(scroll down for English)

缘起：

1987年，俄国舞者及历史学家 Mura Dehn将为研究非裔美人社交舞发展与沿革所搜藏，于1900到1986年间在电影里出现的舞蹈影像，编辑为一纪录片出版。该记录片的名称为 The Spirit Moves。

在20世纪80年代末期，这个影片成为许多人第一次认识摇摆舞原始形态、许多人研究摇摆舞的历史与发展、许多人学习舞步和动作的重要参考。对于摇摆舞的复兴运动起到关键性的影响！同时也影响到今日舞者对摇摆舞的认知。

2016年。距离The Spirit Moves的出版已经30个年头了！The Spirit Moves里记录了1900 到1986的舞，那1986之后呢？

瑞典The Harlem Hot Shots 这个团队为了给以后的舞者留下记录，制作了When Rhythm Moves Us这个影片集，记录1986之后的舞风、著名编舞，一共10集。

The Project：

In 1987, Russian dancer & dance historian Mura Dehn published her collections of African-American social dances on films between 1900 to 1986 to document the evolution of the dance. The documentary is called The Spirit Moves.

During the Swing Dancing Revival in the late 80s, The Spirit Moves had become one of the major sources for people to study and learn steps and moves, to find out the original styels and, for many, to realize the existance and origin of swing dances.  The Spirit Moves has played a critical role in what swing dancing has become today!

Now in 2016, 30 years have passed since the publication of The Spirit Moves which covers the dances between 1900 to 1986. What about after 1986?

The Harlem Hot Shots decided it's time to leave something for the new generations of dancers by recording what have happened after 1986. They have produced 10 series of dances recording various of forms and important choreographed routines.

优酷电脑播单与视频有对每一集以及参与舞者更多的介绍。

There are more information about the project on Youku playlist and each video if viewed on computer.

by Orchid August, 2016

(click here for English)

有关Dawn Hampton 的15项事实

1. Dawn于1928年出生于俄亥俄州米德镇一个有12个孩子的家庭。

2. 家长老克拉克 迪肯 汉普顿为家庭乐团与杂技团 “Deacon Hampton's Pickaninnys”的团长。乐团同时附属于一个更大的流动嘉年华表演团。Dawn从小就听着自家乐团的音乐长大。

3. Dawn 3岁开始登台表演；更在两年之后独自演唱“He Takes Me to Paradise” (Source: www.dawnsbday.com/dawn.html). 

4. 小的时候 Dawn 曾一度想当个芭蕾舞者，但后来发现芭蕾不摇摆而作罢。(source: richardskipper.blogspot.ca/2012/02/dawn-hampton-light-is-on.html). 


5. 50年代中期，在家里好些男孩都因为离家学音乐而不能表演之后，Dawn 和姐妹们组成了 汉普顿姐妹 合唱团。

Hampton Sisters (left)-Carmelita, Dawn, Altera, Virtue

6. 1958 Dawn 成为外白老汇秀"美国格林威治村”的一员。该秀在纽约著名的夜总会 “The Bon Soir”上演了整整一年。20世纪福斯公司出版的原声带包含里好几首Dawn 的表演录音。

7. 60年代早期 Dawn 成为夜总会 Lion's Den 的驻场歌星。著名歌星芭芭拉史翠珊既是以参加Lion's Den 主办的才艺比赛出道。在接受浮华世界访问时，芭芭拉史翠珊曾提到在台上紧接着Dawn 的表演上台，观众给Dawn Hampton 的热烈掌声迟迟不消散，给初出道的她不小的压力。

8. 1964 一场声带手术导致 Dawn 的音域变得极窄，但是她从未失去表演的热情与能力以及乐观的态度。


9. 手术之后20年 Dawn 主要作为音乐剧歌手，在纽约市各大夜总会表演。精彩的演出令剧评称她为"歌手中的歌手"，并给了她"歌舞剧女王"的称号。

10. Dawn的另一项才华是作曲与歌词写作。 1989 Dawn 与钢琴家/作曲家 Mark Nadler 合作，创作了乡村歌剧 “Red Light"。此剧在1990年获得曼哈顿歌舞剧表演协会 (the Manhattan Association of Cabarets (MAC) 颁奖。 Dawn 与 Mark 的另一项合作作品 “An Evening with Dawn Hampton,”在纽约著名综合剧场 “Don't Tell Mama”上演了极长时间。Dawn 也替舞台剧“Madame C. J. Walker”作词作曲。

11. Dawn 曾与 Frankie Manning 一起参与1992 美国民权运动领袖 “Malcom X“传记电影的拍摄。

12. 90年代末期至今，Dawn 以流畅平滑的舞姿及戏剧性的表现参与了摇摆舞复兴，并也为她本人赢得了国际性的声誉。

Dawn Hampton with Frankie Manning (June 2007) by photographer Eli Pritykin.

13. Dawn 住在纽约。一直到逝世前，舞者都可以看到她在舞池跳舞或在酒吧欣赏纽约著名摇摆乐团的演出。


14. Dawn 和她的家人曾出现在2011年发表的纪录片“The Unforgettable Hampton Family” 。
​
(source: www.thirteen.org/program-content/the-unforgettable-hampton-family/)

15. 
许多人都听到过Dawn特殊的接听电话方式。她接到电话时总是说： 
“God Is Good. The Light Is On!”

 (source: richardskipper.blogspot.ca/2012/02/dawn-hampton-light-is-on.html)

经 Toronto Lindy Hop 授权转载
http://www.torontolindyhop.com/front-page/who-is-dawn-hampton-15-awesome-facts-about-dawn/


其他有关 Dawn 的视频:

Dawn Hampton 轶事:

> Dawn Hampton 在60，70年代是纽约同性恋社群的大力支持者
> 在同性恋酒吧尚为非法场所时，Dawn 曾在纽约同性恋酒吧工作
> 1969年Dawn 曾因参与Stonewall 事件遭警察逮捕。该事件为近代同性恋争取平权活动之滥觞
> Dawn 经常与大明星如朱迪加伦兰等同台演出
> Dawn 曾经是著名演员/歌星贝蒂米勒的声乐教练
> Dawn吹中音与次中音萨克斯风
> Dawn的口哨吹得和萨克斯风一样棒

 .....靠近音乐 亲近你的舞.... 用心与灵魂去听音乐

 "有的时候当你听到触动你的音乐时, 你需要停止跳舞，坐下来仔细听、仔细看，给你自己被感动、被启发的空间。"

15 Awesome Facts about Dawn

1. Dawn was born in 1928, in Middletown Ohio and was one of 12 children in her family. 

2. Her father Clark Deacon Hampton, Sr., had a family band and vaudeville act, which was part of a traveling carnival. Dawn grew up listening to the music of the family band, “Deacon Hampton's Pickaninnys”.

3. Dawn began performing at the age of 3 and two years later sang “He Takes Me to Paradise” (Source: www.dawnsbday.com/dawn.html). 

4. When she was very young, she wanted to be a ballet dancer then she found out that ballet does not swing (source: richardskipper.blogspot.ca/2012/02/dawn-hampton-light-is-on.html). 

5. In the mid 1950s Dawn and her sisters became the “Hampton Sisters” after several of their brothers went off to study music. 

6. 1958 Dawn joined the cast of the Off-Broadway hit show, “Greenwich Village, U.S.A.” The show ran for a year at New York's legendary “The Bon Soir.” An original cast album of the show features several solo tracks by Dawn.

7. During the early 60's, Dawn worked as the house singer at the Lion's Den. The Lion's Den was also the scene of a singer's talent competition. Barbara Streisand relates in a Vanity Fair interview that one of her first times singing on stage was at one of these competitions. She tells how she was a little unnerved, because she came on stage after Dawn, “and the lusty applause for Dawn Hampton [was] ringing in my ears.” 

8. Surgery in 1964 to her vocal cords saw Dawn lose most of her vocal range BUT she never lost her eagerness or ability to perform and her optimistic spirit. 

