The Birmingham Swing Dancers (BSD) is a Birmingham, Alabama based group involved in swing dance and music. The BSD emerged in January 2007 as a complete membership/dues paying organization led by a Leadership Council. This council is made up of a group of dance addicted volunteers who have dedicated themselves to the promotion of swing dance, and on a broader perspective, social dance in the Birmingham community. (click on BSD Council tab) (click on BSD Membership tab)

BSD sponsors either a live music or CD dance typically on the fourth Friday of each month at the Fultondale Friendship Hall, 1024 Old Walker Chapel Road, Fultondale. BSD live music dances feature bands from around the Southeast in different music genres, but with song lists that are very heavy in swing tempos. Whether a band plays blues, rockabilly, swing era, country, soul, rock and roll, or big band, we focus on those with swing tempos. The DJ dances features the BSD DJ and have a strong mixture of multiple swing styles - West Coast, East Coast, Jitterbug, Shag, Bop, and Lindy. BSD members are part of an amalgam of swing dance enthusiasts worldwide encouraging today's generation to bring their vibrancy and high-energy to grow the swing dance community throughout the northern Alabama area. (click on BSD Dance Events tab) (click on Local Social Dance Calendar tab)

The BSD publishes a weekly E-Newsletter with information related to BSD dances and lessons and links to their web site to acquire information about other dances and lessons. To receive the weekly E-Newsletter at no cost, contact swidener@birminghamswingdancers.com to have your name and email address added to the weekly E-Newsletter distribution list.

The current BSD membership of 212 not only dance East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing and Lindy, but are also actively involved in other forms of social dance; i.e., cajun/zydeco, ballroom, country western, contra, latin, line dance, steppin’ and more. Because of the makeup of the membership of the group, the BSD recognized the need to include all forms of dance in their promotion of social dance. Meeting this need was addressed by the establishment of a web site, www.birminghamswingdancers.com. The web includes information on all known dances and lessons in Birmingham and the surrounding areas. (click on Local Social Dance Calendar tab) (click on Social Dance Lessons tab)

The BSD dance instructors, Pat Abbott and Rinsel McIntosh, offer group swing and ballroom dance lessons weekly at Hoover Recreation Center, Hoover Municipal Complex, 600 Municipal Drive, Hoover and Riverchase United Methodist Church, 1953 Old Highway 31, Hoover (Birmingham) 35244. (click on BSD Lessons tab)

The organization also has a group of volunteer non-professional dancers called Dance Ambassadors who are happy to perform exhibitions at events/functions upon request. (contact Dana Ellis dellis@uabmc.edu)

The BSD is always looking for new dancers and ways to provide enjoyable dances for Birmingham dancers. Comments/suggestions are always welcome. (click on BSD Contact tab)

Everyone is welcome!!! Come and join us!!!

“I praise the dance, for it frees people from the heaviness of matter and binds the isolated to community. I praise the dance, which demands everything; health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul …….. Dancing demands a freed person, one who vibrates with the equipoise of all his powers. O man, learn to dance, or else the angels in heaven will not know what to do with you.” St. Augustine