Category Archives: lindy hop and other dances

Here’s something I wrote about cultural relevence and swing dance a while back. I think it was posted on Swing Talk. I’m reposting it here because it’s got some interesting points that I want to hang onto and think about with the chapter I’m writing atm.
[quote begins]
In terms of music: one of the neat things about Afro-American vernacular jazz dance is that it was ‘made’ in tandem with the music – that’s why live music is important. Jazz totally leans on improvisation. So jazz dances do too. Being able to improvise is as important for us as dancers as it is for jazz musicians: it tests us. It pushes us to our creative limits. It makes the whole thing harder and so much funner.
So if I assume that the original line was: “the way vernacular dance maintains its relevancy to ordinary people’s lives. Dance styles and fashions stick around because they have use-value – they respond to the culture of the day”. You could also use ‘society’ instead I guess.
You know, I’ve thought about this a lot lately. It’s something that has relevancy to me as a dancer, and to me as a feminist researcher looking at issues of power and discourse and ideology in a dance culture.
nerdy academic rambling
As a cultural studies person, I believe that ‘culture’ …
– ie ‘stuff’ like texts (ie music and songs and pictures and paintings and sculpture and story and dances and magazines and television programs and film clips and so on)
and ‘practices’ (stuff we do – like talk about things or share clips or publish magazines or produce paintings or make clothes or whatever)
…is a nice way to look at what a society or culture is thinking and doing at a particular moment in time. As a cultural studies person I tend to be interested in ‘now’ – I’m not a historian, but sometimes I might do historical research. I don’t use historical research techniques. Nor do I use a sociological or anthropological techniques in the same way as people in those fields do.
I assume – as a feminist cultural studies researcher – that the relationships between people – ‘politics’ are indicated or represented in cultural ‘stuff’ and ‘practices’. So if I examine a song from 1935 I could make some guesses about the language and culture of the time. For these guesses to be more productive, I’d look at this text in context. So I’d look at other songs, I’d do interviews with people of the 30s, I’d read newspapers of the day, I’d read academic and popular work of and about that time. I guess that’s what I’m doing with my thesis: I’m looking at how the media we produce (be that dance or online) can be read to identify ideological discourse.
So I think it’s really neat that Afro-American vernacular dance builds this idea of cultural relevancy into its very structure… I mean, all dances do, but Afro-American vernacular dance totally DIGS it and positions it as very important. Hell, the swingout is revolutionary because it broke open the highly structured European partner dance form and gave partners all that time to do their own thing – to improvise.
So I like to see people do ‘their’ thing in those moments. And I think we can analyse those moments to see what sort of person they are, their dance experience and knowledge, their physical abilities, even their political or social beliefs and position (take a look at girl x’s swingout compared to guy x’s swingout – what does this tell you about gender relations? about sexuality? about musicality?). It’s there that we make the dance mean something.
more specific rambling
I wonder how we might combine ‘making the dance relevant to us today’ with any sense of historical ‘accuracy’ or congruency? ie getting new stuff in without losing the old stuff?
It wasn’t a problem in Afro-American dance communities in the ‘original swing era’ (or in vernacular dance traditions generally) – the shared knowledge and skill base was just added to. Useful stuff stuck. Other stuff was shelved.
But many of us feel – as swing dance revivalists – that there’s a responsibility to take a historical moment (be it 1935 in Harlem, 1930 in Kansas city, 1942 in Los Angeles or that heady summer on Balboa Island) and preserve it. Because it’s beautiful or fascinating or exciting or wonderful or awful or scary or whatever. We just want to get onto that moment and somehow make it stick.
It’s an interesting tension, I think.
Some ways I’ve noticed contemporary dancers make swing dances reflect their contemporary lives by exploiting the inherent flexibility of a dance that incorporates things like improvisation, impersonation and imitation:
– women leading and woman/woman dance partnerships not a new thing for partner dance by any means.
Same sex dance partnerships were there waaay back in Europe when partner dancing got going, it was there in various African nations pre American slavery (particularly when mixed-sex partner dancing was taboo), it was there in Afro-American vernacular dance from the beginning, right through the 30s to now.
For me, it’s about reconciling my passion for dance with my frustration with patriarchal and hetero-normative gender roles and dynamics. It’s also about getting to dance with my female friends.
– dancing lindyhop and other swing dances to contemporary music. I know, it makes me cringe sometimes, but hell, if it gets people dancing… I just ask that you dance to olden days music as well: don’t replace the old stuff with the new. Hang onto the bits that are useful. And I think swinging jazz is useful.
– incorporating ‘new skool’ moves into oldskool dances:
the body roll (sexy new skool… or is it really oldskool made newskool already?);
running man (humorous performance of 1980s/70s oldskool… which might also be really oldskool made new and then made new again);
various hip hop bits and pieces (as in hip hop lindy)… again, isn’t this oldskool made newskool in the 80s?
– women and men ‘dancing like themselves’. So seeing men and women actually taking the structure of swing dances to perform their own personality and identity, outside a static gender role or identity. So, seeing a young heterosexual woman dancing with ‘power’ or kickarse to show that she’s an independent woman, in a way she mightn’t have been able to in the 1930s or 40s. Especially if her family or ethnic group weren’t into female empowerment in that time. Or seeing an assertive, alpha-type chick take a moment to just ‘follow’ and stop making decisions for a while. Or seeing a young man not worrying that he may look ‘gay’ or whatever for relaxing and really feeling the music in ways that mightn’t go down so well at a conventional night club. Or seeing a young gay guy working with female partners in a close embrace and not having to second guess the sexual tensions that would accompany this contact in a non-dance setting. Or perhaps even more exciting, see things like that first young woman [I]perform[/I] a meek, stereotypical ‘good Asian girl’ and then rework it to totally subvert it.
– one of the things I’m most interested in at the moment: swing dancers getting into solo stuff. Especially if they’ve never done any type of dancing – not even disco dancing – before swing. I am really interested in the ring structure for things like big apples, charleston-offs, a bit of jazzedy jiggywiggy or whatever – people dancing in a circle so they can see each other, and all be a part of the deal, and yet experimenting with moves and the music independently. I think this is a nice way for people to use a really, really, really old dance form to experiment with their own bodies and personalities in a public place, trying on all sorts of moves. I especially like it when it’s all girl or all boy – I like to see some same sex peer work. But then I also dig a mixed gender thing too…
in this setting you see people for whom dance has never been part of their everyday lives before taking a bit of a chance that they might embarrass themselves and really exploring the things they’re physically capable of, the limits of their ‘jazz’ vocabulary, their ability to steal steps from people near by or make up new steps. It’s different to the big apple dances of the olden days, but it’s still using similar themes and structures.
Neat!

