A swing dance & movement festival in the vibrant city of Thessaloniki.
A swing dance & movement festival in the vibrant city of Thessaloniki.
Join us for 3 days of dance & movement sessions, captivating performances, social dance nights, talks, and engaging workshops designed to inspire and invigorate.
Get ready to move, groove, and connect!
Movement Culture
Embrace Physical Movement and Bodily Awareness
meets
Swing Dance
African-American vernacular & social jazz dances
Moving & Groovin 2024 aftermovie
The Classes
A perfect fusion of rhythm, music, motion and movement!
For 2025, we’re bringing back the Swing Dance and Movers Circle tracks, plus a brand-new mixed Performance track. This new addition invites both swing dancers and movers to explore the performative side of their craft, blending technique and artistry in a unique way.
If you’d rather dance all night and only take a few classes, you can choose the Theme Class pass.
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Movers Circle Track
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Swing Along Track
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Performance Track
The Nights
Pass selection
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1
Explore track options
Tracks & classesEach track offers different options and hours of classes and festival events.
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2
Select your pass & theme classes
Get your passAfter you decide which track you want to follow, select the pass and theme classes you want to register for.
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3
Complete payment
Go to your cart and finalize your registration.
You’re done! See you at the festival!
The Concept
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Performance Track
for Swing Dancers & MoversNEW THIS YEAR
Alongside the Movers Circle and Swing Along track, we’re excited to introduce the Performance Track — a vibrant space where swing dancers and movers can blend technical skill with artistic expression.Designed to spark creativity and storytelling, this track encourages you to push boundaries, experiment, and bring your performance to life in fresh, inspiring ways.
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Unfolding //
Instant Composition PerformanceParticipants in the Performance Track can choose to join the festival’s Instant Composition Performance, a guided event blending technique, group composition, and real-time audience connection.
The performance is open to all to attend, whether they participate in the festival or not. Tickets are included in festival passes or available to buy here.
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Open Discussion
We’d like to create space for conversation during the festival. On Sunday, after the Instant Composition Performance, everyone is welcome — participants, audience, and teachers — to join an open discussion. A chance to meet, exchange thoughts, and connect.
Topic: Resistance & Possibility: Art’s Transformative Role
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Open level Classes
All our classes & tracks are open level, welcoming dancers of every background. Open-level classes make dance accessible and promote inclusivity, collaboration, growth & enjoyment.
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Theme Classes
Where movers & swing dancers meet. Participants can create their personalized festival experience by selecting from a range of theme classes.
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Free Events
At Movin’ & Groovin’, we believe financial barriers shouldn’t stop anyone from joining in. We’re working to make the festival more accessible through the Groovin’ Pass Project. The closing party on Sunday is also a free for all event.
Groovin' Pass Project
We believe in the power of music & dance to unite. Each year we offer a full festival pass for each track, to 3 individuals who want to attend the festival but face financial constraints.
Application process: Send a short motivation letter in Greek or English to hello@kunia.gr. Share with us what attending the festival means to you and which track you are interested in.
Artists
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JoYsSTeacherFranceJean-Charles aka JoYsS is an actor, who shares a huge love story with dance. He is well known for his multi-artistic experience. He originally comes from the Hip-hop Culture, where the mission of every dancer is to raise your own style and respect all inspirations without taking off any nature of it. His purpose is not to dance swing with "modern moves". He just comes with his own experience, challenges himself and try to level up exactly like the old school dancers did by the time, like if they never stopped dancing until now.
Through his numerous teaching and training courses all over the world, his famous performances like the "Drunk dance on Take Five", his winning of the 1rst place solo Charleston at ILHC 2015 in Washington DC. Today he is one of the most accomplished French figures on the international swing scene. Beside all of this, he has his own signature move in the video game Fortnite by Epic Game, he worked for artists like Rita Mitsuko, Mika, La Femme, or even prestigious brands like Hermès or Tommy Hilfiger. He worked also for Caravane Palace concerts and Movie clips, and was part of the cast of the Fashion Freak Show by Jean-Paul Gauthier.
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Logan DiTilloTeacherUSALogan is a born mover. Not in the sense that it came naturally, and certainly not in the sense that he was exposed to unconventional movement disciplines early in life — but in the sense that he *always loved moving*.
He used movement to learn about himself and the world — from a playful childhood and overcoming illness as a teen to years of dedicated practice with experts like Ido Portal, Ape Co, Duane Ludwig, and Tom Weksler. Along the way, he insatiably explored disciplines from MMA to calisthenics to dance, meditation, and acrobatics.
He now takes that experience and aims it at a central goal: researching the movement principles that connect all of these disciplines, exploring their connection to life, and creating classes that allow anyone to easily embody these ideas — *always through a sense of play and discovery*. Logan has a knack for articulating the inarticulable simply, and his passion is evident from the very first moment of each of his classes.
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Alexandros El GrecoTeacherGreece & BelgiumDance artist based in Brussels. Alexandros is interested in the body as the focal point of communication, where, playfully, we can renew social relations. He is engaging in interdisciplinary collaborations, blending methods and tools in between art forms as well as challenging the classical stage format to establish direct contact between performers and audience.
