Lindy Hop as Thoroughly Vernacular

I’m reading Sam Carroll’s thesis paper and came across the following (emphasis mine):
”Both Jackson and Malone draw on Ralph Ellison’s definition of African American vernacular dance, quoting the following passage from Going to the Territory:

‘I see the vernacular as a dynamic process in which the most refined styles from the past are continually merged with the play-it-by-eye-and-by-ear improvisations from which we invent in our efforts to control our environment and entertain ourselves. And this not only in language and literature, but in architecture and cuisine, in music, costume, and dance, and in tools and technology. In it the styles and techniques of the past are adjusted to the needs of the present, and in its integrative action the high styles of the past are democratized… Wherever we find the vernacular process operating we also find individuals who act as transmitters between it and earlier styles, tastes, and techniques. In the United States all social barriers are vulnerable to cultural styles (Ellison 139 – 41).’”

This is helping me now reconcile my complicated feelings toward labeling Lindy Hop as a vintage dance which Amy Johnson brought to the forefront last year when marketing for Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown in New Orleans. Here is now a smattering of thoughts from me and others as it relates to Lindy Hop as a traditional dance - “traditional meaning, something that is rooted in tradition, but wholly alive. Of the now, but with some of the old ways preserved in order to connect it to the culture from which it came.”:

• Notes from a conversation with Gaby Cook about the ideas behind Sw!ng Out and you can learn more through this NY Times article - Swingout! is a modern anthopological exhibition about how swing dancing is a form of humanity. Wants to be a display of swing dance in modern bodies/modern clothes and doing things that feel true to the dancers' bodies.

• As dancers we are asked to bring ourselves into the dance including our entire lived-in experience. Teachers ought to be asking students to explore their range of personal movement while social dancing inside or outside class while avoiding asking them to re-enact the teachers’ exact movement because Lindy Hop is real now and not just the past.

• From my experience selling and wearing vintage clothing, vintage was always something plucked from a fixed time period. Lindy Hop, as any vernacular dance, is mutable as seen in Moncell Durden’s documentary, Everything Remains Raw, and continuously spans multiple generations. It seems this could play into the revival myth that places white saviorism and dance colonialism in the midst of Black stories that featured Lindy Hop as ongoing community dance practice.

• Vintage also communicates very differently between Black/BIPOC and white communities. The idea of vintage can also play into the idea of time travel to an era when Black communities dealt with Jim Crow laws, segregation, and much much more which Grey Armstrong tackles here.

• From a marketing standpoint, I want to appeal to wide demographics and want potential students to see themselves learning and dancing Lindy Hop. Vintage can be a barrier to entry as people might not want to dress vintage, do a dance that seems to be a reproduction, or do something deemed out-of-fashion.

• If you were to look at comparable dances including blues, salsa, argentine tango, you’ll rarely if ever find them branding their dances as vintage though some have as long if not longer lineage than Lindy Hop. Again, why does Lindy Hop and its dance peers get the vintage treatment? One theory posits that by labeling a dance as being in the past or even “dead,” one can preserve and do with it as they see fit, therefore separating it from its originating culture.

Overall, I see this as a complicated subject and still want to include people where vintage plays a large role in their lifestyle. I do think labeling swing dances and music as vintage keeps them in the past while new swing content continues to be produced by both dancers and bands. To paraphrase what Rachael Pitner once wrote - To limit Lindy Hop being a “vintage” dance likely sterilizes it and hurts the art form.

Feeling Stuck in the 1910s

Stuck in the 1910s is how I currently feel thanks to reading Danielle Robinson’s work. The most impactful article thus far has been The Ugly Duckling: The Refinement of Ragtime Dancing and the Mass Production and Marketing of Modern Social Dance. Take for instance this quote from Troy and Margaret West Kinney from Social Dancing of To-Day:

”Of the original [ragtime] 'trot' nothing remains but the basic step. The elements that drew denunciation upon it have gone from the abiding-places of politeness ... it prefers to be known as the [modern] One-Step. And in the desire for a new appellation it is justified, since no history ever so vividly recalled the fable of the ugly duckling.” followed by Danielle writing:

“While dance writers of the period might attribute such changes to natural aesthetic progression, I will suggest that they, like the particular notion of beauty suggested by the ugly duckling story, were deeply connected with aesthetic values that were distinctly racialized. But this is only half the story; I also argue that innovative mass marketing and production strategies of the 1910s worked together with contemporary conceptualizations of race to facilitate the birth of modern social dance and its supporting dance industry.”

