the swing bat-signal

An artist's interpretation of a 'Swing Bat-Signal' over Belfast

I was out in Glasgow over the weekend for a friend's birthday and we ended up in a place called Drury Street Bar & Kitchen - cunningly enough, on Drury Street.

It was a great venue and it also had great music; but that was a serious problem.

For the first hour or so there was an ace little live swing band and they were followed by a great DJ set but there wasn't a swinger in sight and, like a kid standing at the window of a locked toy store, I stood and imagined all the fun that was there to be had but was tantalisingly out of reach.

I got a few of my more eager friends up and attempted to teach them some basic Charleston but although they gave it their best shot, understandably no one wants to learn to dance in the full glare of the public, so that came to nothing. I also approached a few random strangers who I thought were giving out the international signal for swing dancer by tapping their feet along to lindy hop music on two but, alas, it too was nothing but smoke and mirrors.

This has also been a regular problem at weddings.

One of the things I got really excited about, after taking up dancing, was thinking about being able to go to large social gatherings such as wedding receptions and being able to dance without resembling that uncle we all have who refuses to conform to societal or rhythmical norms.

No such luck.

Invariably the music is great, whether lindy hop or west coast swing appropriate, and each time a great song comes on I scour the function room looking for some syncopated body movement but each time the search is fruitless. What is worse is that, now that my friends know how fond I am of swing dancing, they expect greatness on the dancefloor. Try as I might, however, I have yet to make a partner dance look anything other than completely daft when performed solo.

It's possible that doing a couple of rapid two-handed sugar pushes at the right moments to Donna Summer's Hot Stuff might just about work for anyone wanting to recreate the most famous scene from The Full Monty but otherwise you really need a partner.

In fact, I have a wedding coming up in December when I know the music is guaranteed to be good so as a precaution I have invited my regular dance partner as my +1 just to be on the safe side!

That said, it would be great if there was a universal signal or motif you could wear to such things to try to root out other dancers without having to ask everyone the same question. A special handshake, or an app that makes your phone vibrate when you're within range of a another swing dancer, or, best of all, put out a great big Commissioner Gordon-style bat signal and hope for the best.

the music, part II: west coast swing

Usher. It is nigh on impossible to find a photo of this man with his shirt on.

Perhaps one of the reasons that west coast swing does not yet have the same following as lindy hop is west coast swing's versatility and its lack of association with a particular musical genre.

When I hear music from the Big Band era or a rock'n'roll tune and I start tapping my feet I also picture a certain look or style of outfit and start thinking about swing-outs and rock steps. West coast swing, however, does not have a 'look' (although it does have a few cliché wardrobe requirements that I shall mention in a later post) and as it can be danced to just about anything it also doesn't have a specific 'sound' either.

For this reason, I think the versatility of west coast swing is a bit of a double-edged sword but one of the big positives for me is that it lets me dance to R&B. For the benefit of any purists I actually mean contemporary R&B and the stuff that blurs the lines with pop music, rather than the soul or funk-infused Motown equivalent; so Usher, Boyz II Men, R Kelly, Ne-Yo, Justin Timberlake that kind of thing. Yeah, I know my credibility just dropped in the eyes of some but I feel no shame. In fact I'll even go one further and say Justin Bieber is actually capable of greatness as I think his collaboration with Tyga on Wait for a Minute is one of the best west coast swing songs out.

...and now a short pause for some to reassess a few life choices as they come to terms with learning that one of their favourite songs features the Biebster...

As I said in my previous post, I can trace my love of the old swing music to growing up listening to my parents' music but my love of R&B comes from slightly different origins.

On a family holiday when I was a wee'un I made friends with some kids from the US who introduced me to the work of a now fairly prominent white rapper and some other guy who, based on his title at least, appeared to be combining music with a medical career. This was an entire genre of music that I had never previously encountered and I was quite taken by the bass, kicks and snares, thankfully unaffected by the lyrics but sadly very curious about the fashion (this latter point resulted in some highly questionable sartorial decisions which I am convinced cost me a date with a major crush - apparently such clothes were not designed with skinny, white Northern Irish kids in mind).