9. Dawn spent much of the next 20 years performing as a cabaret singer in clubs around New York City. Reviewers called her a “singer's singer” and dubbed her the “Queen of Cabaret.”

10. Dawn is also talented in writing music and lyrics: In 1989 Dawn collaborated with pianist/performer Mark Nadler, writing music and lyrics for the honky-tonk mini-opera “Red Light,” which was given the Manhattan Association of Cabarets (MAC) Award in 1990. Dawn and Mark also collaborated on “An Evening with Dawn Hampton,” which enjoyed an extended run at “Don't Tell Mama.” Dawn also wrote the music and lyrics for the play “Madame C. J. Walker.”

11. 1992-Dawn appeared with Frankie Manning in the Movie “Malcom X“.

12. In the late 90s and into the early 00s, Hampton took advantage of the craze for swing dance by bringing to the scene her smooth style and theatrical presence that has brought her international acclaim. She has never stopped since those early days.

13. Dawn lives in NYC and can be found in New York City dancing and listening to some of the best swing bands around.

14. Dawn and her family are in a documentary called “The Unforgettable Hampton Family” that aired in 2011.

(source: www.thirteen.org/program-content/the-unforgettable-hampton-family/)

15. 
Dawn has been known to answer her phone saying 
“God Is Good. The Light Is On!”

 (source: richardskipper.blogspot.ca/2012/02/dawn-hampton-light-is-on.html)

More about Dawn Hampton:

> Dawn Hampton was an enormous supporter and force in the gay community in New York in the 60's and 70's.
> Dawn worked at a gay bar in New York when gay bars were illegal. 
> In 1969, Dawn was arrested along side members of the LGBT community to which she was a champion for.
> Dawn sang in rooms with the likes of Judy Garland.
> Dawn was a vocal coach for Bette Midler
> Dawn played alto and tenor sax
> Dawn whistled as good as she played sax

此刻，男女双方的距离越来越远，图4中女生受到的滑动摩擦力f1方向与其运动方向相反，与受到男生施加在其手上的力F1方向相同。也就是说女生在水平方向上受到的净外力F=F1+fS1，根据第二定律，也就产生了一个与女生运动方向相反的加速度a1，从对运动的作用效果来看，它实为一个减速度，这个减速度使v1越来越小，直至为零。此时，女生会停在某一点上，并开始产生向力F1方向运动的趋势，滑动摩擦力消失，取而代之的是与F1方向相反的静摩擦力——如图1所示。于是，又回到了之前第0拍的那一瞬间。

至此，我们完成了一个完整的Lindyhop Swingout。

小结：通过完整地分析在Swingout过程中各个时段女生的受力状况，我们可以得出以下2点：

1．给女生：除了克服摩擦力和控制自身平衡的力以外，不要做出任何施力动作。换句话说，就是除了走路和保持平衡外，不需要任何力气。一个很主动去施加力的女生会给舞伴造成很大的困扰。

2．给男生：不要额外地施加力——尤其在第2、5、6拍的时候。额外的力就是意味着平衡被打破，打破平衡就意味着缺少美感，就需要额外的动作再去建立平衡。即使是其他的令人眩目的花哨的非常规动作中，平衡也是时刻存在的，或者说，那些动作本身就是在建立平衡。多余的力同时也会对你的舞伴造成误导，做出你原本并不希望她做的动作。由牛顿第二定律我们可以看出，学会根据不同女生的m去调整自己所需要施加的力才是上策。而且，省去了那些多余施加的力，你会发现跳舞比以往轻松不少，也许跳一支舞只需要消耗原来一半的体能。在一个美女如云，男生资源又稀缺的舞池里，这意味着什么，不言而喻吧。




注释：

[1] 当水平放置于地面的物体产生运动趋势但未发生位移时，其与地面之间就产生了静摩擦力，大小与施加在物体上的水平净外力相等，方向与物体的运动趋势相反。

[2] 理论上研究时通常直接认为当静摩擦力与滑动摩擦力相等时，物体就会发生位移，即f1MAX=fS1。但实际中，静摩擦力必须大于滑动摩擦力，物体才会发生位移，即f1MAX>fS1。

[3] 此时滑动摩擦力依然存在，但是由于人体的生物能产生的动力与之抵消，因此我们能将此刻看作是平衡状态。

The Proactive Follower

By Bobby White

As a teacher, I quickly realized the advice “just follow” is almost never helpful. As far as teaching advice goes, it’s vague and doesn’t give the follower an actionto do, which is exactly what any student needs in order to get better.

But more importantly, it’s wrong.

Great followers never “just follow.” They are constantly being proactive in many different ways in order to make the dance successful and contribute their voice to what is being created.

Let’s talk with a few of the world’s greatest followers to find out how they do that.

Great followers are…

Proactive in their RHYTHM

Followers should always strive to have good rhythm and be proactive about keeping that good rhythm. Followers should also be proactive about keeping that solid rhythm and pulse in non-closed positions, during turns, traveling — well, all the time. (Sometimes you’ll see followers who grow timid in their rhythm the more disconnected they are from their leaders or if they are in the middle of turns.)

“Follows tend to wait for the leader to ‘set the beat’ and they follow his rhythm,” says Laura Keat. “I think that follows need to be more responsible for demonstrating the rhythm and ‘dancing’ in every dance. Therefore if the leader makes a mistake or is off, the follow can still dance rhythmically. We, follows, can still follow the leader’s timing and shapes, but the beat/rhythm/flow of the music is carried in each of our minds and is each of our responsibility to represent through dance.”

“The dancers could just as well be new instruments, as long as the whole is harmonious,” says Annie Trudeau.

“And that’s the key for the follower… finding that harmonious rhythm in movement and in movement relative to your partner. Because rhythms in dancing happen in many dimensions, not only up and down or with our feet.”

Laura Glaess stresses how she thinks about being proactive not only in terms of knowing where the rhythm is but also in terms of where the overall phrasing of the music is. “Depending on the leader and how in sync I am with him, we might be doing crazy rhythmic variations that require me to sacrifice my bounce ["pulse", steady on-every-beat body rhythm]. However, I have the understanding of where the phrase or chorus is, and the understanding that when that occurs, a change in this rhythm will occur, like a return to something basic.”

Proactive in their POSTURE

Great followers are proactive in using their posture, whether it be specifically to match and connect with their leader and/or aesthetic reasons. (This might seem obvious, but a surprising amount of followers don’t control their posture.)

Laura Glaess thinks of it as shape in general. “Basically it includes my arms and my feet. My body. I feel like I know how I want my body to be aligned and the things that it does comfortably.”

But great followers are also proactive about not allowing a leader, or themselves, to change their posture so much that it negatively changes their dancing (like allowing a leader to get them off balance) or affects their safety (like throwing themselves into dips.)

“At all times,” says Annie Trudeau, “posture should be chosen for good balance, good dynamics, good swing dance aesthetics and intentions, and good connection to ourselves to allow the two bodies to move as a whole in harmony and synergy.”

Proactive in their FLOW

When I was a dancer who was good enough to know what good flow was but not good enough to do it, I had the opportunity to dance with some original dancers, like SoCal Lindy Hopper/Bal-Swing dancerAnne Mills. I was struck by how well the dance flowed, even though I clearly wasn’t contributing much myself to it. I then experienced the same thing the first times I danced with Sylvia Sykes.

In hindsight, this was because Anne (and Sylvia) never sacrificed her flow, regardless of what I did with mine. In fact, it seemed like it was almost part of a bigger personal dancing philosophy of hers — she wouldn’t allow me to make her not look elegant. Yes, if I asked her to move faster or slower, she would — but those speed changes would transition incredibly smoothly.

I have since realized this is a also trait of many modern great followers.

“Both partners are responsible for flow,” says Sylvia Sykes, “but often the follow needs to be a bit more on top of keeping it going. No matter how angular or start/stop the lead is, the follow can/should attempt to keep the flow and round the edges without back leading.”

Nick Williams is known to many as an incredible swing dancing leader. What people also don’t realize is how good he is as a follower. (Though it can be strange moving around someone with the body density of a refrigerator.) When I went looking for a great male follower to interview, his professional expertise and the experiences I’ve had leading him made him a clear choice.

