When someone
refers to the good time they had out on the dance floor, typically a story about swing dancing will follow.
The term
“swing dance” can refer to any of 40 or more dances currently seen out on the social or competitive dance floor
today.For those who do not dance, the term “swing dancing” may bring to mind images of Lindy
Hop, Charleston, Jitterbug and the Boogie Woogie dancing they watched their parents or grandparents dance at weddings and
family reunions.
Once exposed to the "Swing
Dance World", dancers learn that swing also includes, Carolina, Collegiate and St. Louis Shag, East Coast Swing, West
Coast Swing, Hand Dancing, Jive, Bop and Balboa just to name a few.Your local “Swing Scene”
may have wide variety of dances offered or have more of a specialized community that focuses on only one or two swing dances.
In order
to understand the current form of East Coast Swing, as it is danced today, you must understand its rich history and growth
through time.
Lindy Hop came from Partnered Charleston.Lindy
Hop was developed and enjoyed in the late 1920s and early 1930s.Traditionally, Lindy Hop had and an 8
count circular basic known as a “swing out”.In time, Lindy Hop dancers were allowed to improvise
dance moves and adapted dance steps and moves that included 8 count and 6 count patterns.Through improvisation,
variations in the dance were created and independently became quite popular.One of the popular and simple
6 count variations developed into its own dance, East Coast Swing.
In the 1940s, the East Coast
Swing evolved with current swing band music and the help of Arthur Murray dance studios.Arthur Murray
dance studios helped to make ballroom dance lessons assessable to the masses.Arthur Murray studios took
East Coast Swing and standardized it to make it teachable and marketable to American dancers.This paved
the way for East Coast Swing to become a competitive ballroom dance and recognized by the National Dance Council of America.
East Coast
Swing Dance as it is taught and danced today.
Walk in to any ballroom dance studio today, and in an hour or two, you will dance
out the door with single swing, (a simplified version of East Coast Swing, sometimes called single time swing or single-step
swing) and a little East Coast Swing (sometimes called triple swing, triple-step swing, or triple time swing).
Even though Arthur Murray dance
studios paved the way for swing dancing in America and standardized East Coast Swing Dancing for teaching and judging purposes,
every ballroom and swing dance instructor has their own take on the dance. As you have experienced in any classroom,
not all students learn the same way and not all teachers teach the same way. But in a ballroom or dance studio everyone
does have the same goal, to get you dancing to music and enjoying yourself as soon as possible.
Want
to take your first steps out on the dance floor? Click here to take your first steps.
Click on the DVD cover to watch a video.
Then a funny thing happened one evening at a ballroom dance...
Click here to learn about the development and history of ZeDiamond Dance Method and how it changed East Coast Swing from "one and two, three and four, five,
six" to "Boom A Boom, Boom A Boom, Ta-Tee"
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