My interest in the music, however, developed from rap and hip-hop to the lighter, pop-blended R&B with its slower rhythms and rich, cheese-sprinkled melodies and dancing to this stuff is a lot of fun. Much like a Big Band or rock'n'roll tune has me bouncing, a lot of these R&B tunes just make me want to move (Usher's Pop Ya Collar and LL Cool J's Phenomenon remain two of my all-time favourites) and as the music is slower it makes hitting the breaks even more satisfying and provides a lot of opportunity for personal expression.

As I have said already, west coast swing's incredible versatility means dancing it isn't just limited to a single genre of music. I've been to several events that have played the odd blues, country, Americana, classical or even deep house tune and once you've calibrated yourselves to the tempo you can cut loose and swing away to just about anything and it is this opportunity for experimentation with such a wide variety of music that is one of the reasons west coast swing is so appealing.

the music, part I: east coast swing & lindy hop

Buddy Holly & the Crickets performing on the Ed Sullivan Show; 1st December, 1957

As I said before, it's one thing to just listen to the music but it's a whole other ball game when you can feel it and, for me, that's one of the biggest reasons I love swing dancing so much - lindy hop/east coast swing and west coast swing both. In fact, that's probably the main reason I got into swing dancing in the first place.

Like most people, my early music tastes were influenced by my parents and what they had playing in our house when I was growing up. This music ranged from Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, Rod Stewart and ABBA to Kenny Rogers, Foster & Allen and Daniel O'Donnell depending on who held sway on the radio at that moment or the level of punishment to be meted out. I even had a few records of my own including the evergreen soundtracks to Postman Pat, Winnie the Pooh and the Jungle Book, but it was a cassette tape (link added for the benefit of some) with the greatest hits of Buddy Holly & the Crickets that really grabbed me.

The Buddy Holly Story the musical hit Belfast not long after and I think I went to see it at least four times as I just couldn't get enough of it, and so Buddy, along with the help of the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, introduced me to rock'n'roll. This was at a time when my mates were listening to Guns'n'Roses, Coolio and Ace of Base and though I also soon succumbed to the lure of New Kids on the Block (who, interestingly enough, were the reason I decided to try breakdancing) I've always had a thing for older up-tempo rhythms and a craving to dance to them.

Rock'n'Roll remains my favourite music to dance to, as the playlist attached to this blog may suggest, and if you can hack the pace then Little Richard, Elvis, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran and company just can't be beaten for fun. In fact, east coast swing was a product of this era as it was developed to accommodate the faster rhythms and to make swing dancing more accessible to the masses as the trickier parts of lindy hop, most significantly the 8-beat swing-out, were dropped to leave the simpler moves which then became a dancing style in its own right.

East Coast Swing was particularly championed by the Arthur Murray Studios - a chain of dance schools across the USA that is responsible for the 'Big Apple' routine and others, and incidentally provided a venue for some of the only live footage that still exists of a performance by Buddy Holly & the Crickets - and as the music took off so did the new dancing style.

Lindy Hop, however, is most famously danced to tunes from the Swing Era of the 20s-30s when the Big Band jazz bands, led by the likes of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, and Duke Ellington, played an upbeat blend of percussion, brass and woodwind with vocals by Ella Fitzgeralds and Billie Holidays laced on top. But, as much as I adore rock'n'roll, there are few things that can top dancing to a great live band playing the best the Swing Era has to offer and I have to give a special mention to Dana Masters & the Linley Hamilton Quartet who, to date, played the best gig I've ever swung at!

I don't really need to point it out but long before rock'n'roll arrived on the scene the Swing Era music produced plenty of fast music that got lindy hoppers up and popping (and all power to you if you can manage to stay on the dance floor without a defibrillator for the entirety of Benny Goodman's full 12-minute Carnegie Hall version of Sing, Sing, Sing with Gene Krupa going buck daft on the drums) but it is the slower, pulsing rhythms of Big Band music that really lend themselves to amazing lindy hop dancing.

