The Swing Book

by Degen Pener

  Cuddle

  Charleston Steps

  Since the Charleston was one of the progenitors of the Lindy, it’s perfectly natural to add its moves to your swing dancing. The most recognizable step is called the tandem or back Charleston. “The girl is in front of the guy and they are holding hands and facing in the same direction,” says Louise Thwaite, a Lindy Hopper with expertise in the Charleston. “They kick and touch the toe forward with the same leg, come back to the center and then kick back and touch the toe behind, or they can do a kick with a hop for a more energetic move.” Other moves are known as the Flying Charleston (“you’ll pass by each other quickly as you are doing basic Charleston kicks,” says Steve Conrad), side Charleston, crossover Charleston, and hand-to-hand Charleston (in which the partners are facing). The dance, which originated in Charleston, South Carolina, was popularized in an all-black Broadway show, Running Wild, in 1923, which included the song “Charleston” by Harlem stride pianist James P. Johnson. “In the 1920s it was the biggest dance craze the world had ever seen, and the only one that was bigger was the Lindy,” says Thwaite. While it was considered a scandal in its day (the risqué Josephine Baker was one of the most famous Charleston dancers), it’s now a way of adding a distinctly twenties look to your Lindy.

  Charleston Kick

  Aerials

  Aerials, or air steps, as they are known because they are danced in time to the music, are the extreme sport of swing. They were invented by Frankie Manning back at the Savoy around 1936. Today they are perhaps the most well-known moves associated with swing, thanks to that Gap commercial. Wild, crazy, thrilling, and high-flying, they put the zing in swing. “When people first see swing the thing that grabs their attention is the aerials,” says Tammy Finocchiaro of Ventura, California’s aerials troupe the Flyin’ Lindy Hoppers.

  But air steps aren’t for everyone. If you’re a beginner, it will be some time before you’re proficient enough to start learning them. “A lot of young kids say, ‘Oh, how do you do the air step?’” says Manning. “I say, ‘How long have you been dancing? Three weeks? You know I started dancing in 1927, the first air step was done eight years later, so I had a long time to learn how to dance before the air step was even created.’”

  You may in fact never be able to do them. “If you are not athletically inclined, if you do not have a sense of timing and balance, you know, forget aerials, you’ll kill yourself,” says Iannucci. Adds Sylvia Skylar, “There are some people who just never feel comfortable in the air. They hate being upside down.”

  Aerial

  Aerials can be dangerous. Finocchiaro and her partner, Lee Moore, have each broken their noses doing them. To be safe, aerials should be learned from trained teachers using spotters or mats or both.

  Finally, air steps should never be done in a social dance situation but only during jam sessions, contests, and performances. It’s too easy for people to get hurt on a packed dance floor if someone attempts an aerial. Even at the Savoy, they were only performed in a cordoned area of the ballroom.

  Don’t be scared off, however. Aerials, when performed properly, are as thrilling as the best roller-coaster ride. “You get to fly,” says Finocchiaro, whose group has created an amazing step in which one guy throws her over another guy’s head. When you’re learning, though, you’ll start with somewhat less spectacular moves. Some of the most accessible steps include the side car, in which the woman has her legs together and swings from left to right facing her partner, and the lamppost, also known as over the back or the helicopter. “You bring the girl and hook her over your arm and send her over your back,” says Sylvia Skylar. “It’s the most common aerial.” While it’s fun to know which moves, such as the lamppost, were originally done at the Savoy, astounding new aerials are being created all the time too. “I do an aerial where I go fifteen feet up in the air and then I come back down head first in between my partner’s legs. They call it the big dive,” says champion dancer and aerial specialist Nathalie Gomes. (Again, please don’t try these at home.)

  So how do you do a good aerial? Work on the timing between yourself and your partner. Work on it again and again. Accidents happen when you’re doing something the other person thought was going to happen five seconds before. Discuss beforehand which step you plan to accomplish. Leaders should work on getting the right grip on their partner. “Grab the hip bone. If you grab her body and it goes squish, you are in the wrong location,” says the Flyin’ Lindy Hoppers’ Moore. Once the follower is coming back down from her flight, the leader should be sure to grab her hips again and bend in his knees to cushion her fall. “You are not only there to lift her, you are there to babysit her and help her land,” says Gomes.

