What is Swing dance?
Swing dances are lively and energetic social dances that originated in the 1920s and 1930s, evolving alongside swing jazz, with popular styles including Lindy Hop, Collegiate Shag, and Balboa.
Rotterdam is a fun place to dance several swing dances and blues.
Lindy Hop
Lindy Hop is danced to swing music, so you will often hear it called swing dancing. Lindy Hop originated from the Black community in Harlem in New York City during the so-called jazz era of the 1920s.
As jazz music evolved from ragtime, to hot jazz and to swing, the dance evolved with it, bringing influences from West African dance, tap, charleston and breakaway.
Balboa
While Lindy Hoppers stormed the ballrooms in New York, another variant of swing dancing emerged on the American West Coast. On the crowded dance floors of Southern California in the 1930s, there was little space for the swing outs that are characteristic of Lindy Hop. The motto was to swing inventively in small spaces.
Collegiate & St. Louis shag
Collegiate Shag is one of the up tempo swing dances that became a craze during the 1930s. The international shag scene is really booming now as it is energetic and super good fun!Collegiate Shag is a great additon to your swing dance vocabulary.
St. Louis Shag is another style that originated in St. Louis, Missouri, in the 1930s. Also danced in couples on up-tempo music but with its own characteristics.
Slow Bal
Slow Balboa or Slow Bal is danced to slow jazz tunes and danced in a closed position. Due to the slow tempo of Slow Bal, there is a lot of space for dancers to add their own styling and creativity into the dance.
The two original Californian Balboa dancers, Dean Raftery and Ray Cunningham, have shared their love for the dance in later life to younger swing dancers, and from those basics the dance evolved.
Blues
Blues dances are a family of African-American social dances that originated from and evolved in different Black communities throughout the USA alongside the blues music styles that are typical of those areas. Although one of the oldest dances, it is still very much alive within those communities. It is a different environment than what we consider the contemporary international Blues dance scene.
Blues is not a swing dance, but there is no swing without the blues. Blues is older than swing and so are the dances danced to Blues music.
Music
Swing music is the core of swing dancing, whether it’s Lindy Hop, Balboa or Collegiate Shag. Swing was the popular jazz style of the swing era, which (roughly speaking) spanned the 1930s to1940s. Artists such as Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, Count Basie and Benny Goodman (among many others) brought this infectious music to dance halls and saloons across America. It's impossible to sit still to this music; even non-dancers can be seen tapping their toes and bobbing their heads. This music is meant for dancing! Whether it is music from the early 1930s or today, swing music is still played and there are many contemporary swing bands that get everyone on the dance floor.