I also couldn't possibly finish this post without mentioning electroswing. Generally, it is not for the faint-hearted - Sing Sing Sing clocks in around 110bpm (beats per minute), Jerry Lee Lewis' Great Balls of Fire burns nearer to 160bpm, but my favourite electroswing offering, Puttin' on the Ritz by Club des Belugas, rockets along at around 200bpm and will blow your mind and/or joints. This stuff is incredible for the odd dance here and there (not for a whole night, that would kill people) but electroswing, as part of the nu-jazz revival that started in the 90s, must be given a lot of credit for the re-emergence of swing dancing and therefore the amazing scene that we have today.

Next up, music for west coast swing...

next up: what do I wear to class?

a bit of underground Charleston

One of the most fun things about swing dancing is getting to try out a completely different era of clothes and putting your own stamp on your look. I'll come to this in more detail in another post but for now I'll just mention the kind of thing people wear to classes.

This goes for lindy hop, east coast swing and west coast swing but the most important thing is to wear something comfortable! Some folk rock up straight after work and are more than happy to dance in a suit whilst others choose to channel their inner Olivia Newton-John and turn up ready to get physical. Either way, there is no strict code and if you are happy to swing and sweat in it then go for it!

The most important thing, though, is footwear. Again, these should be comfortable and should allow a full range of movement that is unlikely to endanger you or others, so girls (or guys), that means no high heels! Boots are also likely to be too heavy whilst new trainers can sometimes provide too much grip which can be dangerous for your knees and ankles.

The best things to plump for are old trainers with well-worn soles, brogues, flats, or if you want to be with the 'in' crowds: lindy aficionados often dance in (sole-worn) plimsolls or Keds whilst the west coast swing collective are big fans of Toms.

If you get really into it, there are a few brands, such as Aris Allen, that specifically make dance shoes, often with suede soles, which let you slide about a bit more but that is something best left until you have grasped the basics. Later on I might even explain how to turn a pair of trainers into dance shoes with some glue and a bit of suede or felt if you fancy a blast at DIY cobbling.

so... what are classes like?

lindy hop class at Swing Belfast

This post is obviously more for someone who has never been along to a swing class but in the hope that non-dancers are reading this then questions like this need to be answered!

The first class I went to at Swing Belfast was in 2014 and had about 16 people. The photo attached to this post is from their beginners' class in October 2015 when close to 80 people turned up. EIGHTY! And that was just the beginners/level 1 class without even considering the improvers/level 2 or intermediates/level 3 classes. I was blown away by the surge in interest that swing dancing has had in Belfast over the preceding year and long may it continue! So, to introduce any would-be newcomers, I'll explain what happens!

First of all, it is not imperative that you turn up with a partner, so that was a huge relief to me as I couldn't convince anyone to come with me to class never mind dance with me! It also turned out that I was not alone in this regard and there were a host of other folk arriving solo. So, when the first calls to 'pair up' were made everyone just grabbed the aspiring lead/follow nearest to them and we formed a big circle around the teachers (that's what's happened in the photo above) who explained what to do for each move which we then practised with our partners. Every minute or so we switched partners so that everyone danced with everyone else. I know not all swing groups rotate partners but I am more than glad that that's how I learnt for a number of reasons.

Firstly, this helps average out everyone's ability and increase it - some people are quicker to learn and so they can actually help their other classmates get up to speed.

Secondly, over-familiarity with the dancing style of only one other person may reinforce bad habits that impair your ability to social dance with others (which is really what swing dancing is all about!).

And thirdly, and most importantly, it's through classes and these rotating learning circles that we get to meet all the other awesome people in our scene! Because swing dancing, like most other styles of partner dancing, is generally less fun solo, and although there is a lot of fun to be had dancing with completely new people (in another post I've discussed the 'dance crush') the most fun comes from grabbing a familiar friend and swinging out to a familiar tune as this takes away the performance pressure and lets you just enjoy it!