For me learning and dancing swing in Kansas City in the late 90s, Jitterbug arose from the ballroom dance community where Black social dance was packaged, appropriated and commercialized for white audiences alongside neo-swing music. For example, I taught the Shim Sham, though traditionally done on the “8” like many vernacular jazz steps, on the “1” to supposedly facilitate learning since “learning to start on the ‘8’ was too hard.” Improvisation was rarely encouraged with dancers rarely having time to breath with an indeterminate amount of six count patterns interspersed with untold pretzels and similar shapes which demanded a follower’s attention less a partner’s shoulders got stretched beyond their limits. Leading and following properly was enforced with me, predominantly occupying the leader role, being told “if something didn’t go right, then it’s your fault.”

“Taylor-like emphasis on control, however, enabled modern dance teachers to exert greater influence over social dancing practices through a strategic highlighting of 'correct' technique and a de-emphasis on independent choice making by dancers.”

“It also meant that modern dance re-asserted a male-centrism on the social dance floor -even though, or perhaps because, teaching dance during the early twentieth century had the potential to 'empower . . . women to claim a new professional identity' and dancing in public spaces 'afforded women a certain autonomy.'“

Besides eliminating kinesthetic elements that spoke to Lindy Hop’s Black roots, you’ll also see swing dance schools avoid mentioning its Black roots in writing. Contrast that with Katrina Rogers’ upcoming Blues Dance Series leading with Black Vernacular Expression in the title or 5th Element Center for Dance in Aurora writing this under Jazz - “Jazz dance originated from Black communities in the late 1800s & 1900s. It combines performance with social & cultural dances that were emerging at the time of its development.” In Grey Armstrong’s most recent iLindy blog post, a Black dancer shared - “I would love to see the history and culture acknowledged on a regular basis. It was created for Black folk by Black folk and was (as were most things) stolen and sold back to us.” What is preventing others from talking about and marketing the Black roots of vernacular dances?

”For this reason, ragtime was perceived as black, owing to the 'one drop' rule for black racial identity that operated during this period. The refinement process then, involved the removal of ragtime's blackness in part because 'black' was not yet marketable in American culture, as it would become in limited ways in the 1920s. This problematic marketability, I would argue, can be linked to ragtime's implied miscegenation and thus, its threat to dominant ideologies of race purity and the idealization of American national identity as 'white'.”

For Swingin’ Denver, we used to allude to the Black roots of the dance without being explicit such as what’s in an old Groupon deal, “In fact, the jitterbug is notable for a different reason: though it has a different name, it’s exactly the same dance as the original version of swing, the Lindy Hop, which emerged in Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom in the mid-1920s.” or we’d center ownership with white America - “Here's your chance to learn America's dance, the lindy hop.” It’s difficult to recall my reasons ten years past, but I recall imitating others and still feeling shame and embarassment from my Kansas City days. Fortunately, Lindy Focus introduced me to Breai Mason-Campbell where I was challenged to do better and grapple with my past and the feelings around those days.

In fact, all of us can likely do better. The past, whether our own or others, need not define our present and future actions.

The Dance is Called Lindy Hop

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Here's an excerpt from a conversation about urban dance that we can see reflected in current naming struggles within the Lindy Hop community. "Urban is problematic because it is not a racial term. It eliminates race. You're taking away the people from the dance."

You can likely draw a line from this statement to swing schools and instructors utilizing terms such as "jitterbug" or "east coast swing" to label classes teaching Lindy Hop with slow and quick rhythms. Whether their intentions are good or not, the more we get away from the origins, the more we erase Black ownership. And, while names change as things evolve, what people call "east coast swing" or "jitterbug" was a devolving or simplification of Lindy Hop.

Swingin' Denver has long since scrapped our own Jitterbug classes, but up until 2019, we had called the beginner swing dance classes we taught at outdoor events "beginner swing dance," jitterbug" or "east coast swing." We did not call it Lindy Hop.

Only after a lot of reading and listening during the pandemic did we make the switch which has been even more emphatic this year. My thoughts and feelings had finally firmly coalesced that we would confidently state we are teaching Lindy Hop with its vernacular dance hallmarks while teaching a particular rhythm (slows and quicks) danced to excellent swing music.

I'm happy to be in this spot since we are now more consistent with what we offer, believe and support. We could not celebrate Lindy Hop, a Black social dance, in one hand and erase the Black origins in the other.

We still have more growing and learning to do, but I wanted to share these thoughts with our audience. I hope other swing dance school will reach these conclusions soon.

