| | *Beginning Lindy Hop 6:30-7:30 *Intermediate Lindy Hop 6:30-7:30 Intro to Swing 7:30-8:00 *Students must register by 8/1 to take this class. October Classes: | | *Beginning Lindy Hop 6:30-7:30 *Intermediate Lindy Hop 6:30-7:30 Intro to Swing 7:30-8:00 *Students must register by 9/1 to take this class. | | This Month at Swingin' Sunday: | | The last Sunday in August is behind us! Here's what you can look forward to in September: 9/1 - Dance Card Sunday 9/15 - SOUL NIGHT featuring a Soul Train Contest! 9/29 - Birthday Jam | | Travel Opportunities: | | If you're looking to meet more dancers and skyrocket your skills, there's no better way to do it than by traveling to some regional events! 'Tis the season for dancing in the Midwest. Check it out: Cowtown Jamborama in Omaha, NE September 19-22 Southern Fried Swing in Greenwood, AK, September 27-29 Sweepin Swing in Tulsa, OK, October 11-13 All Follow's Eve in Fort Worth, TX November 1-3 Nevermore Jazz Ball in St. Louis, Missouri November 7-10 | The Funny Section: | Thinking You're Awesome, Then Looking in the Mirror:  | | | | | | | | | The Wright Brothers Returns! We will do another dance night at the Wright Brothers bar on West Kellogg on Wednesday, the 11th of September! Stay tuned to the weekly for details. Please remember that the bar has a strict 21+ policy
| | | Why We Love Lindy Hop What comes to mind when you think "swing dancing"? Or better yet, what came to mind before you started coming to Swingin' Sundays? Maybe you imagined a scene out of the movie "Grease," complete with poodle skirts, wild dips and turns, and aerials. And to the average non-dancer, thinking of swing dancing that way probably isn't hurting anything. It's not accurate, but it's not hurting anything.
John Travolta Owns the Dance Floor
But the truth is that in the golden age of swing, it the dance looked like this:
Savoy Ballroom
Like break-dancing and hip-hop, swing dancing was born in the streets. In Harlem, NY, in the 1920s, jazz music drove the evolution of an unprecedented cooperation between musicians and dancers. They would play off one and other, inspiring the innovation that lead to the birth of swing. Dancers made up moves and techniques as they went along, with an open mind and anything-goes attitude that allowed the spontaneity still prevalent in swing dancing today. Dozens of pre-existing dance styles including Charleston, Black Bottom, and Break Away were brought together in this community, and were blended to form the original swing dance style, Lindy Hop. Versatile, inclusive, and intoxicating, Lindy Hop spread from the black dancers of Harlem to their white contemporaries (who called it "Jitterbug") on the dance floor of the Savoy, one of few integrated ballrooms in operation at the time. Before long, American soldiers in World War II would bring Lindy Hop to Europe. From there, it spread all over the world, and is danced today from coast to coast in the US, in Canada and in South America, in Europe, and in Asia. Along with the dance itself, a unique culture traveled with Lindy Hop across the continents and through time. Lindy Hoppers value acceptance, open-mindedness, fun, creativity, and guts. They also worship the music that gave rise to their art; musicality is the ultimate dance skill to acquire. Over the decades, these values have driven the dance to keep growing, to expand and diversify, becoming as expressive as any spoken language, perhaps even more so. Every week of the year, Lindy Hop events take place around the globe where dancers come together to take lessons, perform compete, and most of all socially dance with each other. As swing dancing gained exposure and popularity in the 1940s, Arthur Murray expanded his ballroom dance school's repertoire to represent something similar to Lindy Hop. It was a simplified, more controlled version of the dance based in 6-count timing. It was called East Coast Swing, and it grew popular among ballroom dancers who were accustomed to more structured, rule-governed dances. East Coast Swing has also endured through the years, although its foundational principles of simplicity and structure have kept it from evolving into a more versatile style. Today, it can often be found on the dance floor of country music bars, and there are some national ballroom competitions with an East Coast Swing division. However, East Coast Swing has not incited the birth of a culture the way Lindy Hop did. If you do a simple YouTube Search for East Coast Swing, you will find more 1-3 minute videos of short lessons for beginners than actual dance footage. If you refine the search in order to find something at a competitive level, say by adding the word "Championships," you can find a few examples of recent East Coast Swing routines. Here's one:
If you search, instead, for Lindy Hop, you find this, the dance as it was done in the 1940s:
And this, the dance as it continues to grow today:
To the Wichita Swing Dance Society, East Coast Swing is a great way to teach a brand-new dancer how to swing in half an hour or less. That's probably why so many instructional videos are online for this style. East Coast Swing is just enough to give you the fever, to spark your curiosity about swing dancing. To paraphrase a prominent WSDS board member, it's like a toddler's toy xylophone. But East Coast Swing isn't the heart of swing dancing. It never broke down the race barrier and it didn't take the planet by storm. You can no more become a seasoned swing dancer on an exclusive diet of East Coast Swing than Beethoven could have composed on something manufactured by Fischer Price. If you've never danced before, or if you don't care for dancing and you just need enough information to make it through a song with your date, East Coast is an adequate solution. But if you've tried our drop-in class and you're ready for more, or if you've seen swing dancing at its best and you want a taste, try some Lindy Hop. A joyous, welcoming community awaits you. | | | | | | | The WSDS kicks off every month with Dance Card Sunday. Anyone in attendance is invited to pick up a dance card at the front desk and give it to their partners to sign after each dance. When the card is full, it can be returned to the front desk, where it gets entered into a drawing! A handful of lucky winners will receive prizes later in the evening. Pick up your dance card this Sunday, enter to win cool stuff, and use it as an excuse to ask lots of new partners to dance! Steals and Deals: | | WSDS members get discounted prices for monthly classes and admission. Check out our website for details! | | More Swing Dancing in Wichita: | Want more swing dancing in your life? The Lindy Bombers meet every Monday night for a lesson at 7:30pm. Head to their website for details! | Video of the Week: | This is a 35 minute documentary about the early years of swing dancing, the Savoy ballroom, and some of the pioneers of swing. If you have the time, I really recommend watching this video. It's entertaining and informative. | Editor's Note: | See this week's main article, "Why We Love Lindy Hop." I'll be back with the Editor's Note next week! Got thoughts? Email me. Chelsea Rothschild
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