I’m picking up bugg, a Swedish social dance, for the third time in my life. The first was during my university days and ended when I moved to London; the second was in 2009 and ended with my 2nd pregnancy. With two small children I didn’t manage to keep up much of any hobby, especially not one that required getting out of the house regularly at set times.

I’m not a beginner, but I’m nevertheless starting over with a beginner’s course. Bugg has changed quite a lot over twenty-five years. The current fashion is for much smaller steps and subtler movements. There’s none of the back-and-forth of the late 1990s, and none of the twisting of the late 2000s. I may know the moves and remember the signals for them, but I have to unlearn the old-style way of moving the body through them.

The course takes place at the community centre in Alvik. The dance hall on the top floor has a huge mural, which I first guessed to be from around 1920, since it depicts the construction of Alvik and shows the work being done in a very manual way still. Wikipedia informs me that the painting is from 1940, although the scene is from 1920.