“Being a leader primarily, I know what I like in my followers, which is what I try to create when I’m in the follower role,” he said. “Because of this, flow and rhythm become my most important tools…It’s always surprising to me how much is not actually communicated to the follower, even though it’s the leaders intention, so most of my focus is trying to make the dance work, paying attention to both the big picture as well as the subtleties.”

Proactive in their LEARNING

Many teachers reinforce the “just follow” mentality in their students. It’s easy for followers to not receive a lot of direction in classes (often a teacher’s fault, in my opinion.) But great followers did not just wait around to be taught variations.

As we have mentioned, great following is not “just following.” But if it isn’t that, what is it? It is interpreting and reacting to signals and forces, often with the goal to do so in creative ways. It is the feelings and forces a follower gets in the body, the image and actions of the leader seen with the eyes, and the music heard with the ears, that a follower interprets. It is knowing how to act with their body that they react. And it is in playing with how they do so that they creatively interpret.

This, quite simply, takes a lot of practice time and hard work.

“The first year or two I was dancing, the good leads in my city had an obvious preference of dancing with the best follows; therefore it was hard for me to dance with them since there were so many extra follows who were really good,” said Laura Keat.

“I began creating exercises that I could practice at home by myself or with one other follow, since there were so many of us, to get the muscle memory of ‘creativity within connection and following.’ There was no way I was going to get in enough practice time to catch up by dancing with actual leads since I wasn’t their preferred follow. So I found ways to clock my own hours and catch up with the follows that those guys preferred. No one knew that I was spending 2-3 hours a day by myself at home practicing. They all just thought I was a ‘natural’ since I was as enjoyable to dance with as some of those preferred follows within a year or two.”

Proactive in their CHOICES

This is one Laura Glaess personally added to the list, which definitely belongs on it.

“If my lead doesn’t clearly communicate what to do, or if I don’t clearly get the message,” she said, “I still have to choose something. Even after I discover that my choice might be wrong, to a degree, I need to stick with it and work within it.”

“In my invitational J&J with Dax at ILHC [2013], we did some kind of break away, and I don’t think he had a clear idea of where to go [from] there. I didn’t offer any solutions or make any choices. That was a huge learning moment. If I had made a clear choice, he would have had something to work with and we would have continued the dance from there. In later dances, if I make a choice that doesn’t work with the leader’s choice, and least there’s something talk about.”

On the subject of making choices in moments of doubt, Kate Hedin added that followers have several paths and don’t necessarily have to choose an additive one. “I can choose to fill that space by asserting the presence of the dancer I want to portray — and sometimes that means more silence and less noise — but it’s still an active choice. I choose to only put into the dance those things that I can stand by, only those qualities I am proud of.”


Proactive in their PRESENCE

No one has ever described incredible swing dance followers as “meek” and “timid.”

Even though they are followers, they are dancers first. They step, travel through space, and make every extra movement with commitment.

To quote the great Lindy Hop and Balboa follower Marie Nahnfeldt Mattsson, “I love this step. I lovethis step. I love this step…”

Sylvia Sykes points out there are many ways to do this. “You don’t have to be loud or flashy…a calm, confident, consistent presence can be very effective as well.”

Kate Hedin had a very personal experience learning what it meant to have presence.

“I’ve always had clear opinions about the dance, about the music, about the rhythm, as well as ideas [about] how to use the mechanics of the dance to synthesize and execute them,” she said. “However, I was never really good at getting those ideas across visually — as least not in the beginning. So, while I was being the dancer I wanted to be internally for myself, I was not sharing or exuding that dancer outwardly.”

After working on it for several years, she became one of the most powerful voices in Bal-Swing.

“It’s kind of like making your words match your actions. Some people talk a big talk but they don’t have the actions to back that. And others may have good ideas/substance, but don’t know how to explain themselves or never get heard. I want those two parts of myself to be consistent and self-reinforcing.”


Proactive in having a WELL-BALANCED CONVERSATION


Imagine a conversation where one person talks and the other person spends the whole time nodding their head (which, technically, makes it more of a lecture at that point). Or, imagine a conversation where one person tries to say their part, but the other person keeps butting in and interrupting.

Some followers concentrate so much on following that they are the dancing equivalent of people who just nod their heads in a conversation. Other followers are so excited to express themselves that they are the person who doesn’t seem to pay attention to what’s going on in the conversation and keep interrupting or going off on tangents. (And, of course, there are just as many leaders who do the same.)

Great followers are proactive about keeping the dance conversation lively and as well-balanced as possible. They both listen and talk, and they try to keep the conversation lively.

“I like to think that the music has it all, and the leader builds the foundations, the dirt roads,” says Annie Trudeau. “The follower uses this base to create with the leader on top. So together, they will add the bricks, the wood and doors on the foundations, the stonework, and the flowers on the side of the dirt road.”

(Annie also has a pleasing painting analogy — the leader brings the canvas, and they both paint the picture.)

Proactive in their DANCING

Occasionally I see followers who, if they accidentally lost connection with their leader or were led in something unexpected or strange, would kind of start to sputter and stop dancing as if they had run out of gas.

I’d recommend that followers, however, try to be proactive about their dancing — if they lose connection, they become solo dancers until they meet back up again; if a strange move happens, they are still dancing even though they are surprised or don’t know what they are supposed to do. They don’t have to stop looking for connection and dance as if they’re alone — they can calm their dancing (such as their pulse) in order to concentrate on getting back in sync with their partner — but they still want todance.

Sylvia Sykes sums it up quite well: “Along with keeping rhythm, flow, and general technique, one should dance; not just execute figures ‘correctly’…but move with joy.”


Proactive in INVENTION

While social dancing, or practicing, or in general creating their voice, great followers are proactive in the process of inventing content.

“Inventing in the dance is so hard if you have any insecurities or are afraid of disrupting your lead,” Laura Keat said, when asked about advice in follower invention. “I found that I had to focus on sharing a conversation with my lead instead of ‘practicing inventing’ to make it more pleasant for both of us. I focused on making the dance enjoyable by watching my leader’s reactions for positive responses instead of focusing on avoiding mistakes or being discouraged by perceived negative responses.”

Kate Hedin added this for followers to think about as they begin inventing: “It’s fantastic that followers are creating new content,” she said. “However, sometimes those new ideas don’t look like they came from the same dancer. And, more importantly, sometimes those new ideas are breaking fundamental mechanics. As a proactive follower, I need to understand that creating something new doesn’t mean ignoring what’s there.”

When working on choreographies or moves, they might look for where they might take moves themselves, or they simply might keep their creative minds open to possibilities. (This is something my partner Kate Heidn really brought home. When we work on choreographies, she gets a large amount of say in what moves we do, as it’s something she doesn’t get to decide in social dancing.)


Final Thoughts

When looking over this list of skills a “proactive” follower has, Sylvia Sykes mentioned that this was a list just as much for leaders as well.

These statements get us to a very important point. When one thinks of these skills, one sees, overall, the description not necessarily of a great follower, but of a great dancer, period. Following just happens to be the medium these dancers use to be incredible.


ABOUT THE ARTICLE

I want to drop special thanks first to those incredible dancers who allowed me to interview them.

Second, to my teaching and dancing partner, Kate, who is an amazing example of a follower who can both follow in its most literal dancing sense and yet do so incredibly proactively. (I also thought of her immediately when I wrote the sentence about some of the old-timers having the philosophy that they will never allow anyone to not make them look elegant.)

When I asked her what being a proactive follower meant to her, this is what she said:

To be a proactive follower means:

1. to be equally invested in the success of the dance, and to be an active contributor to that goal, not just be passively carried through the dance.
2. to have an idea of the dancer you want to be, and to actively uphold that idea, through content and character.
3. to assert your identity as a dancer.
4. all of this, without negating the primary role of a follower.

I personally think there is a lot of inspiration in that description.

