Our friend Shelley sent us a video that has been floating around in email. It’s of Eleanor Powell & Fred Astaire dancing. The email says:

A bit of history:

It seems as if Eleanor Powell was just too good for Fred Astaire, as he never wanted to be paired with her again.

He evidently was played down by her, but they were both great, and the likes of this will never be seen again.

The year: 1940 (69 years ago).   The narrator is Frank Sinatra.

It was filmed in ONE unedited camera shot.  Amazing!

It is considered by many as one of the best dance scenes ever filmed

Personally, I tend to like this clip from the same 1940 film (Broadway Melody):

That’s right, our next two series classes are now open for registration. First up we have the Balboa Series Class starting on Feb. 21st at 2:30pm. The Balboa is a 1930’s era dance from Southern California that is the perfect dance to both look and dance smooth from slow to fast tempos. The class will start out with the basic footwork, connection, and fundamentals of the dance. It will then progress into turns, moves, and the basic styling points of Balboa. Starting on the same day, but in the 4pm time slot, we will be offering our Lindy Hop Series Class. Come learn the original form of swing, the Lindy Hop. The six-week series will cover all the essential moves and variations of Lindy Hop with the 6 count basic and moves the first 3 weeks, then the 8 count basic (whip/swing out) and moves the last 3 weeks. This is a great class to take your dancing to the next level and really expand your dance repertoire!

Each class will build upon information from the previous class to continuously further your knowledge week by week. Classes will be an hour long followed by a half hour of practice, questions, and individual help. Previous dance experience is helpful, but not required. No partner needed; individuals and couples welcome! Class size is limited, so be sure to reserve your spot soon!

Many people’s resolutions this year includes getting fit and shedding some unwanted pounds. Rob and I are no different in this area. We too are suffering from the result of too much “joy” and “holiday cheer” enjoyed this past Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday. Aside from our clothes fitting a bit tighter than normal, our lowered fitness level became all too obvious to us when we danced a mid-tempo Collegiate Shag at this past Saturday’s dance.

While many people will be hitting a local gym to work off the extra weight, we are going to incorporate dancing into our weight loss plan (along with eating better). Even done without a partner, Collegiate Shag and Charleston make great dances to get the heart pumping. Moving your body to music you enjoy also makes getting the 30 minutes per day of suggested cardiovascular exercise easier and more fun. Not to mention all that practice will surely show on the dance floor with smoother, more relaxed footwork and body movement. Just remember to stretch your leg muscles before and after dancing to prevent any injuries and stay hydrated.

Don’t forget that our series classes are a great way to get a guaranteed 1.5 hours of movement per week while meeting other great people looking to learn dancing, move their bodies, and/or do something new. The 2nd and 4th Saturday swing dances at Whirl and Twirl are additional opportunities to get moving, hear great music, and have fun.

So no matter how you plan to drop those unwanted pounds, here’s to a slimmer, fitter, 2010

Swing Dance Series Class – Starting January 10th: This six-week series class is designed to give you all the fundamentals of swing dancing, plus some great moves and variations. The class will feature the 6-count swing dance basic and progress into a variety of moves, turns, and combos based off of it. The goal of the class is to make you a strong dancer that is knowledgeable and feels confident on the dance floor. To do this, the class will introduce solid lead/follow techniques and explain how the dance works as opposed to memorizing steps. From the basics, you will learn turning techniques, double turns, tuck turns, kicks, sugar pushes, and more. Click here for more information and registration.

Charleston Series Class – Also Starting January 10th: This six week class will take you from the basics of Charleston to a large variety of moves and variations! It will encompass 20’s style partner Charleston, Side-by-Side Charleston, Front/Back Charleston, and Savoy Kicks. It will show you how to integrate Charleston seamlessly into your dancing no matter what style of swing you dance (Lindy Hop, East Coast, Jitterbug, etc.). This is sure to open up a whole new world in your dancing! Click here for more information and registration.

It’s hard to believe that we are already heading into the holiday season. We are currently winding down and wrapping up our 2009 series classes. However, we’re still staying fairly active throughout the Holiday season. We’ll be guest instructing the beginner lesson at a few of the 2nd & 4th Saturday swing dances, so be sure to keep an eye out for us there.  In addition, our private lesson schedule will continue as usual throughout the season. In fact, if you have daytime availability, Dawn is available for lessons with couples and leads during the day. Both Rob & Dawn are available on most evenings and weekends.

Looking for group classes? Our early 2010 class schedule is already set! If you are looking to get a solid start with swing dancing in the new year, be sure to check out the Swing Dance series class. Also, spice things up by adding some Charleston into you swing!

The first two series classes of the new year are scheduled and open for registration! Starting in January 2010, we will be offering Charleston and the Swing Dance Class. Both classes can be taken with no previous dance experience needed. The swing dance series class is a great introduction to swing dancing as it covers all the essentials and foundation moves to get you out on the dance floor having fun! Charleston is a great dance to know for when the music is on the faster side and you don’t want to wear yourself out. We’ll also show you how to blend Charleston into whatever style of swing you dance.

Keep these classes in mind if you are looking for an out-of-the-ordinary Christmas gift this year for someone special, friends, or family. Knowing how to dance is a lifelong skill that is called upon sometimes at the most unexpected times. Gift certificates for any of our series classes can be purchased by contacting us.

This is a great and short article on how to buy and wear vintage clothing and jewelry. Just wearing vintage clothing is one thing, dancing in them is another. This point is something that we dancers have and will probably always grapple with when buying true vintage clothing. The wear and tear that dancing takes on clothes in general is rough, but then consider older fabric, thread, and fit and now you are talking a whole different story. But I hope this article at least helps you with buying vintage items in general. And yes, a good tailor is indispensable (anyone know of one btw?).