  Most important, don’t hold back. Aerials work because of a perfectly synchronous interplay of leverage and momentum. When you hesitate, everything can be thrown off. Says Finocchiaro, “You have to go without any fear.” Let ’em rip.

  Group Dances

  So you know how to do the electric slide. But can you get out on the floor and do these group dances that are associated with the Lindy?

  THE SHIM SHAM SHIMMY: It’s become a tradition for Frankie Manning to lead the Shim Sham Shimmy line dance wherever he’s teaching. Developed originally as a tap number, it was adopted by Lindy Hoppers in the early thirties. Everyone stays facing the same wall throughout the routine, as they move through steps that include stomps, boogie backs, and the Shorty George. The best part is when the leader says “Swing.” At that point you grab the nearest partner and dance the Lindy until the leader calls out “Stop.” Then freeze for eight beats until the leader declares it’s time to dance again. A great song for dancing the Shim Sham is Erskine Hawkins’s “Tuxedo Junction.”

  THE JITTERBUG STROLL: A more recent line dance, the Jitterbug Stroll was created by Ryan Francois to be danced to Woody Herman’s “Woodchopper’s Ball.” It puts together such exciting moves as boogie backs, the Suzy Q, and the Shorty George, with quarter turns between the different sections. By the end of the stroll, you will have faced all four walls.

  THE BIG APPLE: Created in Columbia, South Carolina, around 1930, the Big Apple was once such a popular dance that there were hundreds of Big Apple clubs across the country. It requires a caller who stands in the center of a circle and shouts out a variety of moves, from Charleston to stomp off to truckin’. “It’s really fun actually, even if you don’t know what to do,” says Sharon Ashe. “Because everybody repeats each move for a few eight-counts, you can just look around and copy people.”

  THE MANY STYLES OF SWING

  Swing dancing has been around for more than seventy years, and like any art form, it grows and changes all the time. With its resurgence in the 1990s, people now dance many different styles of the Lindy, often depending on the city or region in which they live. Indeed, even the original Savoy-style Lindy Hop had countless variations to it. “There is no true Savoy,” says Debra Sternberg. “There were thousands and thousands of people showing up at the Savoy Ballroom every night. Everybody didn’t dance the same way. The people who say there is one true authentic style are the ones who are teaching now who have to sell themselves.” Today the Lindy Hop includes Savoy, Dean Collins, and Hollywood styles. Plus, swing also begat a variety of other dances, including the shag, the Dallas Push in Texas, the Imperial Swing in Saint Louis, Florida’s Beach Bop, and a New Orleans Lindy variant called the Jamaica. Here’s a handy reference to the most well-known swing styles and related dances that are being practiced across the United States—and around the globe—all of them descendants of the Lindy Hop, which Norma Miller calls “the granddaddy” of them all.

  Dean Collins Style

  In the mid-1930s, one-time Savoy dancer Dean Collins moved to Hollywood to dance in such movies as Buck Privates and Ride ’Em Cowboy. Whereas Frankie Manning exemplified the Savoy style of swing, with the man keeping himself low to the ground, like a runner at the start of a race, Collins held himself more upright when he danced. In the
early 1980s, dance instructors Jonathan Bixby and Sylvia Sykes sought out Collins, who had since retired from dancing, and asked him to teach them his moves. They helped popularize Dean Collins’s smoother, more contained style among West Coast swingers.

