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Next
Class Schedule
Reno Area
Never Enough Ballroom
Lesson
Start Dates
Novice
Division
Wednesday May 21st
&
Wednesday July 2nd
(6 week session)
Wednesday 7-8:00pm
Intermediate Division
Wednesday May 21st
&
Wednesday July 2nd
(6 week session)
Thurs 8:00-9:pm
Carson City Area
Brewery Arts Center
Lesson
Start Dates
Novice
Division
Thursday May 22nd
&
Thursday July 3rd
(6 week session)
Thurs 6:00-7:00pm
Intermediate Division
Thursday May 22nd
&
Thursday July 3rd
(6 week session)
Thurs 7:00-8:00pm
Advance-Intermediate Division
Thursday May 22nd
&
Thursday July 3rd
(6 week session)
Thurs 8:00-9:00pm
Club
Dances
Capital Swing Dancers
Fair Oaks, Ca
BLSDC Club Dance
Reno NV
High Sierra Club Dance
Carson City, NV
Contact Instructor
Jim Ewing
Phone: 775-250-3743
284 Bartmess Blvd
Sparks, NV 89436
E-Mail Instructor
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History of West
Coast Swing
There are several versions of how West Coast
Swing was started/evolved.
Sonny Watson has a two page version on his website
that is interesting.
Wikipedia has an extensive description on their
website. If you go to
www.google.com and
enter West Coast Swing Dancing and do a search you'll
get many other sites with similar renditions.
The below is just one of many versions, it was
submitted to me by Michael Quebec.
THE ROOTS OF WEST
COAST SWING
by Michael Quebec
The histories of modern West Coast Swing and the
resurgence of Lindy Hop are intertwined. First off, without
Lindy Hop, there wouldn't be West Coast Swing. The former is
the "ancestor" of the latter.
To understand the history of West Coast Swing, an
understanding of Lindy Hop is necessary.
The term "Lindy Hop" (like the term "Jitterbug") refers to a
variety of swing dance styles. In this case, those that were
originally done at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem in the
1930's, which were based on the old Charleston and Black
Bottom dances of the 1920's.
From that mixture of dance innovation comes two modern day
styles of Lindy Hop taught today.
The two major "styles" of Lindy Hop that are taught at dance
studios are "Savoy" style (mostly based on what Frankie
Manning, George Snowden, and Norma
Miller did in the '30's and '40's) and "Hollywood" or
"Smooth Lindy". "Hollywood style" is a term coined by Sylvia
Skylar and Erik Robeson, which are based on the Los Angeles
based Lindy dancers of Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan, and
their respective contemporaries, from the '40's Big Band Era
and even into the early Rock n' Roll era of the 1950's.
How does this all relate to modern West Coast Swing?
Well, it's this later "Smooth style Lindy" of Dean Collins
(who learned at the Savoy in Harlem and brought this version
of Lindy Hop to Los Angeles in the
late 1930's) that later gave birth to "West Coast Swing."
While African-American swing dance innovators on the East
Coast, such as Frankie Manning, Norma Miller, Willa Mae
Ricker, and Al Minns stopped swing dancing with the advent
of bebop jazz during the Post World War Two era of the late
'40's, their white counterparts on the West Coast (who
probably were either inspired by or learned from the black
dancers at the Savoy) continued to dance, ironically enough,
due to the advent of another black-American music form,
rhythm and blues.
Black rhythm and blues of the late '40's and early '50's of
course, became the "Rock n' Roll" music in the mid 1950's.
White dancers, students or friends of Dean Collins, such as
Joe Lanza, Frieda Wycoff, and Gil & Nikky Brady, who had
been performing on film during the Big
Band era continued to work in films during the early Rock n'
Roll era, due to the popularity of that new music form.
With that, Smooth Lindy Hop or "Jitterbug" (a catch all
phrase for wild swing dancing that means "whisky dancing" in
then African-American slang) became
"Rock n' Roll" dancing.
At least, it was called that at the Arthur Murray Dance
studios during the 1950's. Obviously, Mr. Murray was using
the latest musical trend as a marketing tool.
With the "taming" of rock n' roll in the late 1950's, and
the decline in rock n' roll's controversy...and hype, the
powers that be at the Arthur Murray chain
decided that "Rock n' Roll" was no longer a catchy marketing
phrase for this dance style.
Enter Skippy Blair.
This highly celebrated and experienced educator taught this
dance style at Arthur Murray's and realized that state pride
would be a good tool to sell this most
American of dances.
"Western Swing" was born. But the name didn't last.
Unfortunately, most prospective students mistakenly assumed
that the term "Western Swing" referred to "Country and
Western" or "Hillbilly" music dancing.
Hence the much more accurate and descriptive term used by
Ms. Blair, "West Coast Swing." Though Skippy Blair was the
first to use the term "West
Coast Swing" as a marketing tool to sell her version of
Lindy Hop at the Arthur Murray Studio, that term had been
used previously (along with the term "East
Coast Swing"), before ballroom dance studios codified &
standardized the two "different" styles.
Previously, during the Big Band era, "West Coast Swing"
meant Lindy Hop as danced in California (the white dancers
such as Dean Collins, Jewel McGowan,
Lennie Smith, Jeannie Veloz, etc.) while "East Coast Swing"
meant Lindy Hop as danced in New York (at the Savoy), by the
primarily black dancers such as Al Minns, Mama Lu Parks,
Norma Miller, & of course, Frankie Manning.
The terms at that time didn't really denote different
"styles" the way they do today at ballroom studios. I say
that because George Lloyd, an African-American dancer
originally from Florida, who later danced at New York's
(Harlem's) Savoy Ballroom, pretty much danced the way Dean
Collins did (in a slot, with
passes & pushes, & slides.) Mr. Lloyd's swing dance style,
if you saw it, would be what we would TODAY call a precursor
to modern West Coast Swing, yet in the 1940's, he was also
called an "East Coast Swing" dancer.
That name has stuck ever since.
But it's more than just a name. Add some more English
ballroom technique, to fit in with ballroom studio's
standardization process for both educational and
competition purposes, as well as an effort to make the dance
fit for ever changing music forms, and you have modern day
West Coast Swing.
Yet, despite the changes in both name and form over the
years, when one sees West Coast Swing's basic moves, it's
easy to see the dance style's Lindy Hop Big Band era roots.
It's not all in the name, but the name gave rise to the new
style.
----------------------------------------------
Mike Quebec teaches "Hollywood Style" Lindy Hop in the San
Francisco Bay Area. Besides being a teacher and performer
(in 2000, he and his teen dance troupe opened up for "the
Killer" Jerry Lee Lewis in San Rafael), he's also an up and
coming swing dance dee-jay in the Bay Area.
He can be found either teaching classes at either the
Metronome Ballroom in San Francisco, as well as the Fremont
or Tracy areas, or dee-jaying at the
Verdi Club for their "Tuesday Night Jump!" with his mix of
rockabilly, jump rhythm and blues, and doo-wop.
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