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!