  Hollywood Style

  Collins may have been the most well-known smooth-style dancer in the movies, but he wasn’t the only one. Recently, interest has been increasing in the styles of some of his jitterbugging colleagues, most notably Jean Veloz (who appears in the cult dance instruction film Groovy Movie) and Lenny Smith. A few years ago LA dance teachers Sylvia Skylar and Erik Robison, inspired by the many variations done by these film dancers, including Collins, trademarked a smooth Lindy as “Hollywood style.” They even tracked down Veloz at a local bar called Bobby McGee’s, where many old-timers hang out. Since then the dance has been a major hit in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., with Lindy Hoppers in other cities catching on all the time. One of its distinctive marks is the whip, in which the leader sends the follower out with a very explosive action. “Ask a West Coaster to watch us and they’ll say we dance Lindy,” says Skylar. “Ask a Lindy Hopper and they’ll say we look West Coast.”

  West Coast Swing

  WCS was originally called Western swing, but the name was changed to avoid confusion with country-western swing. Some dance experts claim that WCS grew out of the smoother Dean Collins style; however, Collins claimed he had nothing to do with this variant, according to Sykes. WCS is actually more rigid than Collins’s style, with the couple dancing in a line or slot, which some dance historians believe developed as a response to California’s extremely crowded ballrooms. It is done in an upright position and the primary moves include a push, a pass, and a whip. Since the eighties West Coast has also incorporated many elements of the hustle. WCS can be done to smoother modern music, such as R&B and pop, and can be very sultry if danced properly.

  Jitterbug or East Coast Swing

  The jitterbug originated in the late 1930s or early 1940s as a simplified variant of the Lindy Hop, danced primarily by whites trying to emulate the black dancers from the Savoy Ballroom. As the music of the era became faster, the triple step of the Lindy was abbreviated to a single step, and the more complex eight-count steps were eliminated. The jitterbug is essentially the same as East Coast swing, although some would argue that the latter can be done with a triple-step rhythm and also incorporates eight-count turns. Both are basically easier versions of the Lindy Hop, without all the fancy improvisations or air steps.

  Modern Jive

  A European swing variant, modern jive focuses on six-count steps and can be danced to contemporary music and faster tempos. Jive follows the same counts as East Coast swing but has more of a hopping movement to it, with the hop executed in anticipation of the first beat. Jive is not as leadable as a social dance, because there is a lot of movement in the shoulders and because there is a set syllabus of steps, which does not allow for improvisation. Although popular in many European clubs, jive is primarily a competitive swing dance.

  Boogie-Woogie and Rock ’n’ Roll

  Boogie-woogie grew up in America and Europe in the 1950s as rock ’n’ roll replaced swing and big band on the radio and in dance clubs. Similar to jive, boogie-woogie is a swing variant that incorporates a lot of hopping movements as well as kicks forward, almost like chorus-line kicks. A similar variant is rock ’n’ roll, which is a much more acrobatic dance that incorporates many jumps and lifts. It is really intended for competitions and not for the social dance floor, notes Nathalie Gomes, winner of the French championship in acrobatic rock ’n’ roll in 1987.

  Shag

  There are several different kinds of shag, but perhaps the two most popular are Carolina shag and Saint Louis shag. Both are linear, slotted dances that feature lots of fancy footwork and mirror patterns. The shag is danced almost exclusively in the closed position, with the couples leaning in on one another, and there is almost no vertical movement from the waist up. Carolina shag is a smoother dance style traditionally done to slow and medium-tempo music from the 1950s and 1960s. The man is often the center of attention and executes most of the spins and other flourishes. Saint Louis shag is danced to very fast music, 165 beats per minute and up, and more closely resembles the Charleston than the Lindy, with patterns of kicks and jumps.

  Balboa

  The Balboa is an eight-count dance done in a tightly closed position. Similar to the shag and descended from the Charleston, the Balboa incorporates very rapid footwork and hardly any movement at all above the waist. “It would look like you are ice-skating across the floor but your feet would be a blur,” says Sylvia Sykes, who has helped bring the Balboa back to today’s ballrooms. Because the dance does not travel much, the Balboa allows people to dress up and still dance to very fast music, she notes.

  ETIQUETTE

  Because the Lindy is a social dance, nothing is more important than good etiquette. Keep in mind that the dance floor is not your personal stage. Everyone shares the same space and everyone wants to have a good time. These tips will help make it happen.

