23 Skidoo :: Vintage Swing and Lindy Hop Dance Events, Lessons and Performance

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The Dances of the Swing Era
During the early age of the Jazz era, many dances were created and danced in ballrooms, night clubs, juke joints and living rooms across the country. The term Swing Dance doesn’t really apply to just one dance, but rather is more like an umbrella term to describe any of these dances that were created and done to Swing Jazz music during the Swing era. The dances we now know and teach are the ones that were the most pervasive, whose originators have been around long enough to pass on their knowledge, and the most popular that have been able to persist through the movies and cinematography. Mainly these would be the Lindy Hop, East Coast Swing, Balboa, Shag, Charleston, Air Steps, the Big Apple, Blues Dancing, Foxtrot and Peabody.

The Charleston

The Charleston is probably the most generally well known of all the dances we teach, mainly due to its association with the flapper of the prohibition era. In its traditional 1920s form Charleston is done to the staccato sounds of early ragtime and Dixieland Jazz or Hot Jazz. When done this way it is characterized by heels that sway in towards each other as the dancer steps, and then away and out as the dancer swings the leg up or out in between steps. It can be done with a partner, with more of a ballroom frame, or solo (individually).

Solo Charleston uses the same 8 count Basic as the 1920’s version described above, but also makes use of movements from many of the old dances including Cakewalk, Black Bottom and Jazz. It is still very reminiscent of the 1920’s flappers who danced it back in the day.

Lindy Charleston is a smooth version of the Charleston that we use in Lindy Hop patterns. It is done side by side or in tandem with your partner. It is still an 8 count dance. Its main pattern is “rock-step-kick-step-double-kick-step.

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Text Box: Josephine Baker is one of the most famous Charleston dancers from the Vaudeville era.

The Lindy Hop is known as the grandfather of swing dances, although it is thought to be the grandchild of the Charleston. It is mostly an 8 count dance, although it also has 6 count basics and patterns. Its main 8 count footwork pattern sounds like this: rock-step triple-step, step step triple-step. It is done in a linear circle, with an open connection in which dance partners come together for a short time before swinging the partner back into open position. Because the partners are in such an open position for so much of the dance it lends itself greatly to improvisation in rhythmic patterns and footwork by either partner. It is the dance that is done in the movie Swing Kids, and Malcolm X. If you wanted to compete in Swing dancing, this is the dance you’d want to learn. The Lindy Hop is a more challenging dance to learn in general. It takes longer to learn the basic, and can take a long time to master the intricate leading and following technique, frame, and connection that it utilizes.

East Coast Swing is a 6 count dance that was developed in the 1950’s as the music changed into early rock and roll. A simpler form of the Lindy Hop, it is what happened when dancers eliminated much of the 8 count Lindy patterns and danced just the 6 count patterns. It has two popular forms of the basic; a single time swing of step (slow), step (slow), rock step, and a triple time swing which goes triple step, triple step, rock step. It’s a simpler dance that is easy to do and fun to learn.

West Coast Swing is also a relative of the Lindy Hop, but unlike East Coast it kept most of the Lindy’s fundamental basics. Its footwork patterns are the same as Lindy Hop, and it even uses much of the same ideas of frame and leading and following, but it is done with completely different body technique. Whereas in Lindy Hop one’s knees are always bent, in West Coast one leg is always straight. The West Coast Swing in general is done with a much more upright posture, turning it more into a ballroom dance, while Lindy is more of a street dance. Because of this posture West Coast is done to much slower tempos than Lindy Hop, with top speeds reaching 180bpm, while Lindy Hoppers can get as fast as 300bpm. Another fact worth noting is that because West Coast never completely died out the way that Lindy did in the 1960’s through the 1980’s, it is no longer done to swing music, and is most often danced to contemporary music ranging from Martin Sexton to Britney Spears to Eva Cassidy.

The Jitterbug is a bit of a confusing term, simply because nobody seems to be sure as to which dance it refers to. It is probably more likely that it refers to swing dancing in general, as it was used by the disapproving older folks in the swing era to reference the way the young swing dancers looked like “Jitterbugs”, a term used to describe Alcoholics who had the jitters. Nowadays, it usually refers either to Lindy Hop or to East Coast Swing. In Denver, Colorado it usually describes East Coast Swing.