Also, I’ve learned a great deal through conversations with many different people (many of them allowed me to interview them for the article) but wanted to give a shout-out specifically to someone who isn’t quoted in the article, David Rehm. I’ve learned quite a lot from conversations with him, especially from the language he uses on the subject, and in observing his classes.

How do I tell what level I belong in? Dealing with ego and adopting a new mindset.

by Damon Stone

A lot people ask me what level they belong in when it comes to taking classes. I do enjoy people respecting my opinion enough to ask me, but the answer I want to give is never what they want to hear, is not at all satisfying, and the only people who are willing to believe it are the people who don't matter...but more on that part later.

The answer I don't give is, it doesn't matter what level you take. There are two main reasons for this:

1. You are not good enough to get everything in class, no matter WHAT level it is.
2. Dancing with someone worse makes us better.

Lets look at number one, "every level has something to teach you." This may sound like some sort of populist, granola, "we're all equal" kind of BS answer, but the truth is when a teacher tells you this it isn't a platitude meant to soften the blow to your ego about not getting placed where you thought you would, it is because of the simple fact you aren't good enough to get all the stuff correctly in the beginner class. Soak that in, but while you do think about this, neither is the teacher telling you that, and neither am I. I've been doing these dances partnered and solo longer than 80% of the scene has been alive. Now I say this not to brag (how long you've been doing something is a poor indication of how good someone is at a thing) but to help you realize that after all of this time, My posture, connection, pulse, and lag all still need work. The day that everything is utterly perfect with a beginning dancer as well as a master dancer is the day I die from shock. A beginning class focuses on these four basic elements of the blues aesthetic and helps you practice them in the context of simple vocabulary and at best a small handful of blues idiom dances.

Beginning classes are specifically structured to give you time to work on the most fundamental, the hardest, and most important thing in blues idiom dance, the overarching aesthetic. Intermediate classes give you more variety in which to explore the aesthetic, introducing new dances, and some of the more difficult elements of the blues aesthetic like polyphonic movement and call and response, but it is still primarily focused (though frequently hidden) on the blues aesthetic elements of posture, relaxed connection, a maintained physical expression of the baseline rhythm of the music, and lag. Essentially Intermediate is beginners continued. Advanced classes get gritty breaking down the elements and getting you to focus on how the exceptions you think you've discovered are not exceptions, they simply require you to do the things correctly, which you thought you had been doing for years but are starting to suspect you are not even in the ballpark of correct (you aren't). Advanced classes are for those masochists who want to get beyond the "good enough" stage. That is to say, they understand that once you have achieved intermediate level you are good enough to generally dance to any given blues song and pretty much any given tempo with just about any partner and have fun. The dance will be recognizable as blues and you'll both walk away smiling and uninjured. Advanced dancers realize there is more to the dance than having fun, they want to find those transcendent moments where social dancing becomes a form of artistic expression. Seriously, don't take Advanced classes, the time it takes to absorb and apply what you get in a single class and the level of improvement it gives you is all out of whack. If you don't think repeatedly throwing yourself at a brick wall sounds like fun on the off chance you'll be the exception and somehow magically or through a twist of quantum physics pass through the wall, then Advanced classes aren't really for you. I'd say 75% of people in every advanced class I've taught or participated in were there for reasons of their ego, and as such missed most of what was being taught in the class. IF you walk out of class frustrated and tired more often than not, but can't wait to do it again, well congrats, you might be an advanced dancer. IF you find the material fun and not too difficult, you are probably deluding yourself and should give serious consideration to going back to beginner classes. No joke. This either means you are one of the most rare of dancers who absorbs information wholly and can put all the parts together in their head or you spent the entire class entirely focused on the wrong thing and missed all the important bits (oh, did you think that Advanced tricks class was about getting and performing the moves? Nope.).So what are Master classes for? The best Master classes are for people who understand they are weird dance nerds and geeks whose need to know and get it right far outstrips any ability to realize the stuff they are working on will go almost completely unrealized by their dance partners, people in the audience, and most judges. And they are okay with that. It is this consuming passion and need to GET IT ALL even if no one will ever know but them that has them practicing blues dancing at quarter time to improve their balance, with no arms or tied to their partner to remove the need for arms entirely and therefore focus purely on body lead/follow. These are people who are willing in an hour long class to sit and listen to fifteen minutes of theory and then spend five minutes practicing it before being told they are doing it all wrong, and want to spend the next 40 minutes trying to get it right.

And this is where we come to number two, the better your partner is the better they can compensate for you. If you are a beginner and you dance with an intermediate dancer they will recognize your mistakes and mitigate them. When you dance with an advanced dancer they will compensate for them so you might not even know you made a mistake. When you dance with a master they turn your mistake into something brilliant making you think you are a much better dancer than you are. The truth is, if you cannot do it with someone who just stepped off the street, you aren't doing it right. I'll probably get some push back on this, but I believe this wholly and completely. IF you need a dancer as good or better than you to do a thing it is because on some fundamental level you are just not doing it well enough. Blues idiom dance is based on "natural" body movement and reactions, that is to say, it uses the way we move our bodies when we are healthy and moving with unguided purpose, and this means we all, those who take classes and those who do not, should be able to dance blues with someone who is relaxed and paying attention to the music. Now of course the better your partner the easier it is, but a beginner (not a novice) should be familiar with the basics of lead follow, and that is all they should need to be familiar with. IF you didn't make the level you want in an audition, or you are in a class with people you don't think are good enough to do the material and techniques you are working on, you are blaming the wrong person. You are the problem you need to fix. Sure they may be doing things to mess you up and make it harder, but someone significantly better than you would have no problems with it, so instead of worrying about them, concentrate on doing your own things better. So how does all of this have bearing in telling what level you should be in, how do you check your ego, and what is this mindset business? So glad you asked.

What is your purpose for taking classes? If you want to figure out what you are supposed to be doing and have more fun on the dance floor, take beginning classes. If you want your partner to have more fun on the dance floor take intermediate classes. If you want to be the best dancer you can be and your concept of a fun time is melting your brain and beating up your body then take advanced classes. If you must push yourself beyond the reasonable into the absurd where the teacher shows you a step two or three times and has you teach it to yourself because you understand the process and journey IS what is being taught and not the move, and you LOVE THIS then take Master classes. And this why ego holds us back. We put ourselves in classes based on who is in that level and where we think we compare, am I better or worse than those people? How important is it for me to have people know I'm in a higher level than them? If there is always something to learn, something to improve upon, and dancing with people worse than us actually better sharpens our skill and technique, why take classes that are not beginner other than ego? Because sometimes having a teacher who will check our ego for us is the kindest thing possible. Because the esoteric and exotic classes tend to be upper level. Because we have developed a rapport with one or two teachers and we want to take all of their classes regardless of the level. These are ego-less reasons to take things beyond beginning, and I hope you'll consider this shift of mindset.  Getting better is about learning more about yourself without the walls, without the masks, and sharing it with other people.


(source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/damon-stone/how-do-i-tell-what-level-i-belong-in-dealing-with-ego-and-adopting-a-new-mindset/10153016100634338)

It’s a Swing Thing
By Yuki Noguchi

Friday, January 17, 2003; Page WE30

You wanna play?

He pauses slightly, mid-spin, as if the hesitation of a half-twisted torso poses the question.

A shimmy shimmy of the shoulders is my answer:

You betcha!

A linger on a turn sets up a joke.

A wriggle of the hips interrupts with a response: Beat you to the punchline!

At its best, swing dancing feels like great conversation. It has playful spirit that's all wit. That razzmatazz, that blues in your shoes, that swing thing. Rhythmic chitchat goes by many names, but avid dancers call it "connection."

You can scan a roomful of dancers and spot good connection. The awkward pair won't have the telltale bounce. The flashy ones with exaggerated moves won't be in sync. It's the couple with the light feet moving in harmony that catch the eye.


Connection is a chemical measure of how much you get each other on the dance floor. It's spontaneous. It's goofy. It's magic.

And I'm addicted to the stuff.

