Talk:Swing (dance)/Archive 1

Untitled
My first foray into Wiki...

I noticed two different types of Shag; Collegiate and Carolina. Is the basic step in each the same? I put a basic step description under Carolina, but I'm not positive it's appropriate there.

Old talk
Removed this paragraph from List of dan simple alphabetical list of dances . This text, may or may not already be in this article.  That text should, or maybe needs not be incorporated into the article.  The part of the text which is a list of dances remains in [[List of dances.  The accompanying text has been removed.  :Sfdan 06:05, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Swing dances originated in the United States of America from the Charleston, itself descended from traditional African dances. Swing dances are energetic and sensual. Despite the absense of travelling in the ballroom sense, couples may move around a large area of the dance floor. Swing dances were originally danced to Swing music but are very adaptable. Swing dances include:


 * Jitterbug, arguably the original
 * East Coast Swing, a slower-paced variant of jitterbug
 * Lindy Hop
 * West Coast Swing, a modern variant that requires less space than East Coast Swing
 * Balboa
 * Shag, a number of styles
 * Rock and Roll (cf. Rock and Roll music)
 * Acrobatic Rock'n'Roll

Renaming
As swing dance actually is the term, I would like to transfer this article to either swing dance or swing dances. Sure you can say you do "swing" but for me that is more unspecific. Habj 21:13, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * There is something in this suggestion. One may speak about "swing dances" as a group of dances or call some dance non-specifically "swing", as often happens at social dance parties where I live: a "Swing" is announced when the music is mid-tempo, so that beginners may dance ECS, while westies do WCS. But then, I don't have a clear idea about the future of the very this swing (dance) page: should it be made a disambig page? mikka (t) 01:55, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

PlainJane I support the suggestion that that this entry should be renamed 'swing dance'. But it's difficult to decide which specific dances might belong in this group. In academic literature (Jackson esp) dealing with Afro-American vernacular dance there are references to the 'family' of swing dances. Members of this family are largely considered those which were popular or developed during the 'swing era' (1920s and 30s).

When we speak of contemporary swing dance culture, however, we could argue that a greater range of dances may be included in this category - cake walk, shimmy, etc - dances which did not develop during the 'swing era', yet are popular with contemporary 'swing dancers' and taught by many high profile teachers as essential to understanding the history of 'swing dancing' generally or lindy hop specifically.

Many teachers and researchers take any dance which is associated with jazz music as important in swing dance culture and to lindy hop. Jazz, of course, developed in the late 19th century and continues today, though most lindy hoppers would draw the line at music and dances developing after the 1940s.

This discussion of the etymology and geneology of swing dances suggests that wikipedia could benefit from an article dealing specifically with African American vernacular dance, which begins with the Atlantic slave trade, African cultural history in America (African American history and History of slavery in the United States) and dances such as Ring Shouts and continues with hip hop, krumping, etc.

If there was an article on af-am v dance, this article on 'swing dances' could continue in reference to those dances from the 'swing family'. I do think we should distinguish between dances of the 'swing era', dances which are danced today and are 'swing dances' and the historic dance forms which lindy hoppers are interested in. It's also important to note that swing dance in America is different to other countries, as many swing dances such as hand dancing are not danced widely outside the United States, some dances such as west coast swing or east coast swing are danced under different names in other countries. I am reminded of the differences between jive in the UK, west coast swing in the US and rock and roll in Australia and New Zealand.

References: Jackson, Jonathan David. "Improvisation in African-American Vernacular Dancing." Dance Research Journal 33.2 (2001/2002): 40 - 53.

I have begun an article called African American vernacular dance. PlainJane 01:47, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Dance
Please have a look at Portal:Dance --Roland2 09:45, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

History of swing dances
PlainJane 09:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC) I have moved some material from the lindy hop article to this page. It is historical stuff which needs to be reworked. I'll have another look at this article when I have more time to make it all work together more smoothly.

PlainJane 01:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC) I have reworked the article to present swing dancing as both a family of historical dances and as a current dancing 'fad'. I have compiled all the references to specific dances into one annotated list. There is one section above this list called 'forms of swing' which combines some stuff from elsewhere in the article and mostly repeats what is said below. This section could be reworked to describe how different swing dances are popular in different cities/scenes, and how many swing dancers consider 'non swing' dances as central to their scene (as in the Singaporean example). It would probably be useful to mention Arthur Murray and other 'ballroom swing' studios specifically, and to rephrase the difference between 'ballroom' and 'street' swing (or studio and vernacular dance).

The performance/social dancing/competition section could be expanded or cleaned up a bit.

It might be nice to mention key dancers in each area by name - eg Frankie Manning in Lindy Hop; the Nicholas brothers in tap; George Snowden in Breakaway, etc etc.