Balboa is another dance that uses an 8 count basic. Born on the Balboa peninsula in Southern California, Balboa evolved alongside other Swing dances to the music of the Swing Jazz era. It is done in an upright frame, with a full body connection in which partners touch their chests. This allows for very subtle footwork to be felt between the partners. It is said that Balboa is more of a “dancer’s dance” because it feels so much fun to do, but isn’t as flashy and fun to watch as some of our other swing dances. Our modern dancers today do what we call “Bal-Swing”, which is where the dancer open up and swing away from each other to create more open, momentum based moves. This is different than what we term “Pure Bal” in which the couple remains in the closed frame, executing movements that can only be done in this context. Because of the very small amount of space covered while doing Balboa, one can dance it to very fast music with very little physical exertion, and so it is often done to fast big band era swing.

Collegiate Shag is another fun dance that originated among the colleges and universities of the 1930’s and 1940’s. It is a 6 count dance that is done in a similar frame as Balboa. But while Balboa is smooth, with intricate, subtle footwork, Shag is done with wilder, more staccato footwork. It has been said that it is what happened to the Foxtrot when the overly exuberant youth took it up and executed it with hops instead of steps, as it has the same slow, slow, quick quick pattern as the fox trot. It is a very adorable dance, with fun footwork patterns and flashy, fun tricks and steps!

The Foxtrot made its debut around 1914. Although the early Jazz era is characterized by the invention of so many “animal” dances, this one was actually named after the man who is supposed to have invented it, Harry Fox. It was originally done to the early ragtime music of that time period, although it wasn’t long before the infamous Irene and Vernon Castle took it and added the smooth grace that it is typically known for amongst ballroom dancers today. Easy to do to almost any music of the Jazz era, the foxtrot could have been seen in just about any ballroom during the 1920’s through the 1950’s and is still widely popular in its ballroom form. Like most of our 6 count dances, the foxtrot uses a “slow, slow, quick quick” footwork pattern.

The Cakewalk was originated by slaves of the Southern United States, and is said to have been created as a mockery of the “genteel manners” of white society. It is characterized by big hopping steps and mannerisms that mimic the pulling of a bowtie or suspender straps. It is called the cakewalk because of the contests that plantation owners would sometimes hold, in which the best dancers would receive a cake as a prize. Although we don’t teach the Cakewalk as a separate dance, many of the steps we use within Solo Charleston, Charleston and Lindy Hop come from the Cakewalk.

Air Steps are done by both East Coast Swing dancers and Lindy Hoppers, but typically not in any of the other dances listed here. They range in difficulty from simple lifts and dips to high flying throws and flips. They were first introduced in the Lindy Hop, at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York, and were popularized all over the world by Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, who are probably most responsible for creating the heavy associations of Swing dancing with Air Steps.

Blues Dancing is done in modern times at house parties or late night dance parties. It is a very open ended form of dancing in which partners can dance as close or as open as they like. It can be done in more of an open, “ballrooming” or “slow-drag” fashion, in which the dancing is done in a very close embrace, with leader and follower touching the entire torso and upper legs. This allows for the leader to take many different forms of ballroom or swing style steps including slows, quicks, triple steps or even small lifting steps. Blues can also be (and is more often) done in a slow, sexy grind fashion, which is called “jukin”. Dancers can simply move slowly, enjoying the embrace, or execute steps, dips and hip movements.

Peabody is a very fun dance that was done in the ballrooms of the 30’s and 40’s. It is named after the man who created it, a police lieutenant named William Frank Peabody, who danced at the Savoy Ballroom in the 1930’s. Lieutenant Peabody was a very large man, and he created figures and moves that worked the girl around his girth. Today the dance is still done as if the leader has a large belly around which he maneuvers the follow. Because it is a single step dance (simply walking forward with your partner) it can be done quickly, and was done in the 1930’s around the outskirt area of the Savoy Ballroom known as the “track”.

The Big Apple consists of dancers dancing individually in a large circle. It is believed to be an evolved form of the “Ring Shout”, a circle dance associated with religious observances that was done by African Americans on the plantations of South Carolina and Georgia during slavery. It was originally known as a call and response dance, where a leader would call out the moves to be executed, and then the dancers in the circle would do them. In the early 1930s African American youth danced in the style of the “ring shout” at the House of Prayer Synagogue in Columbia, South Carolina. The synagogue was converted into a black dance club called the "Big Apple Night Club". Soon others began to imitate and spread the dance, naming it after the Big Apple Night Club where they learned it. In the late 1930’s, Frankie Manning, the head choreographer of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, was commissioned with choreographing a form of the Big Apple for the movies. He choreographed it based on descriptions of it and used the swing and jazz steps that Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers were already dancing. Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers perform Frankie’s Big Apple choreography in the movie Keep Punchin’, 1939. Modern Lindy Hoppers have taken the choreography from the movie and recreated, with help from Frankie. Today, it is this choreography that is now known and executed as “The Big Apple”.