Just watching some clips of Manu (one of my absolute favourite lindy hop leads – in that I want to be him) here and got to thinking: pro Jack and Jill comps (where you’re randomly matched with a partner and have to dance to music you don’t choose) are just like theatre sports. Well, when Manu and Sylvia do it, anyway…
This is how I feel about Jack and Jill comps – they’re like a fun party game. This is one of the reasons I don’t get nervous with J&J comps (or other dance performances, really): it’s a game. Even if it’s just you performing, it’s still a game, because the audience has a role to play as well – they have to be The Audience. I wonder how much of this approach to performance and competition is a result of my research and developing ideas about the roles of performers and audiences in swing – and how both are ‘performances’?
I have moments of nerves – literally moments – but I don’t get nervous about performances or comps. Same as I don’t get nervous when I’m tutoring or lecturing. I just enjoy it so much, I don’t have time to be nervous.
It reminds me of something that Crinks said the other night. She mentioned a discussion she’d had with some other dancers (people with lots of performance experience) about getting nervous. Someone said ‘I wish I didn’t get nervous’ or something similar, and the other person said ‘I wish I still did – I don’t any more. And the nerves were part of what made it exciting. Now it’s just pedestrian’ (I am paraphrasing majorly here).
It’s funny, because I find that I do a better job if I’m not nervous, and I can relax and get on with focussing on the other stuff and doing a better job. Especially in the case of teaching or lecturing or giving papers: if I’m nervous, I can’t concentrate on the questions people ask, and I don’t do the best job I could.
So when I watched Manu and Sylvia in that J&J, all relaxed and having fun, I thought ‘yes, this is what it’s supposed to be like – fun. And a game’. Space Jump.