Luckily for me, Washington supplies the best swing dancing on the East Coast. This area sustains a retro-boom partly inspired by the Gap advertisements of circa 1998, which featured poorly executed, inauthentic swing-dance routines as part of their pitch for khaki pants. While venues in Boston have petered out over the years, and New York's scene has faded to give way to the next trend, Washington's swing subculture continues to provide plenty of venues, live music and good dancers to satisfy my near-daily cravings.

The number of venues during the week even exceeds that of San Francisco, a major hub of swing: Mondays at Chevy Chase Ballroom; Tuesdays at Clarendon Ballroom; Wednesdays are best at K2 in Beltsville, but Lulu's Mardi Gras Club on M Street is closer to downtown. It's Chevy Chase or Zoots and Dolls in Fairfax on Fridays; Glen Echo Park on Saturdays.

For the unindoctrinated, the scene might appear a bit cultish.

My mother, who lives nearby, feels she's lost her daughter to a hobby. I come home to her sober messages on my voice mail: I guess you're out dancing...again.

But Mom, there's joy in a swivel! I need a balboa turn! Jazz is playful, and swing is silly. It mesmerizes and intoxicates. It's as good for the soul as it is for the body.

Longtime dancer Larry MacDonald smiled like Buddha when I asked him what he likes most about dancing. "Harmony," he said. "Harmony I achieve with a woman. My whole life, I've been trying to get that off the dance floor."

My friend Erik Newton started dancing four years ago after seeing an elderly man kiss his wife sweetly on the forehead after a dance.

"I want that," he said.

Couples, though, are the anomaly in the swing scene. The style of dance is often cast in an oversexed role, as in "swinging lifestyle," but that's a misperception. It's mostly a single person's sport, and the norm is to go stag. Though you dance with a partner, you typically switch almost every song.

It's not uncommon to find yourself dancing with someone with whom the only thing you have in common is dance.

Age, in particular, is where swing shows its greatest diversity. I've danced with a high school student whose mother is also a regular. One of the most playful dancers I know is a man named Barry, whose college-age daughter often accompanies him to dances. Sometimes it's the parents who hook their kids on dancing, but more often parents are the ones who become hooked watching their children dance. (My mother took swing lessons for a while so she could see me.) A typical dance will get strong representation from twenty- and thirty-somethings like myself, and an almost equal number of men and women like Larry MacDonald and Bob Schmitt, my middle-aged bachelor pals. The retired reverend Arnold Taylor, an excellent dancer at 77, still vividly remembers learning to dance in grange halls during the Depression 72 years ago.

Swing dancing is light and funny, and in a buttoned-down city that often takes itself too seriously, that can be refreshing.

It's also almost laughably wholesome. The main thing about swing dancing is the dancing. There are those who come to scope out a date, but they usually fall into two categories: the uncommitted types who give up after a few dances yield them no dates, or the converts who discover that they'd rather be dancing than romancing, anyway.

There are some rules of engagement, of course. In no particular order, they are: Do nothing untoward; if someone asks you to dance and you're out of breath, politely decline, but seek them out for a dance later; remember that you, too, were once a beginner; don't eat raw onions before dancing; be nice; change shirts when you get too sweaty, and for heaven's sake throw away the ones that smell like mildew.

Those are really the things that matter when you're a swing dancer. Unlike many Washingtonians, dancers generally don't care what you do for a living.  I've danced with dozens of leads (leads are male dancers, female dancers "follow" the leads) who at best know my first name and how long I have been dancing, but don't seem to care one iota what I do during the day to support my dance habit.

As habits and vices go, this one is inexpensive. Admission typically costs $5, up to $15 at the most, for a famous 16-piece band event or fundraiser. I figure: That's the cost of one night of bar-hopping in Adams Morgan spread over a whole week.

I started dancing about two years ago, after watching one of my best friends from college hone her swing skills during a brief stint living in San Francisco.

My introduction wasn't easy. I spent most of my time observing from the sidelines, hoping a good lead would take pity on my poor skills and dance with me anyway, all the while burning with envy as I watched the better dancers glide and turn in perfect synchronicity with their partners.

Breaking into the scene can be intimidating. All beginners become acutely aware of a caste system on the floor and feel it would be disorderly to ask a Brahmin to dance. I found that chatting with people on the sidelines, being friendly and mustering the guts to ask a better dancer paid off.

Initially, I made a host of beginner's mistakes, starting with my clothing. I wore black platform shoes that looked the part but didn't give me the cushion or the stability that swing dancing requires. I wore shirts and pants that weren't fitted enough, so the excess material trapped air and sweat and slowed my movement. I had long hair that reached almost to my waist and did violence to men's faces when I spun around.

On occasion, some dancers take pains to fashion their hair Rita Hayworth style and comb through vintage shops to find the right zoot suit or dress. But on any given night, the vast majority of dancers seem to prefer function to form. I am one of those people: I dance in my old running shoes and tape the underside with duct tape to slide better. I wear pants and skirts made of soft material that doesn't chafe, even after hours of bouncing around. I wear fitted shirts or tank tops that allow my skin to breathe but are tight enough that they don't flap around, trapping air as I move. I cut my hair to shoulder length and keep it tied close to my head.

Many things about swing are similar around the country. The etiquette, for example, or the way dancers dress up or dress down. Dancers on the whole are also consistently friendly, especially to dancers from other cities.

Yet every city has its own style. Sometimes it's so distinctive that you can identify a stranger's home town by the way he or she dances. This happened recently with someone named Ray, whose style reminded me of the smoother, slower blues style of my friends in St. Louis, where I grew up. Sure enough, Ray, who was in Washington for a few days on business, was from Cleveland -- a stylistic cousin of my Midwestern home town. The reverse happened to me when I was dancing in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco one Sunday a couple of months ago and met Rob Wooldridge, a likable English teacher who instantly identified me as an out-of-towner because I carried my upper body with more "tension" in my arms.

In that sense, dance styles are like regional dialects. It's not clear where they come from or who perpetuates them, but they betray your dance origins.

Insofar as Washington has a distinctive style, it is what my colleague at The Post and fellow dance lover Jen Balderama calls "Hollywood style with a Washington flavor."

Hollywood style is a subset of swing typified by a very taut connection in the arms, so that the follow is leaning back slightly, keeping an elastic but tight link with her partner. The effect is that the dancers look as if they are swinging around in elliptical shapes, gliding rapidly backward with the follow swiveling from her hips in a distinctly sexy way. As the name suggests, this is typical of a style found in Los Angeles; in Washington, it is combined with a speedy jitterbug flair.

What determines a city's style has a great deal to do with who teaches in those cities. In Washington, the most marketed, and therefore most accessible, pair of teachers is Tom Koerner and Debra Sternberg, which makes them the proverbial parents of the swing style here.

There are other teachers in the area as well. John "Psychoboy" McCalla teaches classes in Bethesda, Frederick and Baltimore. Donna Barker teaches swing and other kinds of dance, generally in Arlington. Zoots and Dolls in Fairfax hosts Friday night dance parties preceded by dance classes taught by various teachers.

Most people who learn to dance in Washington, however, start with the duo of Koerner and Sternberg, who usually host five or more dance parties a week. They teach five nights a week, including an hour-long beginners lesson followed by an intermediate class. Their sessions cost $96 and last eight weeks. Following the intermediate class, people start to file in for Koerner and Sternberg's open dance parties, which usually draw enough people to cause traffic congestion on the dance floor.

Koerner, who calls himself a "recovering" divorce lawyer and has a penchant for off-color jokes, said the classes are attracting more and more new students -- as many as 120 people in one of last season's classes. After years of practicing law, he is trying to make a full-time job of his passion.

The fact that he may be doing just that is a sign that a new generation of dancers is coming up through the ranks.

"We don't have a Britney Spears or a Run-DMC to, you know, promote Lindy," said Sternberg, who at 49 is a superbly perky woman who performs death-defying over-the-head aerial moves to frighten and inspire her students. So Koerner and Sternberg promote like crazy. "We always see new generations coming through; you have to rely on people who are going to start dancing" to keep the scene alive. She has been dancing for 15 years, and together with Koerner spends most weekday and weekend events teaching two, hour-long classes.