  1. If you would like to dance with someone, simply ask the person. There’s no need to use lines more complicated than “May I have this dance with you?” In fact, it’s a relief to finally be able to go out and ask someone to dance and not have it be a signal that you want to pick the person up. “I asked a guy to dance and the best I ever heard was, ‘I can’t. I’m here with my girlfriend. Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to marry you. I just want to dance with you. This is not for eternity,’” says dancer and vintage dealer Darrow Cannizzaro.

  2. If someone asks you to dance, never say no and then take the next dance with someone else. “That’s absolutely unacceptable,” says Teddy Kern. However, it is OK to say no to a dance if you want to take a break. You may be tired, your feet may hurt, you may want to get another drink. “You might say, ‘Please find me later,’ ‘Come back and ask me again,’ or ‘Please give me a rain check,’” adds Kern. “The important thing is to be gracious so the person doesn’t feel that you are rejecting them.” Also, try to be welcoming to newcomers. They may not be as advanced as you are, but they won’t progress unless veteran dancers give them a chance. As one etiquette writer states: “Today’s beginners will be the good dancers of tomorrow.”

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  Dance Videos

  There are hundreds of instructional videotapes on the market. So here’s a sampling of the best.

  The Frankie Manning Collection includes tapes for beginner, intermediate, and advanced dancers, plus a video on the Shim Sham Shimmy.

  American Lindy Hop champions Paul Overton and Sharon Ashe offer almost a dozen great tapes, including ones on the Charleston.

  The series Everybody Dances is a super introduction to Lindy, West Coast, and shag, and includes such instructors as Manning, Louise Thwaite, Jonathan Bixby, and Sylvia Sykes. (These and many other tapes are available from Bixby and Sykes’s catalog, A.R.B.S.P. Videos and Music, 1220 Mission Canyon Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93105.)

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  3. Be aware of space. If it’s crowded, be courteous. Make adjustments by keeping your steps smaller and your kicks low. “This can be a very big dance but it also can be a very small dance if you know how to control it,” says Elena Iannucci.

  4. If you do collide with someone anyway, or get your foot stepped on, don’t assign blame. “You don’t always know who is the victim and who the aggressor. You never know. You could have gotten in their way and even if you got stepped on, it may be your own fault,” says Paul Overton. “If everybody apologizes, everybody goes home happy.”

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  Dance Camps

  Yes, kids, if you’re really into the Lindy Hop you can even go away to swing dance camp. These are among the most popular.

  Herräang Dance Camp, held in Herräng, Sweden, every summer by the Rhythm Hot Shots. There are four weekly sessions with scores of the best international teachers, from Buenos Aires and Singapore to Lo
ndon and Los Angeles. (46 8 643 4058 or www.swing.ch/herrang/camp)

  Swing Dance Catalina, sponsored by the Pasadena Ballroom Dance Association, runs for two weeks in early summer on the beautiful island of Catalina off the coast of California. (626-799-5689 or www.pasadenaballroomdance.com)

  Monsters of Swing, a raucous weekend in Ventura, California, put on by the Flyin’ Lindy Hoppers in March. (805-643-3166 or www.flyinlindyhoppers.com)

  Beantown, a two-week summer event sponsored by Boston’s Hop to the Beat Dance Studio. (508-435-2363 or www.hoptothebeat.com)

  Camp Hollywood, a new fall camp devoted to teaching Hollywood-style Lindy. (323-874-9649 or www.camphollywood.net)

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  5. Don’t bring drinks or cigarettes on the dance floor. You may even want to think twice about wearing a hat to hop. “A pet peeve of mine is guys who go out on the dance floor wearing a hat and it falls off and they are there grabbing for it,” says Leann Wright of San Francisco’s Guys and Dolls vintage store.

  6. If your partner bungles a step, let it go. There’s no place for lectures in the middle of a song. In fact, it’s not appropriate to give another person pointers during a social dance, unless the person asks for help. Conversely, if you suddenly sprout two left feet, don’t sweat it, and don’t feel you need to apologize profusely. Just get back in the swing.