What is Swing?

Swing Dance

is a group of dances that developed with the swing style of jazz music in the 1920s-1940s, with the origins of each dance predating the popular “swing era”.

During the swing era, there were hundreds of styles of swing dancing, but those that have survived beyond that era include: Lindy Hop, Balboa, Collegiate Shag, and Charleston.

Today, the most well-known of these dances is the Lindy Hop, which originated in Harlem in the early 1930s. With the passion of Lennart Westerlund 35 Years ago in Sweden started the second Season of the Lindy Hop. Europe started and the world learned to dance the Swing again. Frankie Manning, Norma Miller and Dawn Hampton and so many more shared there knowledge and helped all us to grow.

While the majority of swing dances began in African American communities as vernacular African American dances, some swing era dances, like Balboa, developed outside of these communities.

Somewhat surprisingly, “swing dance” was not commonly used to identify a group of dances until the latter half of the 20th century.

Historically, the term “Swing” referred to the style of jazz music, which inspired the evolution of the dance. Jitterbug is an umbrella term that denotes all forms of swing dance, though it is often used as a synonym for the six-count derivative of Lindy Hop called “East Coast Swing”. It was also common to use the word to identify a kind of dancer .

A “jitterbug” might prefer to dance Lindy Hop, Shag, or any of the other swing dances. The term was famously associated with swing era band leader Cab Calloway because, as he put it, “The dancers look like a bunch of jitterbugs out there on the floor due to their fast, often bouncy movements.”

What is Swing? Swing is smiling during a so called Social and long after….

Enjoy this Video it’s one of the best steps into Swing! Have fun!!! CU at the dance floor….