Critics of Koerner and Sternberg say they don't teach much about posture, body frame, stance and other fundamental skills that enable a person to communicate well with a partner. They go over that in the first class but then quickly proceed to teaching steps and routines of progressive difficulty, so that often by the end of the class some students are kicking around haphazardly off the beat.

I took one class from Koerner and Sternberg -- the only class to date I've taken in swing. I found that I learned most from the charity of leads who could teach me the fundamentals.

What makes good dancers is not how many moves they know but how they carry themselves. The most advanced dancers will spend hours on the most basic steps to improve their dance style. It makes sense, because swing is just a bunch of variations on a handful of basic step sequences: the triple step, the eight-count Lindy circle, and what are called Charleston, balboa and shag. If those aren't etched deeply and cleanly in your muscle memory, there is not much point to building your repertoire.

The person most responsible for my dance education is probably Jason Aldrich. He and I make fun of each others' politics, but he loves dance as much as I do, and he's a supremely patient teacher.

Jason has a smooth style that is clear yet gentle. He doesn't -- as some beginner leads do -- jerk my arms out of their sockets to get me to move quickly. If I keep my arms with the proper amount of tension, I effortlessly end up where he intends me to be. Keeping my balance when spinning or turning with him is also easy, because he counterbalances my weight with his. Mainly, it's the combination of these two things that makes us have a good connection, so that when he decides to do a complicated move, I can generally follow, because my body naturally responds to his lead.

I have kept up my commitment of dancing at least three nights a week for the last two years, except when I was running a strict regimen of 40 miles a week to train for the Marine Corps Marathon. During that time, I disappeared from the dance scene for about six months, but I returned to it at an even more feverish pace three months before the marathon because I injured my knee.

Dancing became my de facto training. I danced six or sometimes seven days a week -- an average of probably 12 hours altogether. That unorthodox regimen kept me in sufficient shape that I ran for the first time in three months on marathon day and was able to complete the race in about five hours -- within 30 minutes of my original desired time.

Dance feels like a more balanced exercise than running, and getting a workout happens to be a byproduct of the fun.

Doug Won, a wonderful dancer in the St. Louis scene and an orthopedic surgeon, told me the arm movements -- even simple pushes and turns -- get the heart pumping faster. Most of the songs fall in medium to fast tempo range, but the exercise is low-impact, so the heart works at that ideal range that helps the body burn fat, rather than sugars, he said.

Swing dancing has another health virtue that probably contributes to its appeal to older people: It spares the joints. Contrary to popular perception, swing dancing is not a set of gymnastic flips in which the woman lands with a jarring thud; few people perform those moves except for purposes of performance. So the knee injury that I sustained doesn't bother me at all, even when I twist, turn, bend and bounce.

Longevity is on dance's side.

Washington's swing scene shows no sign of fading, and those who are nourished by it show no sign of aging.

It stays because it draws you in, sticks to you and lingers. When Ella Fitzgerald's voice caramelizes a dance floor, who can resist partaking of that sweet joy?

Yuki Noguchi covers telecommunications for The Washington Post.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

 

 

 

 

(Streetswings Dance History Archives: Lindy Hop)
 
The very first known form of swing was the Texas Tommy in 1913, which later changed to the Mooch and Sugar in 1916 and even later called the Break-A-Way by 1919. During the 1920's when the Charleston was becoming all the rage, the Breakaway and Charleston would start to mix with and was forming a new yet unnamed dance style with a few other dances thrown in the mix.
 
In 1927 this style was finally acknowledged and given a name by a fabulous swing dancer named George "Shorty" Snowden. 'Shorty George' from New York's Harlem was to re-name the 'break-a-way' the "Lindy Hop or Lindbergh hop" after the famous pilot "Charles Augustus Lindbergh"

(Lindbergh made his thirty-three hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean to France successfully on May 20, 1927.) There are two main stories about the name that go something like this (the 1st one being the main one, second being more correct):

1) In September, 1927, a newspaper reporter having never seen this style of dance before walked up to the winners at a dance marathon contest in Central Park in New York, (known as the un-official start of the Harvest Moon Ball Contest (later to be tried again in 1934). This reporter asked the winning couple (Shorty George!) what it was that they were doing, as he had not seen it before. Shorty thought for a second and replied "the Lindy Hop... We flying just like Lindy did!". The newspaper reporter did an article on the contest in his newspaper and described what he saw calling it the "Lindy Hop."

 2) A dance derby (marathon) which started on 6/17/1928 at the Manahattan Casino, (155th Street and Eighth Avenue in Harlem, New York.) Shorty George (#7) was Dancing in a (supposedly non segregated) dance marathon and decided to do the Breakaway, a reporter for the New York Graphic (?Walter Winchell maybe?) observed and came over and asked what kind of dance he was doing, Snowden without stopping, thinking quickly replied "The Lindy Hop... Were flyin' just like Lindy did!"... supposedly he reported this in his article. Fox Movietone News also captured Shorty's feet in this derby on film. Shorty became one of the remaining four couples out of eighty left dancing before the marathon was closed down on 7/4/1928. The New York Times announced: "NEGRO DANCE DERBY ENDS.; Stopped After Sixteen Days by Order of Commissioner Harris." However there are publications that use the term Lindy Hop (dance) prior to this date, so number one is maybe closer to the correct story.

The Lindy was going to become famous in a rapid pace of time, so fast most instructors around the country had no idea about it. The Woodland Daily Democrat Newspaper on September fourteenth of 1927 Miss Sullivan said that "the Lindy Hop" placed third in the annual Dance Masters of America (D.M.A.) conference held in New York and was described by Miss Sullivan when asked about the Lindy Hop, however it was the Lindbergh Wave Waltz that took third and that is what she described (dum-de-dum, dum-de-dum-dum-de-dum), it was obvious she had no idea what the reporter was talking about. The Kinkajou was first and the Dixie Stomp being second place and the Lindy Wave Waltz was third.

In the last 90 years the Lindy has become the first form of swing as we know it today (the Great Grandfather of all Swing if you will) and along with the Charleston were the main dances of the 1920's. The Charleston mixed in with the Lindy, as well as other prior forms of dance such as the Texas Tommy, Turkey Trot, Apache Dance, Black Bottom, The Shimmy, The Strut, Cakewalk, The Frisco, Foxtrot, Tap and more. These dances were known as "Jazz Dances." The Lindy was the first form of swing "White America" had seen and was about to fall in love. Some of these folks would go to the famous "Savoy Ballroom" in Harlem and watch the "African-American dancers" strut their stuff.

Many of these dancers in 1920's were teaching many of the "White Folks" to do these dances, thus, they were making a "honorable living" in a very racist period of time. This became very competitive among some of African-American dancers, some would clip papers to their back with phone numbers or a studio name written on them while they danced. If you liked the way a dancer danced you could then get in touch with them and take lessons. Through this type of competition, the dancers would start to do more wild and crazy stuff to get the attention of the spectators.

As time went on, dance contests became more and more "attention getting." In the 1930's a dancer named "Frankie Manning" *claimed to add the first Air-Step" (lifts/ flips) into the Lindy (Al Minns and Leon James as well). These and other "Air-Steps" or Aerials had been done for years before in other dance styles such as the tango, waltzes, Flash and Acrobatic dance acts, apache dance etcetera,through many exhibitions by professional club entertainers, but supposedly had not yet been done in the Lindy, especially with the speed in which they would be done, plus add the element of surprise and these aerials would become completely unique to the Lindy Hop.

In many interviews Frankie describes how his first "Air-Step" took place: "Frankie and partner were practicing for a dance contest to try and beat then King "Shorty George Snowden" at the Savoy, Frankie and partner, worked out a back flip they *saw (??) and it worked, they did it in the contest and beat Mr. Snowden."

Also in a book called "Swing as a Way of Life" (1941) states that "young dancers like Al Minns, Joe Daniels, Russell Williams, and Pepsi Bethel produced the "Back flip, Over Head and the Snatch!." At any rate, this started the attention getters on to a new agenda... Aerials!