I’ve just seen some clips from the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown competition this year (on a french site whose name I can’t remember, sorry) and I’ve noticed some interesting tropes.
What’s the ULHS?
The ULHS is one of the most well-respected lindy competitions in the swinguverse. The emphasis is on hardcore dancing, with a relaxed attitude. Sure, Hellzapoppin’ is still the lindy hop competition, but the ULHS is less about choreography and schmaltz than painful comps like the ALHC (american lindy hop comp/championships?) or the Australian Jitterbug Champs.
A word on lindy comps
I’m not a big fan of comps: I’m all about social dancing. But I also recognise the role comps can play in a dance community. They galvanise dancers, getting them keen and working on dance in a serious way. This of course brings up their dancing ability level, and setting new standards in the community.
The obvious draw-back is related to the type of competition: the VRRDA (victorian rock n roll dance association) comps which obsessed Melbourne dancers for ages about 4 years ago are all about the worst aspects of competitive dancing: 100% tacky, schmaltzy, choreographed rubbish (which is pleasurable, but in a different way of course); the AJC where the organisers would enter their own competition (it took 2 years for them to realise how unethical this was): what kind of cultural example is being set there? And of course, Dancesport: the name says it all.
So what did I notice about ULHS?
everything oldskool is nuskool
This is the age of the first wave lindy hop… or second wave.
The kids are getting hardcore into their old clips. THANK GOD! This has led to some scary second-rate imitations further down the line, but the first rank dancers are doing some seriously awesome shit.
crazy = good
This warms my heart (what with being a crazy dancer by trade).
20s solo charleston is still cooking along
Yay. One day Melbourne will get into it in a big way.
Melbourne is still trying to be the USA, dance wise
Sure, there are good reasons to be inspired by the American example, but imitation… hm. It’s kind of a dilemma, because lindy hop is all about imitation – historical recreation. But my concern is with dancers immitating recreationists, rather than dancers getting out there and exploring the original footage.
How to dress
On the other hand, one thing I did think while watching the clips was how appropriate it is to wear contemporary dress while swing dancing. It’s like Shakespeare: it’s always set in the ‘current day’. So wearing contemporary clothes is very appropriate (especially as we are always ‘wearing’ our contemporary cultural ‘clothes’ when we dance or move or speak or write or….).
It’s a dilemma: everything old is new again, and yet everything new is also very appropriate.
One thing I noted (on this point) was the way performers would wear ‘old’ clothes (vintage or recreationist) for performances, and then ‘new’ clothes when they competed. It strikes me as an example of framing and ‘performing’ identity. When performing in formal Performances, they’re putting on an historic identity, framing their dancing performance as recreation. When they perform in competitions, they’re performing their own identities – their own selves (or another of their own selves?), so they wear their ‘own’ clothes. And of course, the two identities and performances aren’t seperate: they are intended to be read intertextually. So when we see Frida in her crazy modern young person clothes, we are still reading her in reference to her historical recreationist work in the Silver Shadows, and in the Hot Shots. This historical cross-referencing serves to authenticate and justify her authority as a dancer, and her status as a ‘good’ dancer.
And just one more point:
Vaudville and lindy hop
I need to get a hold of Henry Jenkins’ book on early musical cinema (1930s). He discusses the vaudville aesthetic and the shift to cinematic narrative in these films. This issue has caught my interest as well, in reference to swing dancers. The ULHS reinforced the vaudvillian aspect of swing dancing: it’s a matter of sitting down to watch a series of individual ‘spectacles’ which we read intertextually. Just as with vaudville theatre, there’s room for audience participation: being an audience is ‘active’.
I’ve been thinking about vaudville and shows like Dancing with the Stars a bit lately, and how we really like it, as audiences. I’d also hazard a speculation that vaudville didn’t really go away – telly is all about pieces of ‘spectacle’ which we put together in a larger viewing ‘whole’. This of course echoes some of the 80s (or was it 90s?) stuff on telly and the ‘glance’ and ‘segments’ of image/narrative/viewing. It emphasises the ‘active’ viewer. Which is what swing dancers are all about: active viewing. Active spectatorship.

i’m a bit inspired, dance-wise. it was really nice to get some decent teaching, somewhere outside of angsty old melbourne. it was also nice to meet so many interesting people from all over the world – that was the best thing about herrang.

but i’m totally into leading now – not particularly interested in following. maybe i would be if there’d been any guys in herrang who’d done classes and were interested in trying stuff with me. but doris and i are cooking, and corinne is always up to try things out. so it’s girl on girl action at the moment: i am damn lucky to be able to dance with these two superior follows. corinne leads a bit, and doris is interested: soon we will all be all-leading, all-following chicks.

rawk on.

i am obsessed with weight transfer and leading and following with your centre. this obsession was only fueled by the amazing max at the gym (who does my programs and assesments), who’s taken up aerial work. we had an excited talk about centres the other week: much enthusiastic realisations about how bodies move in space.

max rawks.

a quick gym note: i am doing a hardcore upper-body and core-strengthening program. so my arms and shoulders ache, my abs ache and i’m getting much more control, centre-wise.
max rocks.
and i am getting a two-pack. if i had less of a jelly belly, i might have a three or four pack. but i do, so i don’t. or if i do, i can’t see it.
i really like being strong.

i’d like to be fitter, but i just can’t hack that boring, dull as dogshit cardio work… aerobics totally sucks.

Last night we went to the Austrian club to see JW. My first night dancing since i’ve been back (and it’s been about a week since i last danced – feels like a couple of days, though, owing to the weirdo travel thing). The Squeeze brought his excellent digital camera and took some wonderful photos of the band. i had a play and took some nice photos of my friends. they’re a bit grainy because it was quite dark there, the shutter speed wasn’t quite quick enough (i think – i don’t really know about this stuff), i don’t use flash (because people look horrid and washed out, though The Squeeze has introduced me to the notion of fill flash. hm.) and they were a bit far away.
This is a picture of doris and corinne. aren’t they pretty? this is an edited version (i cropped for framing). i’m still learning, so be kind.
also, i’m having some troubles with mt uploading my files. so the link to the popup might be broken. check the archive for a better copy if you want to save a copy. please keep in mind that these are photos i’ve taken myself, and you should (if you’re any sort of decent person) credit me. if you want to use any of these photos in your own publications (including websites) please get my permission or at least credit me and link to my site.
ta.

Continue reading “first night dancing”

I subsequently met the young fella from London who designed the London Lindy Exchange (LLX) Brit Hop tshirts. He was in Herrang. He was young, cute and a lovely dancer. I know it’s wrong to be patronise, and I do try not to. But he was.
And it was a brit pop joke.
Eeeexcellent.