Seriously, try it!

lindy hop, east coast swing, west coast swing: what's the difference?

USA: the ancestral home of lindy hop, east coast swing and west coast swing

As I've said, the main dance styles I love are lindy hop, east coast swing and west coast swing, but how do they compare to each other?

Of those three, lindy hop is the old grandfather from New York whilst east coast swing and west coast swing are the cousins from opposite sides of the USA that maybe get together at larger family gatherings but otherwise keep to themselves for the rest of the year. I will get into the swing family genealogy in more detail in a later post but for now I just want to explain what sets them apart in practice.

In an overly simplistic sense, the basic steps of east coast swing and west coast swing have a 6-beat count whilst lindy hop has an 8-beat count - although the more you get into it, those rules sort of fall apart but we shall proclaim them as gospel for now! Lindy hop is generally danced to big band jazz and music from the swing era, east coast swing emerged a bit later and so it is popularly danced to similar music to Lindy hop but with doo-wop and rock & roll added for good measure, whilst west coast swing is the incredibly versatile relative newcomer that can be danced to just about anything but mainly comes out to play to contemporary R&B, blues and pop music.

East coast swing is the simplest of the three and the best place to start for a complete beginner as the steps are a lot less complex and the dance is more flexible, in that it can be danced to a wider range of tempos without requiring a huge change in skill. As you can see in this video, east coast swing is primarily a ballroom dance.

Lindy hop is usually danced to the same style of music as east coast swing and the moves of these two styles are completely interchangeable (along with Charleston and others) but lindy hop is a definite step up in difficulty as the footwork is a tad more complex and involves the 'swing out' which is the fundamental 8-beat basic that the style is based on. It is a lot trickier to faster music and also incorporates the aerial moves or 'air steps' that have made it so iconic and here's a video of two of my favourite lindy hoppers: Skye Humphries & Frida Segerdahl.

Although west coast swing has its origins in lindy hop it is often categorised separately as it is the newest of the three and one of the more technical styles as many of the moves are led in a more subtle fashion. It is generally danced to music that favours slower, flowing movement and 'stretch' rather than the up-tempo bounce or 'pulse' that characterises lindy hop or east coast swing but west coast swing can be adapted to just about any music genre or tempo; as demonstrated here by one of my favourite west coast duos of Maxence Martin & Virginie Grondin.

In terms of asking me to pick a favourite it would be like asking someone to rank their favourite offspring - I could probably confess that there are certain favourable characteristics that one has that another doesn't - but I really do love them equally and would encourage people to try them all!

it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing

two of the originators of lindy hop: Willa Mae Ricker and Leon James

It seemed fitting to kick off a blog about swing dancing with the title of a song that helped kick off a whole era but Duke Ellington's 1932 record also pretty much sums it up for me.

I'm not really sure what I expected to get from swing dancing. I had dabbled with a few styles ranging from Scottish ceilidh to break dancing to salsa and I enjoyed each in a different way but when you don't need to count the steps and the music just makes you feel the beat... oh boy, that's the stuff right there!

I started taking East Coast Swing classes with Swing Belfast in January 2013 which shortly blended into Lindy Hop soon after, and then, by August 2013, I was convinced to also give West Coast Swing a go (with Swing Belfast's affiliate West Coast Swing NI) and I've since been absolutely hooked on both.

It has also got to the stage where I feel my friends are getting exhausted hearing about it so I hope that by deciding to put my passionate ramblings into a blog I might give my mates a rest and maybe connect with others who share my passion in the incredible and international swing community that I have become a part of.

In fact, the community that swing provides is just as important as although I came for the music and the dancing I stayed for the people. This starts with the Swing Belfast crowd, who have now become some of my closest friends, but I am also someone who loves travelling and I have been able to use swing dancing as an international language to turn up in different cities - London, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Dublin, Galway, Cork, Aix-en-Provence, Bordeaux, San Francisco, Budapest - meet a whole host of strangers that quickly become friends, dance and hang out.

I. Love. Swing.