The Swing Book (11 page)

1. Safe Sex.
Swing provides a way of enjoying physical intimacy without the dangers of sex. “I think of partner dancing as safe sex,”
says bandleader Bill Elliott. “You can very closely correlate the rise and fall of couples dancing sort of opposite the sexual
revolution. In the sixties and seventies, it was fine for people to be dancing ten feet apart if they were going to go to
bed an hour later. In the nineties, when there’s much more sexual reticence and carefulness, it plays a part in courtship.”
(Interestingly, the word
swing
has made a corresponding journey. It began as a purely dance and music term, later became a reference to casual sex, and
is now reverting to its original, more innocent meaning.)

2. Respect for Our Elders
. Swing’s fans are young and old— from teenagers just learning how to Lindy Hop to their grandparents, who danced to
Basie and Goodman. What a contrast to the musical landscape of the nineties, where the latest nineteen-year-old pop sensation
comes and goes in a flash. Swing music, on the other hand, brings generations together. Its newest fans are giving long-overdue
recognition to the creators of our musical heritage who are still with us, such names as Frankie Manning, Anita O’Day, Keely
Smith, Sam Butera, Lionel Hampton, and Illinois Jacquet. The younger generation recognizes that these “old-timers” have something
invaluable to teach us, and the elders are eager to share their passion for the music and dance that has kept them young at
heart.

3. Grunge.
“People were killing themselves over that music,” says singer Ann Hampton Callaway of grunge. “People don’t kill themselves
over swing.”

4. The Blurring of Gender Roles.
Since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, gender roles have become increasingly ill defined. Women were told they should
ask men on dates, pay their own way, and be the sexual aggressors. Men, meanwhile, worried they could be threatened with a
sexual harassment suit if they so much as looked twice at a woman. The swing movement reembraces certain established conventions:
men hold doors, buy drinks, and ask women to dance. In the dance, they tend to be the leaders, the women the followers. No
one wants to go back to the days of ingrained sexism, but everyone is clearly searching for a new and better balance in the
relationship between guys and dolls.

5. The Gap-ification of America.
In fashion, androgyny is the norm. Clothing is unisex and drab—both boys and girls wear jeans or khakis, baggy sweatshirts,
and baseball caps—and people have lost all sense of style. The swing scene marks a return to glamour. The women wear elaborate
hairdos, full makeup, and feminine frocks, whereas the men are clean-cut, sporting tailor-made suits and such “manly” accessories
as fedoras, suspenders, and ties.

6. The Internet.
The Internet has helped support swing in two ways. On the one hand, the Net has allowed music and dance lovers to find one
another and spread the good news of swing across the globe. Yet at the same time, people are searching for a release from
their cyberlives. Now more than ever, they want to get out and touch each other, to meet face-to-face after interacting all
day through their computer screens. Swing provides a safe forum in which to meet, mingle, and have fun.

7. America’s Retro Obsession.
The renaissance of swing comes on the heels of the neolounge movement, which was all about clothes and style, drinks and
cigars, and bachelor pad music by the likes of Esquivel, Bennett, and Sinatra. Swing adds the element of dance and expands
the musical repertoire back in time to include big band and jump blues. Moreover, both the swing and lounge movements reflect
modern society’s wholesale turn-of-the-millenium obsession with all things retro, including the revival of seventies and eighties
music and fashions.

8. CDs and VCRs.
CD and VCR technology has made the great music and movies of a bygone era available to the masses. Many dancers learned their
first moves watching classic films such as
Buck Privates
or
Hellzapoppin’
on late-night television. Now they can not only buy these films for relatively little money but also purchase instructional
videos from some of the top dancers in the world. Similarly, whereas swing lovers once had to rely on their grandparents’
old vinyl records, now major labels have released collector’s series on CD. Featuring the greatest hits of Jordan, Prima,
Dorsey, Ellington, and dozens of others, these new compilations have helped to further the swing movement.

9. Gym Burn-Out.
After twenty years of step aerobics and pumping iron, many fitness fanatics have grown tired of the routine. Swing offers
a way to stay in shape while also having fun. “You are killing two birds with one stone,” says Tammy Finoc-chiaro of the Flyin’
Lindy Hoppers. “You are being social, you are dressing up, and you are exercising.”

10. Seinfeld.
There is simply too much jadedness in our lives. People are open once again to sweetness, romanticism, and sentimentality.
There’s even a new term for it: postironic sincerity. Says San Francisco entertainer Mr. Lucky, “I think we have to give ‘corny’
a little more breathing room in order to preserve that little germ of naïveté that I have inside of me.”

King of the aerials Frankie Manning sends partner Ann Johnson through the air at the Savoy.
(w. E
UGENE
S
MITH
/B
LACK
S
TAR
)

CHAPTER 3

What makes the Lindy Really Hop

S
wing dancing. Jitterbugging. The Lindy Hop. They’re all pretty much the same words for one of the most exciting, playful, and joyous dances ever invented. At its best, swing dancing is an electric communication between two partners, an unspoken dialogue of individual impulses moving into harmony. It’s a world of difference from the dancing that most of us now do in nightclubs. You know, the formless booty-shaking freestyle dancing that can sometimes feel like you’re in your own lonely bubble. In the Lindy, you’re going to have fun relating to another person instead of just to the music. You’ll find a certain comfort in the fact that everyone does several of the same basic patterns. On top of all that, you get to touch another person. “People want to get back together again, they’re tired of being apart,” says Lindy legend Frankie Manning, explaining the resurgence of swing dancing. Adds Teddy Kern, cofounder of New York’s Dance Manhattan studio, “My whole theory is to touch a stranger. You can touch somebody you’ve never met before and dance with them. That’s what’s magic about partner dancing.”

