather than regurgitating the “what.” This would also help to discover and develop artists sooner in addition to conveying the important role art has in society.

Other than reforming the education system so that art is interwoven into the curriculum and funded, affordable and accessible housing is extremely important. There are so many cities that draw people to its vibrancy that was created by artists, but then the artists have to leave because of the financial burden of living in the city. That fractures artist communities where people are constantly learning from each other and inspiring each other.

Additionally, artists need to get paid and stop having people diminish/minimize their craft. The craft is something that has been cultivated over years. For that reason, it looks easy. You are not supposed to see the effort, but people try to cheapen the craft because the work is different, and they don’t see the effort.

Mainly, I want people to invest in people. It is our humanity that is important, and it shines through art. Art reminds us of what it is like to be human. That can make you feel glorious, and that can make you feel retched. Every single bit of it is important. It helps you feel alive rather than a funnel for “facts.”

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I was fortunate to have the dance teachers that I had. They never criticized my body; they really loved all of us and promoted healthy practices, which is why my body does not hate me today. But, somewhere I got the notion that perfection was something that existed outside of who I was, so I tried to force myself into a “shape” outside of who I was meant to be. Gradually, I realized that the most beautiful and perfect thing that anyone could be is themselves. So, I began to relax into myself and to let my soul shine.

Don’t restrict your dreams, and don’t try to fit yourself into a box when you are meant to fly.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hotjamatlanta.com
• Instagram: hotjamswings, or RachelPitner
• Facebook: Hot Jam, or Rachel Pitner
• Linkedin: Hot Jam Swings, or Rachel Pitner
• Youtube: Hot Jam
• Yelp: Hot Jam

Image Credits
Jerry Almonte – The Rachel Tornado picture All other photos – Conway Li