Over the years aerials became a main attraction in Lindy competitions and exhibitions, however, aerials were not permitted at most clubs and ballrooms during any social type dance while on the dance floor except during exhibitions or contests as too many dancers and people around these dancers were getting hurt. Even the famous Harvest Moon Ball eliminated Aerials during the contests for a brief period of time.

The Savoy Ballroom opened in 1926 and was the main haunt for Harlem's dancers. During this time the original Lindy or Break-A-Way looked more like couples Charleston, with a splash of the other dances thrown in rather than today's style of Lindy. Shorty George was at the head of the pack during this time frame. The Savoy would later prove to be the breeding ground for swing as the main dance.

In the early 1930's, Hubert "Whitey" White was the head bouncer at the Savoy and noticing an opportunity to make some cash decided to form a group called "Whitey's Hopping Maniac's," later to be known as " Whitey's Lindy Hoppers ". It was a pretty open market for him as his only competition was "Shorty George and his dancers" who were doing most of the exhibitions and shows around town in ballrooms and clubs such as the Cotton Club at the time, Shorty would join Whitey's very first group as well but later quit.

Whitey had auditions and picked some dancers to start his group. This was to become the form of Lindy Hop we know today. During the Lindy Hoppers reign, the Lindy was to take on a newer "Sophisticated or cleaned up look." The Hoppers went on to become the main Swing groups of the time and traveled all over the world performing in many exhibitions, movies, and stage shows. About the same time ... Dean Collins was to bring Savoy Style Lindy, a smoother and slower form to Los Angeles in the early 1930's which gave birth to today's modern West Coast swing.

When Benny Goodman became the "King of Swing," the Lindy Hop would become known as the "Jitterbug." The term Jitterbug would eventually be applied to all styles of swing over the years and the term Lindy Hop would almost be forgotten about as the term Jitterbug took the reigns. The main way to tell if the "old movies" (1930-50's) feature Lindy, West Coast (called rock and roll) or East Coast Swing is:
1) If they do Sugar pushes its West Coast Swing (Dean Collins choreography).
2) If no Sugar push its Lindy (probably Whitey's Group).
3) If however there is no Sugar push, Whip or Lindy Circle then it is East Coast Swing (standard movie choreographers/ stock dancers).

Another form of swing that was extremely popular among white America about the same time was the Shag.

As time progressed on, many factors would come into play to change the look and feel of the original Lindy. Music being the main factor of change as it seemed every ten years the music changed. ie: Ragtime to Jazz to Big Band to Big Band Swing to Rock and Roll to Bop to Motown to Soul to Funk etcetera and many secondary styles of music surfacing as well such as Latin music, Psychedelic, Folk Music, Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Rock a Billy, Country Western, Beach Music etcetera. These music changes would give new semi-pro dancers who could care less about the past (somewhat same as today) a new lease on the dance but were doing it differently as the older dancers either got married, had kids, died, became handicapped for various non dance reasons, overwieght and didn't want to go out, or just got older as well as other factors to long to go into here, so the dance was changing but was still the same.

Another main factor was that many "exhibtion dancers" of the day were trying to invent their own versions as well (example Champion Strut), usually unsuccessfully as that was the thing to do for many years, similar to the Line dance craze a few years back, everyone became a choreographer. New dancers are always gullable when the words "New Version or improved or updated, modern etcetera are used to sell them, however the older pros who lasted kept it somewhat in check as they usually taught the best. These newer "semi-pros" were similar to going to a chiropractor to have your tonsils removed.

Jitterbug/Lindy or whatever you want to call it stayed as King for many era's, but alas, all must give way sooner or later. The Twist dance became the death blow for the Lindy Hop/Jitterbug in 1959. (See Twist page as to why.)

Many folks ask what style of swing/Jitterbug is best, West Coast, East Coast, Whip, Push, Lindy, Shag etc. However, there is no best style. The best style would depend on what type of music you are dancing to at the time, Geographics, the theme of the dance being held, the speed in which the music is played and the dance knowledge of you and or your partner. If you're partner only knows one style of swing, then their style would be the best style to dance with them at that time. If they only know one style they usually will declare that the style they know is the best style above all others and usually will make derogatory statements.

Swing (Jitterbug) is a wonderful dance form in all it's versions that fits all types of music, Personalities, Finances etc. Calling yourself a swing dancer means you can at least do the basics in many forms of swing and a few well. So learn to swing dance whatever style, you're unique and your dances should be varied and your style should represent your knowledge of dance that other, newer dancers (and they are the majority) don't possess, and not limited to only one. However you will eventually find you like them all and soon you will understand the importance of them all as well as understand why there are different styles to begin with. So enjoy them and mainly smile, laugh and have fun.

Notes:
During this time, many things were being named after Lindbergh, even Al Smith tried to start a dance named after him (Al Smith Hop). Eleanor Powell did a "Jig Hop" in the "Fine and Dandy" Broadway play in 1930, which is related. Also there was a dance called the "St. Louis Hop" in 1926 and is described in Betty Lee's Book, it is a form of swing. In 1914, a dance called the "Aunt Jemima slide" may also be related. The November 1927 Dance Magazine has Lindy and Lindy Hop Lessons advertised by Charles Sadler and Prof. L. Gonzaga.

*** It's all about the humpf ***

 Swing is a broad term for a group of social dances  that are mainly danced to various kinds of jazz music. The sheer flexibility of Swing dancing adds to its richness and makes it a great social dance to learn. Swing dancing is a social dance, but unlike Ballroom dancing, it emphasizes musicality and improvisation in the sense that the mood, the phrases and the "humpf" of the music will very much affect the way you dance and the way you execute every moves. The art of swing dancing is to adapt to the mood and beat of the music.




*** It's all about the music ***


But first and foremost, Swing is Music. What is Swing music? Swing music is a kind of Jazz music. It has African roots and European roots. The classic swing dance bands were Chick Webb, Count Basie, Jimmie Lucenford, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller. Louis Armstrong... Swing music does not have a hard beat. It has a strong flow. Swing dancing is jazz dancing. You play. You improvise. You syncopate. Rock (&Roll), Rockabilly, and various other musical forms evolved from Swing music. Swing music started in the mid-1920's, and was really popular among African Americans until it entered the mainstream around 1935. It was wildly popular until about 1945, when people danced much less, and Jazz, which had always been dancing music, stopped being popular. R&B and Jump Blues, which had grown out of Swing, combined with Country & Western and gave rise to Rock & Roll. This too was started by African Americans. R'N'R eventually grew into Rock, and became completely undanceable. In the 1970's there was Disco, and later Country & Western and Rockabilly.





In the 1980's, several people rediscovered authentic Swing music and dancing, inspired by the Lindy Hop in such films as Hellzapoppin' and Day at the Races. This lead to a resurgence of real Swing music, as thousands of people learned to dance Lindy Hop from the old masters like Frankie Manning and Al Minns, and the new masters, like Steven Mitchell and Ryan Francois. The film Swing Kids, which contains Swing music and dancing, was choreographed by Ryan Francois.





At the same time, in the 1980's several Rock, Rockabilly, Ska, and Punk bands were inspired by the popularity of Swing, to call themselves Swing bands. This music is often called Neo-swing. It sounds and feels a lot more like Rock than Swing, often with a hard beat, and an angry edge. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Royal Crown Revue and Brian Setzer Orchestra are Neo-swing bands. Squirrel Nut Zipper are inspired by pre-swing music - ragtime and hot jazz.




And then there are many, many contemporary authentic swing bands -- Bill Elliott, Eddie Reed, Dean Mora, Jennie Loebel, Lavay Smith, Joe Salzano, Lindy Hop Heaven. Swing music is pure joy. It puts a smile on your face.





Swing is Jazz music. Jazz is Dancing music. Swing music is pure joy.

To Dance Is a Radical Act

The practice of dancing is vital to our survival as humans on earth.

Published on November 29, 2011 by Kimerer LaMothe, Ph.D. in What a Body Knows


To dance is a radical act. To think about dance, to study dance, or to practice dance in this 21st century is a radical act. 

