Some cities have a knack for unexpected collisions. Bangkok is one of them. Where else could you find a jazz band jamming next to a morlam troupe while aunties in sequinned blouses clap along to a swing dancer in two-tone shoes? Golden Mount Swing is precisely that sort of gathering – a temple fair turned dance floor, where nostalgia for the 1930s gets remixed with the smell of grilled squid and the soundtrack of a Thai countryside party.
The Hop Bangkok, the city’s swing dance crew, are plotting this time-bending carnival on September 14 at Saket Ratchawora Mahawihan Temple, the kind of old Bangkok neighbourhood that still has wooden shophouses and whispers of another century. From 3pm-11pm, the area transforms into a hybrid jazz club, village fair and street market. Imagine lindy hoppers in suspenders twirling under neon temple lights, then picture someone’s grandma joining in with a ramwong circle – it all makes sense when you’re there.
At the centre of it all are The Stumblrs, a band with one foot in Duke Ellington’s world and the other in molam’s trance-like rhythms. Their setlist ricochets between swing standards – ‘Fly Me to the Moon’, ‘Take the A Train’ – and Isan-inspired reworks that shouldn’t work together but somehow do. It’s the kind of music that refuses to sit politely in the background.
But the event isn’t only about music. There’ll be tap dancers tapping, swing couples showing off impossible spins and a ramwong troupe from Phetchaburi coaxing the shyest onlookers into the circle. Around the edges, a vintage market will peddle old-school threads, quirky lifestyle bits and the sort of food that inevitably stains your outfit but makes you glad you came hungry. Street performers, too, are promised – jugglers, singers, maybe even the odd magician – adding to the fairground feel.
Golden Mount Swing isn’t asking you to pick between East and West, past and present. It’s throwing them into the same ring and telling you to dance it out.