Keyword Trends - Lindy Hop vs Swing Dance vs Jitterbug

My first prominent swing dance instructor once told me to teach Shim Sham in the group class starting on the “1” because it’s easier. That explanation made ready sense to me as a newer dance teacher. Most, if not all, dances taught at this ballroom studio with the only all-ages swing dance in metro Kansas City started on the “1.” It never occurred to me that, as a dance educator, I could make finding the “8” easier for students. It did mean the Shim Sham was a hot mess when Frankie Manning came to town and led everyone in it (note: As I anticipated this train wreck, I hit “play” on the song and just watched).

I feel the same entrenched reasoning might exist for vernacular dance instructors still billing classes as “jitterbug” or “east coast swing.” These are marketing terms popular back in the late 1990s and early 2000’s when neo-swing was on the rise and white dance instructors, like mine in KC, saw those words as a way to get new students to gravitate toward their classes and swing nights.

Even here we used “Jitterbug” as a way to label drop-in classes at the Arvada Tavern 6-7 years ago. Our thought process was akin to “if the Mercury Cafe, seen as the OG’s of the scene, is using it to sell classes, why not us?” Well…

Google Trends shows that people want to learn how to swing dance, specifically Lindy Hop. Even Instagram hashtag usage shows us what captivates people. Plus, as the below image shows, most people search “Jitterbug” for the cellular phone which debuted in 2006. Besides, maybe people just inherently know that a jitterbug just isn’t that cool unless you’re in specific regions like LA or Las Vegas where being a jitterbug is a badge of honor. Otherwise, “Jitterbug is primarily the white ghosting of a black dance,” a white thing and not as smooth as lindy (Frankie Manning in Margaret Batiuchok’s dissertation), uncouth, and an alcoholic drink giving you the jitters.

So, if you purport to teach swing dance within the vernacular scene (Vernacular refers to dance performed to the rhythms of African American music: dance that makes those rhythms visible - “Steppin’ on the Blues” by Jacqui Malone), then I’d highly encourage teachers to:

• Specifically name what you’re teaching whether that’s Lindy Hop, Balboa, Collegiate Shag, Vernacular Jazz, Charleston, etc

• Stop billing classes as Jitterbug or East Coast Swing. To borrow from Margaret Batiuchok’s dissertation once again - Jitterbug means different things to different people. Lindy means one thing. And East Coast Swing belongs to the ballroom dance community and was stripped of pretty much all vernacular values

• Make it easier for people to find Lindy Hop and other vernacular dances. By appropriating Lindy Hop and other Black dances, and renaming them to suit your needs, you’re making it harder for people to find Lindy Hop and discover the tenets of vernacular dance.

The main reason why I think people stumble over Lindy Hop’s varying pattern lengths and varying rhythms (triple steps, stomp offs, slows, quicks, etc) is because of dance instructors billing patterns using slows and quicks as east coast swing or jitterbug. This leads to a dissonance where dancers think these rhythms and some patterns live on islands separate from swingouts or triple steps, for example.

If you’re dancing with vernacular dance hallmarks and striving to impart these characteristics such as improvisation and spontaneity, propulsive rhythm, call-and-response patterns, self-expression, elegance, and control to your students while dancing to solid swing-era music, you ought to calling what you’re teaching Lindy Hop. Just do it.

Allowing Students Space To Find The Dance

One thing I've learned over the years, and this could be why I gravitate toward or value particular teachers, is to provide space for students to find the dance. From Peter Strom - "Many people come absolutely bereft saying 'please tell me what to do.'" And this is a fine place to be. After all, students are coming to learn, start a new hobby, join a community.

It's the teachers' job to teach culture, movement vocabulary, music appreciation and more, and then step aside. This could take the form of playing whole songs for the students to dance to, providing time for students to workshop ideas, or teach patterns that encourage call-and-response from students.

And then provide encourage, shout praise, give a thumbs up, make eye contact and nod "I see you," bring students up to demo what they've accomplished and/or created, or even dance demo what you saw from students as a way of encouraging greater exploration and then quickly turn the music back on.

As I state in the teacher trainings I lead - Lindy Hop is dynamic, full of choices, and ambiguous at times. You just have to believe your students are capable and project that belief to them, so they can believe it to and become independent dancers dancing as themselves.

Learn to Lindy Hop for Free!

It’s difficult to replace the in-person learning experience, but sometimes you need to learn from home for whatever reason. One of the best sources to learn Lindy Hop is to watch any one of our Learn to Lindy Hop in a Day recap videos on our YouTube channel like this one featuring Kenny Nelson and Allison Frey at Lone Tree Brewing Company back in 2019.

And, if you ever want more of this kinds of recap videos from our Learn to Lindy Hop in a Day workshops, click HERE for a list of those on our YouTube channel. If you do live within driving distance of Denver, we suggest taking our classes which you can find out more about HERE.