Obviously this is a new take on things. But it's also a very old take that preceeds our common understanding of "swing". Note that African Americans adopted "European" dances as well as maintaining charateristics of African dance. "Everybody swing everybody else's girl and swing them once again"... "Everybody swing everybody else's girl and swing them once again Dash your line on the nearest filly and drag her from the herd Re-sume your former places and swing her like a bird Now Brownfield strike out in the lead all grand right and left Swing each one when half way round never mind their hat" from Jack Thorp's Songs of the Cowboys, 1908 I had been wondering how old "swing" was in "square" and contra dancing. Now I see that it was around at least as early as the Texas Tommy, which itself came from Texas. Steve Pastor (talk) 21:51, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Irish influence
The following piece added 06:26, 21 December 2006 203.54.184.211 is removed:


 * A lost aspect of swing dancing is the influence Irish kids had on swing dancing. In cities like Chicago, found first and second generation Irish teenagers, pulling from the there various reel, and jig steps, which bring’s a totally different style and led to generally faster and more intricate foot work, which could be considered faster and technically superior on the dance floor. A perfect example is the Charlston step that many cliam comes from the south, which is identical to a 300 year old Irish slip jig except it is usually done 2-3 time faster. with toe overs. The 80 odd animal dancers that used to exist and have long since passed into history turky trot etc, can be traced back to this era as well. The Irish also have a form of Balbo, except it is danced to the Melody and not the beat. So at faster speeds the footwork keeps on pace with the Melody and does not drop back to the beat.

Interesting, but unfortunately unregerenced. Please provide a citation. `'mikkanarxi 04:40, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Turkey Trot Linking
The Turkey Trot is linked, but the link points to an event, not the dance called the Turkey Trot. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 151.207.242.4 (talk) 13:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

Editing and reworking this article
I've had a go at reworking this article, but it really needs a thorough goin-over. The lists of dances could either be compressed into one list of links to the relevent articles, or an overall discussion of the dances (and their relationships - whether these relationships are temporal or stylistic) could be developed. Either way, this article doesn't read well and doesn't give a good, clear description of:
 * What swing dances are
 * Why we should have an article about them
 * Their history
 * Their current states

This article also needs some references - Hazzard-Gordon, Malone, etc - from the African American vernacular dance and others. I'll come back and have another go when I get more time. If there's anything that's missing from this article and should be included - wack it on in there and I'll happily deal with grammar/written expression and structure tidying later on. PlainJane 05:27, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Several sections of this article are Just Plain Wrong if applied to "swing dance" broadly. They need to be made more specific. For example, the sections on competitions, referencing "points" is not correct for Balboa, Lindy Hop, Charleston or Solo Jazz comps. They are perhaps correct for West Coast Swing or Ballroom Jive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.217.130 (talk) 03:34, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Erroneous Wikibooks link to "/Swing Dancing"
The Wikibooks link takes you to "/Swing Dancing" rather than "Swing Dancing" -- anybody know why the error is? —Christian Campbell 03:16, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The template for used incorrectly. Now fixed.  Thanks for noticing!  –panda 03:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Images
A friend of mine, who does swing dance seriously and knows a lot about the history of the form, remarked to me last night that it's pretty weird that the only photo on this page is a recent photo of two young-ish white people swing dancing. I don't know if we have any appropriately licensed images of swing dancing from the 1930s, but she did point out that we have an image of Frankie Manning, albeit not an image of him dancing, that we might want to add to the page. - Jmabel | Talk 21:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * There are two pictures of people swing dancing from the late 1930s in the Jitterbug article. They could just as well be put into this article.  The image of Frankie Manning doesn't really fit here since he's not dancing and the article isn't about Frankie.  –panda (talk) 00:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Some additional photos can be found at the Library of Congress:
 * Jitterbugging in Negro juke joint. Memphis, Tennessee; LC-USF34- 052589-D
 * Jitterbugging in Negro juke joint. Memphis, Tennessee; LC-USF34- 052590-D
 * Jitterbugging in Negro juke joint, Saturday evening, outside Clarksdale, Mississippi Delta
 * Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives
 * Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives
 * –panda (talk) 00:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I moved the to Lindy hop today, since it looked like they were doing a Lindy Hop performance. Correct me if I'm wrong. (The picture would be better if you could crop out a lot of the background.) –panda (talk) 00:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

West Coast Swing Dancers Point Of View
When I travel the world I find myself looking for "West Coast Swing" partners and just once in awhile I find them and much to my pleasure they truely understand the difference between a East Coast Swing-like dance and West Coast Swing dominantly a slot dance with an anchor rather than a rock step.

The toughest part of trying to explain the difference especially in Asian countries, they have a tendency to think that West Coast Swing is merely a version of Jive or Swing and in a way it is but it cannot be "Followed without" knowing the basics. Jive, East Coast Swing and the like are very similar and can actually intermix but not with West Coast Swing. Once in awhile when I've been around long enough and I've had the time to actually give WCS basic lessons, you can see the light bulb turn on and the smiles grow.

Perceptions of swing dance are often biased by our dance foundation we are weened on. I am no different. I know what I like and even if I don't know how to dance it, like shag.. It's awesome to watch.

I love all forms and styles of swing but WCS is unique and inspiring. Sometimes we just get plain spoiled... And in my travels I try so hard with sometimes disappointing results in finding a WCS partner to have fun with on the floor.

I'm forced to either bring my own...haha or stick around long enough to teach someone..

So for those trying to understand what version is best for you, check out YouTube.com and type in Swing, WCS and sit back and enjoy... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.54.127.20 (talk) 11:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Imperial Swing
What happened to the article? There is no deletion record but I'm sure it was there. 97.85.163.245 (talk) 06:27, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's film of people doing the Imperial Swing at the Club Imperial. Is it in the public domain yet? 97.85.163.245 (talk) 06:53, 19 June 2011 (UTC)