Lindy Hop is a dance that emerged in 1928 when Black dancers, "Shorty" George Snowden and Mattie Purnell, lost their grip and briefly broke away only to return to each other again. Lindy Hop is first and foremost a Black dance having been created during the Harlem Renaiisance and took flight at the legendary Savoy Ballroom as an expression of Black kinetic values such as call-and-response, improvisation and making African-American rhythms visible on the dance floor.

What is East Coast Swing, Jitterbug and Swing?

When swing dance schools or related festivals and events refer to east coast swing, jitterbug or swing, they're often referring to Lindy Hop, albeit a specific rhythm pattern featuring Slows and Quicks. These names indicate these organizations are engaging in cultural appropriation rather honoring the Black heritage or creators by using the names they gave their dances. Much like jazz, swing dances contain a multitude of rhythms and call on dancers to express themselves individually even while in partnership. East Coast Swing or Jitterbug was created to reduce the rhythms, limit individual expression and create a hierarchy where the leader, typically male, is the role dominant over the follower, typically female. Black social dances, rather, encourage mutual assertiveness. Lindy Hop and other Black social dances were dances of liberation, joy and freedom and made people fear upheaval of the status quo.

Where can I find social swing dancing in Denver?

Swingin' Denver offers a multitude of options through the year with our partnerships and collaborations across metro Denver and beyond often featuring live music. Here in Denver, you can also find options at The Pearl, Denver Turnverein, Avalon Ballroom in Boulder and other spots around town. When you find a favorite band, we encourage you to follow them so you can discover other venues where you can dance!

How can I stay informed about classes and events?

We encourage you to check out our website calendar and follow us on Facebook.

What should I wear to a dance class?

Lindy Hop is a casual dance and can be as athletic as you'd like it with a variety of rhythms, kicks, hops and bouncing. We suggest comfortable clothes that you can move around in, and non-marking flat shoes that will stay on your feet (open backed shoes or flip flops don’t work well.) Followers don’t generally wear heels in Lindy. If you have leather soled shoes, maybe bring a backup option in case you think the floor is a bit too slick.

Do you offer private lessons?

Some of our instructors do offer private lessons. Please email info@swingindenver.com. We offer private lessons for those seeking choreography, wedding dance help, improvement and other reasons.

What are the dance roles called?

The two dance roles are called leader and follower. Either gender can dance either role and switch during a dance if consent is there. Since we teach Black social dances, it's important to emphasize these roles are mutually assertive and both partners can be dancing different rhythms at the same. Much like how these dances encourage you to create bent lines and revel in asymmetry so is that asymmetry found between partners as we're constantly listening to the other partner and responding in time.

Interacting on Social Media — Swingin' Denver

I recalled something today that a small business owner shared with me a couple months back - Kenny, they (a large market) don’t interact at all on their social media. No likes, no responses, nothing. They didn’t feel good investing their time with a company that couldn’t handle basic Instagram marketing.

From our perspective as a small business owner utilizing social media since 2014 and the learnings we’ve taken in during that time, you must interact on the platform in order to improve your reach and help leave users feeling heard and part of the ecosystem.

I should take a moment to say that, from my personal experience utilizing social media for my business, Facebook is the worse. Unless you’re checking your page’s account regularly, you might miss notifications like a cool follower or that someone wants to post in an event. It’s even worse if you’re running events from your personal account - just as it is on your profile feed, you may not be notified of a comment until you go in and check. But that’s the effort we strive for and amplify.

Here are our strategies on the individual platforms as a swing dance company mostly involved with collaborative partnerships, gigs and special one-off workshops:

Instagram

1-2 posts/week. Interact daily in our feed with liking, commenting, reposting. Know I need to produce more reels edited by myself

Facebook

Create events on there and share to FB groups
Post 3-6x/week about history, dances, happenings we find inspiring, maybe a blog post

Reddit

Google AIO might still be looking for experts and cross-engagement on Reddit so we strive to be present here when questions pop up about swing dancing and music in Colorado. Rarely do we post since “swing” and r/Denver trolls do not quite go together.

Threads

A low effort platform for us but we have our Instagram auto-connected to forward IG posts to Threads.
We’ll sometimes interact but we haven’t figured out how to integrate Threads. Plus, social media can be overwhelming.

TikTok

Since we hardly create reel content, we barely post on TikTok. It’s nice every once and awhile but TikTok isn’t a push of ours. We will interact a bit but their algorithm rarely aligns with our interests unlike Instagram

WhatsApp

Described as a nice way to get 2-4 people out of a 300 person group. Feels much like MeetUp but I was advised by a member to just post events and be sure not to follow message notifications so as not to be overwhelmed.

Discord

Just joined this summer and still assessing. Nothing like the old b2b forums buzzing with activity.

Twitter

Used to have our Facebook page connected to Twitter so any of our posts would forward to Twitter. We were likely disconnected and definitely lost track of our account. This is a platform we see zero value in.