He is the co-founder of the group Dans Kapot, whos was supported by the Flemish ministry and is currently touring.Along with Margherita Dello Sbarba they are founding their company Uncanny Paradise as an artistic home for their creations and collaborations. He has worked as a performer in five productions of the company Ultima Vez/Wim Vandekeybus and has also worked for Alexander Vantournhout and Julyen Hamilton. He teaches dance internationally for professionals and dance enthusiasts.
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Javier SanmartinTeacherSpainJavier's passion for music began at age 4 when he joined his first choir, and has guided him to learn guitar and saxophone too, creating music from classical to jazz, funk, and folk.
Originally from Valencia, Spain, he discovered Lindy Hop at a local “Clandestino” event. His engineering career took him to Madrid and Dublin, where he spent the next decade dancing, teaching, DJing, and running a dance school and swing festival, carrying the values of Black American dance culture to the best of his abilities.
Since 2023, he has been based in Bologna (IT), contributing with his experience to the local dance community.
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Σταμάτης Κράββαρης (Professor Malandro)TeacherGreeceStamatis was born in 1987 in Zagora and later moved to Thessaloniki to study at the School of Physical Education and Sport Science at Aristotle University. He discovered Capoeira in 2006 with the group Jacobina Arte, guided by Mestre PitBull, and has been teaching adults and children ever since. Since 2013, he has led classes at the Dojo with more than 70 students.
He regularly travels across Greece and abroad, including France, Italy, Turkey, Croatia, the UK, Spain, and Brazil, to teach, train, and connect with the Capoeira community. In Thessaloniki, he also works with schools and kindergartens, as well as with children and adolescents with learning difficulties, using movement as a tool for inclusion. Passionate about music, in 2015 he recorded his first Capoeira CD with the support of his group.
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Stefanos ZymvragoudakisTeacher & MCGreeceStefanos, based in Athens, teaches weekly Lindy Hop classes and works as a facilitator with youth groups, exploring rhythm and movement through play. He began his journey with Lindy Hop and Authentic Jazz in 2014 in Thessaloniki, captivated by the rhythmic patterns, upbeat feeling, and social aspects of swing dances. Together with his dance partner Martha, they offer workshops in Greece & abroad.
Stefanos believes Lindy Hop offers a vast space for everyone, emphasizing satisfaction through body expression and partner communication. He focuses on individualized improvement for his students. Passionate about sharing his love for dance, Stefanos also enjoys learning and facing new challenges. This inspiration leads him to explore contemporary dance and ballet
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Lucia LonegroTeacherGreece & ArgentinaLucia is an Argentinian mover, acrobat & dancer.
She studied gymnastics from the age of 7 and various dances, including dancehall, swing, reggaeton, hip hop, classical and contemporary dance, in different countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Budapest and Spain.
Throughout the years she worked in theatre plays and performances in Latin America & Greece. She has also been teaching floor acrobatics and Acro-Dance for more than 10 years and has given workshops in Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Thessaloniki and Spain.
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One Night BandMusiciansGreeceLocal jazz virtuosos come together as One Night Band for an unforgettable evening at Movin' & Groovin'. Their dynamic energy will light up the stage on Saturday night and keep you dancing all night long.
Drums - Alexis Makatselos
Double Bass - Ntinos Manos
Saxophone - Charis Kapetanakis
Guitar - Thodoris Kotsifas -
Penelope SyllignakiDjGreecePenelope Syllignaki is one of the few music producers in Greece specialising in Swing jazz music, particularly the sound of the first half of the past century.
Growing up, jazz music was always present in her home, and in 2007, sparked by Lindy Hop dancing, she delved deeper into traditional jazz, enthusiastically exploring the history of black music and the sound of the gramophone.
She has been a music producer at major international events across Greece and abroad. It's no surprise that she has a personal collection of vinyl records and gramophone discs. For 6 years, she even hosted her own live radio show ("Take the A train") on a local station (Republic 100.3), where she presented the history, evolution, and influence of jazz music on contemporary sound, emphasizing Blues, Hot Jazz, and Swing.
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Jo ManavopoulouTeacherGreeceJo started dancing at the age of 3 and trained in ballet, contemporary, and modern jazz. She got the swing dance bug in 2012 and since then she has attended many festivals around the world. She trained for years with Angela Andrew and started teaching regularly in London in 2014. She is now based in Thessaloniki, and is a founding member of Kunia Cultural Hub cooperative where she teaches Swing & Blues.
What she loves more about swing dancing is the freedom of expression and the connection with other dancers and with the music. Although she is fascinated by technically demanding moves, she believes the magic occurs when people forget about doing the "right" steps, connect with each other, with the music and just "feel the beat".
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Thee MammothDjNikos Kleisiaris, known as Thee Mammoth, is one of Thessaloniki's top DJs, celebrated for his infectious energy and impeccable taste in music. His sets at the closing party will be a fusion of soul, funk, and disco, spinning groovy beats and crowd-pleasing rhythms that keep the dance floor alive until the early hours.