“The irony is that vintage is actually what all of the new stuff in stores is made to look like anyway. In a world where everything’s accessible and ubiquitous, vintage is the way to personalize your look.

Read more…

Starting Sunday, November 1st: We will be offering our Balboa series class in a special four week format. The Balboa is a 1930’s era dance from Southern California that has enjoyed a tremendous revival in popularity in recent years. It’s the perfect dance to both look and dance smooth from slow to even the fastest of tempos! The class will start out with the basic footwork, connection, and fundamentals of the dance. It will then progress into turns, moves, and the basic styling points of Balboa. Each class will build upon information from the previous class to continuously further your knowledge week by week. This is the last series class we will be offering for the year, so be sure to reserve your spot. Click here for more information.

This is some rare color footage of Lindy Hop (as well as some Fox Trot) being dance to the Glen Gray Orchestra at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. This was amateur “home movie” footage that, unfortunately, did not have sound.

Looks like the had a shortage of leads back then.

Swing dancers come to find their passion through many means. For Dawn and I, we started by learning ballroom dancing for our wedding and though this discovered a love for swing. While pursuing our passion, we found that there is a lot of misinformation about swing (in particular, the history of swing dancing) amongst the ballroom community. Over the years, this has motivated us to educate people in the history of swing as well as the dance as we teach classes and workshops. Why care about some misinformation floating around? Because swing is a rich part of our cultural history. Until the swing scene boomed, ballroom studios were most people’s source for information about the dance. Given those stats, the history of swing dancing was almost rewritten with misinformation. In fact, when Dawn and I first started to pursue our love of swing, it was actually difficult to find good information about the dance’s history.

Now before I go any further, let me say that this is by no means a slam on the ballroom community. Nowadays, this “one off” history is being passed along through no malice. It’s simply people relaying the information they were told from what they felt was a reliable source. Fortunately, as the swing scene boomed and many others found a love for the history and culture of the dance, this misinformation has become more the exception. It’s now easy to find good information about the roots of swing dancing and many ballroom dancers have embraced it’s rich history. However, there are still pockets who have not been enlightened.

So what is this misinformation that I am talking about? We’ve heard all kinds of stuff over the years. When we first started dancing, our instructor told us several interesting factoids including “Arthur Murray invented swing” and “the name ’swing’ comes from the swinging of the hips”. Both statements are clearly false. Other statements include swing being a “modified Foxtrot” and/or a “modified box step”. Knowing the true history of swing (more specifically, Lindy Hop) proves that both are again false.

So what’s the big cover up? What’s the source of this inaccurate information? Well, just recently a good friend shared a website with us that sheds light on this. On this ballroom dance site was a “misleading” (at best) history of swing dancing. Having a hunch that this information was probably copied from a studio syllabus or publication, I did some searching and found that this description appeared almost word-for-word on multiple ballroom sites. This says that it was clearly a copy/paste job. It’s not my goal to single anyone out, so I will simply link to Google results so you can view the source. Since one site references the swing era as “about 35 years ago”, we can assume that this is from a studio publication that has been passed down over the years. The wording has either been changed by some when put online, or the document evolved over time. In fact, I’ve seen some of this wording that has been mixed in with more factual swing histories.

What’s particularly interesting about this is that you can see some of the roots of the years of misinformation. Look past the facts and look at the writing. Certain phrases stick out:

“For many years now the better establishments have frowned upon the wilder forms of the Swing”

“It is possible, however, to do a fine Swing… providing the dancers are better than average…”

“There is no question that the dance is here to stay”

“…originally called the Lindy Hop, was born in the South of the U.S.A.”

To really understand the meaning behind these phrases, you have to put them in context. Swing is a street dance. During the swing era, the ballroom community and studios rejected it as an improper dance. It was viewed as a passing fad that would soon go away. In their eyes, no respectable person would do the Lindy Hop. What was the motivation behind this? Some say that it was because during the time the dance was popular amongst the youth of America and was viewed as wild and rebellious. Others say that race came into play. At the time, ballroom catered to upper class white clientele while swing was created by blacks in Harlem. Personally, I think it was a heaping helping of both.

Regardless, sometime in the 1940’s and into the 50’s, the ballroom community came to accept swing, however, not in its entirety. After years of the dance being wildly popular, it was clear to them that “the dance is here to stay”. At that point, studios looked to capitalize on the trend. However, due to their previous bias, they felt the dance must be repackaged to be more acceptable to their clientele. In marketing material and internal publications, the history of the dance was obscured. Instead of acknowledging the black roots of the dance in Harlem, it was instead claimed that the dance came from the south. While possibly true seeing Lindy Hop evolved from Charleston (a dance with some roots in the south), the statement is misleading at best. To further cover the roots, the steps were likened to basic ballroom steps like the box step. This gives the impression that swing came from a more “proper dance” and not an evolution of jazz steps. To add on, studios implied that with proper training it is possible for someone to dance a “fine swing” and not be frowned upon when visiting “better establishments”. This was an early form of what we would now call marketing spin.

Here we are many decades later and these old inaccurate, misleading publications are still making appearances on modern web sites. It’s a sad reminder that a part of our cultural heritage was almost obscured. This isn’t due to any conspiracy on the part of any modern ballroom studios or instructors. They are just relaying what they were taught and what they have always assumed as accurate information. However, this is a good warning that marketing spin can often rewrite history and obscure the real facts… often destroying culture in the process.