Don’t worry, however, that swing dancing is going to feel rigid because it has a few set rules. Unlike some ballroom dances, the Lindy Hop offers lots of space for improvisation. Because of its signature swingout, or breakaway, move, in which the two partners can briefly separate and do their own steps, the dance allows for inspired moments of spontaneous creativity. “It’s like visual jazz,” says San Francisco teacher and American Lindy Hop champion Paul Overton. “There are a thousand things you can do. There’s no end to it. The Lindy Hop just has a very loose base to it and people make up new moves all the time.” Just like in any good relationship, the aim is for the dancing couple to achieve the perfect balance between structure and freedom. As Savoy veteran Norma Miller puts it, “The Lindy is the complete coordination of two bodies.”

Classic Lindy Hop is known as Savoy style. Rooted in African movements and danced very low to the ground with a bend in the torso, it’s based on the Lindy as it was popularized and refined at the Savoy Ballroom in the late twenties and early thirties. It’s exuberant and sometimes very wild, with its Charleston kicks, gravity-defying aerials, rhythmic finesse, and a swinging bounce in the knees. The weight is forward on the balls of your feet. The hands are up, waving and expressive. Most important, the knees are kept bent and elastic, letting your body swing down and up again along with the music. That swing you feel when you hear Count Basie? That’s the swing you want to let your body give in to.

Of course, Savoy style isn’t the only form of swing dancing. The Lindy’s close cousin is the jitterbug, a less Afro-centric version of the dance that became popular once swing crossed over to the white mainstream in the late 1930s. There are also more smooth and upright styles of the Lindy called Dean Collins and Hollywood style that are gaining in popularity in recent years. (For more information on different styles see page 88.)

While each type of swing dance has its own distinct look, they are all basically variations of the Lindy, one of the most interesting-to-watch social dances in the world. Check out an experienced couple Lindy Hopping. Together, they are a whirl of kicks and turns. Changing positions and stances, their hands connect and reconnect, trailing around each other with stunning precision. To the outside observer, they look as though they’ve been rehearsing their dance for days beforehand. In fact, it’s something the pair is improvising right before your eyes on the dance floor.

Watching skilled Lindy Hoppers can be both thrilling and intimidating. Sure, it looks great, you’re thinking, but how will I ever be able to do
all that stuff?
Well, don’t be fooled by all the tricks and variations. The complicated moves, of course, are what attracts new dancers to the Lindy. Everybody wants to look as good as those dancers in the Gap TV commercial. Indeed, today’s most accomplished dancers and teachers first got into it to learn the Lindy’s bells and whistles. Recalls Erin Stevens of the Pasadena Ballroom Dance Association of her first meetings with Frankie Manning, “We were like, ‘Give us the tricks. Give us the show items.’ It was always about what new moves did you get.” Swing dancing’s resurgence was initially fueled by new dancers trying to match the unbelievably wild moves that Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers pulled in old movies like
Hellzapoppin’.
“The kids saw
A Day at the Races
and they thought that all those kicks and air steps is swing dancing,” says veteran New York dancer and former swing band member Dawn Hampton.

In the last few years, however, there’s come a realization that most of those showy moves are just that—they were choreographed for professional dancers to be done in performance. “We were really creating a spectator sport,” says Norma Miller. One secret of the famous Savoy dancers, however, wasn’t caught on film. In addition to appearing on Broadway and in films, they always remained social dancers also. Interacting with regular dancers in ballrooms kept their dancing authentic.

Today’s swingers didn’t catch on to this at first. Manning, the mentor of the Lindy Hop movement, wasn’t interested in passing along all the tricks it turns out. “From the start, he was trying to give us the heart and soul of the dance. It took a while for us to listen,” says Stevens. Recently there’s been a new emphasis on the basics. “It was a real backward process for everyone the world over,” adds Stevens. “The Lindy is getting away from the choreographed tricks. There’s this big push away from aerials and tricks toward working with your partner, listening to the music, creating some connection, adding more jazz.”

That’s great news for beginners. Even hard-core veteran swing dancers are now focusing more on the basics, which are easy to get a grip on quickly but take years and years to perfect. Lindy Hoppers are realizing that in many cases less is more. “You can really lose yourself much more easily if you are doing four variations and not forty. You’re less worried about what you’re doing next. You can
go
out and see eighty-year-old couples who are happy doing five or six variations all night,” says New York dancer and teacher Fredda Seidenbaum.

So what is the heart and soul of the Lindy? It’s having a great sense of play, a desire to explore what your body can do, and the ability to share that with a partner. “Jumping around is fun. You get into it because it’s fun. You don’t get into it because it’s a science project,” says Debra Sternberg, a Washington, D.C., teacher. While learning the dance requires a lot of time and energy, the Lindy Hop also asks that you not take it too-too seriously. So keep that in mind. In the movie
Swing Time,
Ginger Rogers asks Fred Astaire, “Are you as scared as I am?” Astaire replies: “Don’t be nervous. It’s only a dance we have to do. It’s nothing to worry about.”