Lindy Hop, Charleston & Swing Dance Instruction in Columbus, Ohio
This autumn season is getting full for the Lindyroos — check out our “tour” schedule below!
John Vermeulen Octet @ Nyoh’s Buckeye Bar – Teaching/DJing
Wednesday September 26th 7:30-11 pm
2871 Olentangy River Road Columbus, Ohio 43202
Admission: $8
http://www.facebook.com/events/361737040550906
Time Warp Swing
Saturday, October 15th 2011
We are very excited to be teaching a workshop for OSU– especially since we get to cover such an awesome span of Lindy Hop history. So come join us and we will take you Lindy hopping through time. Below are the details on the classes: Continue reading “Time Warp Swing”
Collegiate Shag is a lively high-energy swing dance that developed in southern USA (most likely New Orleans) in the 1920s, and was made popular by college students, hence the name “collegiate”. Full of hops and kicks, and danced to medium or fast tempos, it has a style that is recognisably ‘jitterbug’. It is danced in a closed position hold, similar to most ballroom dances, but also includes open and separating elements.
In its most popular form today, it has a 6-beat basic step that has a “slow, slow, quick-quick” rhythm similar to Fox Trot. This form is sometimes called Double Shag (because of the two “slow” steps), but there are also Single and Triple forms of Collegiate Shag. There are other dances known as “shag” dances, including Carolina Shag and St Louis Shag, but these are vastly different.
Balboa as a dance takes its name from the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach in California, where it evolved in the 1920s and 30s. It is said it developed as a style there because of the packed ballrooms, where the dancefloors were far too crowded for any but the tightest partner dance.
Balboa is a much more compact and subtle dance than Lindy Hop, done almost entirely in a closed position (no breakaways or ‘swingouts’) and mostly on the spot. It has an 8-beat basic step, and very small footwork, meaning that it can be danced from medium to extremely fast tempos. Followers often wear high heels to dance Balboa, and leaders wear smooth soled shoes that allow them to slide on the floor.
“Bal-Swing” is a style of Balboa that incorporates some of the open positions from other swing dances. Many Lindy Hoppers around the world also dance Balboa and Bal-Swing, and vice versa. Some people call Balboa the “dancer’s dance”, as it is not as flashy or spectacular to watch as Lindy Hop, but a challenging and satisfying dance in terms of the strong connection to your partner, its pure style of lead and follow, its elegance, and the subtlety of its movements and improvisation.
Lindy Hop is a partnered swing dance, that evolved out of the Charleston in the late 1920s, in the ballrooms and on the streets of the African-American district of Harlem in New York City. The dance evolved alongside swing music itself, emerging in the late 1920s when hot jazz (born in New Orleans) was transforming into swinging jazz, and died out (as we know it) in the late 1940s as the swing era gave way to bebop and rock ‘n roll. Throughout the 1930s and 40s, as swing music spread across the USA and the world, Lindy Hop spread with it.
Legend has it that Lindy Hop earned its name in 1927 when one of its original dancers, George “Shorty” Snowden, was asked its name by a reporter, and dubbed it Lindy Hop after aviator Charles Lindbergh and his famous solo flight across the Atlantic that year (newspaper headlines read “Lindy Hops The Atlantic”). It is sometimes simply called The Lindy, it was commonly known as The Jitterbug. Hollywood films and US newsreels first showed Lindy Hop to the youth in the 1930s, and the US servicemen during World War II were widely responsible for popularising the dance in Europe and Australia in the 1940s.
While the acrobatic aspect of Lindy Hop is perhaps most familiar to many people, Lindy Hop has many characteristics. Though it can indeed be danced wild and fast, with spectacular airsteps, it can also be slow and smooth, elegant or sexy.
Lindy Hop is the mother of a variety of other dances, that evolved out of Lindy from the 1950s onwards, including Rock ‘n Roll, Boogie Woogie, Jive, West Coast Swing and Carolina Shag. These later styles are all danced to different music, have other influences, and are simplified, mainstreamed, institutionalised or just far removed cousins of Lindy. Lindy Hop is the original swing dance!
Although the origins of the dance are obscure, the dance has been traced back to blacks who lived on an island off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina (which is why the dance is called “Charleston”). The Charleston dance had been performed in black communities since 1903, but did not become internationally popular until the musical debuted in 1923. The Charleston dance became popular after appearing, along with the song, “The Charleston”, by James P. Johnson in the Broadway musical Running’ Wild in 1923. Thus began the popularity amongst the Flappers of the 1920’s and is how most people think of the Charleston. The dance can be done by oneself, with a partner, or in a group, and is most often done to ragtime jazz.
The Lindyroos: Mark & Shannon swing dance 