Why?

Because if dancing matters—if dancing makes a difference to how we humans think and feel and act-then dancing challenges the values that fund modern western cultures.

How so?

1. Mind over body. A first and fundamental value of western cultures is the one that privileges our mental capacity, in particular our ability to reason, over and against our feeling, sensing, moving bodily selves. I think therefore I am. We believe that "we," as thinking minds, can exert control over our bodily actions, and that we should. We believe that achieving such mind over body mastery is good, and even our ticket to success in any realm of endeavor.

This idea that reason is our definitively human part was greeted with much hope and fanfare by early modern philosophers and politicians, economists and poets. If only all humans can learn to exercise their reason, it was thought, then many minds will be able to arrive at the same answer-at true and certain knowledge, at a common good, at world peace.

However, we humans are not rational minds dwelling in bodily containers. We are bodies. We are bodily selves whose movements are making us able to think and feel and act at all. And if we are to achieve a just and sustainable world, then we must make sure that our processes of getting there honor the wisdom and agency present in the movement of our bodily selves.

To dance is a radical act because dancing reminds us that the bodily movements we make make us who we are.

2. Individuals first. Second only to the value we accord mind over body control is the value we grant to a sense of ourselves as individuals first. We aim and claim to be independent and self-sufficient, generating our own resources and meeting our own needs. We enter into relationships, ready to stay or go based on the benefits of that relationship to us.

Yet, we humans are not individuals first. Before we can ever think or say "I," we have already been formed and enabled by others. We are who we are by virtue of the relationships we create with those who support our lives, from the day we are born to the day we die. And if we want to create healthy and life enabling relationships with others, then we must acknowledge that we are interdependent bodily selves.

To dance is a radical act because it reminds us that we, as bodily selves, exist only as an expression of the matrix of relationships with ourselves, others, and the natural world that enables us to be.

3. Write it down. A third value we hold dear is that of writing as a medium of knowledge. We grant an authority to words over and above any other medium as the one most able to document, preserve, and transmit truth and knowledge of any kind. This valuing of the written word flourished with the invention of the printing press and its first use: printing Bibles. People of any class or race or gender could access for their own individual selves the greatest mysteries of God. All they needed to do was learn to read.

However, as we now know, not everything that is written down is important, and not everything important can be written down. There are forms of knowledge that exist in media other than verbal ones. Reading and writing themselves are bodily activities demanding the precise articulation of muscle movement. Words cannot grant themselves authority. That authority comes from the lived experiences they express, and the lived experiences they enable.

To dance is a radical act because doing so implies that there are forms of knowing that cannot be mediated to us in words, which give words their meaning.

4. Sit whenever possible. A fourth value derives from the other three. We privilege the kind of work that we can do sitting down, while thinking, reading, writing. We spend years of our lives learning to sit still so that we can master these tasks. When we succeed, we are rewarded by forms of employment that allow us to sit some more. When we are tired at the end of the day, we sit to be entertained, to be fed, to be cared for. We want someone else to do the heavy lifting. We work hard, so we can sit.

Yet, as bodily selves, we are born to move. We are born moving as the medium in which we learn, adapt, invent, and nurture the relationships that support us in becoming who we have the potential to be. Moving our bodily selves in such ways gives us pleasure—even our greatest pleasure.

To dance is a radical act, because when we do it, we remember the primal joy of moving our bodily selves.

In sum, if we dance, and if we claim that dancing matters, then we are also affirming that we are not simply rational individuals whose best health is served by sitting and writing. We are bodily selves, sensing, feeling, stretching-and reaching for the knowledge, justice, and peace we desire.

So what are we to do?

We need to find the dancer in each of us, and the dance in what we do. We need to breathe to move and move to breathe, and so cultivate a sensory awareness of our bodily selves as movement. When we do, we will have what we need to be able to think and feel and act in ways that remain faithful to the body of earth and our bodies of earth.

1. Dance for the span of the universe that you are. All we are, as humans, is a span of flesh and consciousness. We each are a tiny swath of the universe where whatever energy it is that composes the universe is alive in us, as us, coming to life through us. The movement of life expresses itself in every movement we make. Every movement we make shapes that energy, gives it form, and sends it along.

To dance is to play with the movement that is making us. It is to cultivate a sensory awareness of how this movement is making us, and of how our own movements, as we shape and transmit the energy of life, are making us. To dance is to play with this movement in ways that allow us to discover and exercise our capacity to make our own movements—movements that align with our health and well-being. Dancing, we create ourselves. We become who we are. We are what we think and feel and do.

When we dance, then, we don't do it for our "self," per se. We don't do it in order to win a response (preferably praise) from others. We do it to participate consciously in the ongoing creation of what is as that creation is happening in us. We do it to let the universe that is us live through us.

When we do, we find in our bodily selves the ideas and motivation we need to move creatively and constructively in response to the social, psychological and environmental issues that concern us. We can, because we care. We care, because we feel what it is to be a bodily self. And with that knowledge, we have the surest moral compass there is.

2. Practice dance narrowly, understand dance broadly. Often, when we begin to study dance, we start with one technique or one teacher, and quickly identify ourselves as students of a given technique. We perfect particular patterns of movement, and then build on what we have learned. In time, our movements gain strength and grace, and the timbre of a signature style.

At the same time, we always need to remember that no one form or technique of dance is itself dance. A form is a catalyst to dance. The exercises of a given technique are helpful because they draw our attention to certain ranges of movement, quicken our awareness of these possibilities, and guide us to release our own energy through them.

Dance, however, is infinite. There are infinite possible patterns of sensing and responding, even within one relational bodily self. To dance is to exercise our capacity and willingness to play with the movements that we are and discover what we can do. This play can involve making new movements or animating movements of a given technique so fully that they become our own. In either case, however, the form is not the measure of the dance, only a tool for helping us find the dancers we are, and the dance in everything we do.

3. Welcome every obstacle to movement as an opportunity to become a better dancer. When I talk about dance, one of the questions I am asked most frequently concerns those with limited movement. How can someone who is ill or paralyzed or physically compromised dance?

I reply: dance is creative movement. Any human who can move at all—who can breathe or blink or wiggle a pinky finger—and has the desire to do so, can learn to play with the range of sensory possibility that that movement opens up. He can create and become new patterns of sensing and responding. She can invite the neural network of her bodily self to create new connections. When we move in such ways, we align with the forces of creativity—of healing—at work in us. We dance.

The same logic holds for dancers who are sidelined with an injury. In so many cases, an injury happens because one part of the body—a strong part—is carrying more weight than it should. The injury is thus an opportunity to slow down, and find more sensation, more freedom, more play, so that we are able to animate larger and more dynamic patterns of stretch and strength.

When we understand dance broadly, we know that anything that happens to us in our life, pleasing or not, offers us an opportunity to deepen our experience of dancing and enrich our ability to dance.

4. Keep the love alive. After spending time learning a new form, the novelty may wear off and our enthusiasm pale. Suddenly the movements that seemed so life-giving are routine. They don't produce the same sensory excitement. Inevitably the four-fold values named above creep in; we begin to try harder by exerting the power of our minds over our bodies, or we long simply to sit.

We humans are so good at creating habits. We are so good at getting caught in our habits, and forgetting that we were the ones who created them—even when we dance. Yet dancing remains our most potent resource for stirring to life the sensory awareness that reconnects us to our own creativity. As we play with movement possibilities, we open to the life-enabling currents in us that are always looking for places to break out in new forms.

So when we dance, it is up to us to keep the love alive—to return to the pulse of our breathing, to reconnect with the movements that are making us, and so open to receive the energies of the universe coursing through us.

There is a dancer in each of us, and a dance in everything we do. Once we find that dancing energy, we have the most powerful resource there is for evaluating the impact of the movements we are making in all realms of our lives; for comprehending and empathizing with the pain we are creating in ourselves and others, and for sensing how to move in ways that will better enrich our lives as bodily humans in community on this planet. If we are to survive the 21st century, we must.