Swing dance is an energetic upbeat partner dance. Swing dancing involves the lead dancer to lifts, spins, and flip his or her partner. Dancer partners hold hands as opposed to placing hands on the shoulders or around the waist. Swing allows dancers to improvise, express themselves, and add their own touches. Swing dancing is a social dance that is fun, exciting and demanding.
Swing dancing started in the 1920s and 30s in the USA. It includes a variety of styles, the best dances are Lindy Hop, East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, Jitterbug, Jive, and Booge-woogie.
Swing music may include styles such as jazz, hip-hop, blues, rock-n-roll, ragtime, R&B, funk, and pop.
Swing dancing involves coordinating the hands, feet and trunk simultaneously. It requires co-ordination with the dance partner, timing and movement to the beat.
Being a Swing dance beginner is hard work, and requires persistence to become a competent Swing dancer.
Learning to Swing involves nonverbal communication - beginners learn how hand to hand, hand to back, communicating their position and the next dance move. This all takes time, and that requires commitment. The main thing is that Swing attracts a social crowd all willing to encourage beginners to get into the Swing.
Swing is a term for a group of dances rather than one dance. They evolved out of the jazz and big band era with Swing dancing becoming popular in the UK during the Second World War. Swing dances include:
Find a Swing class Near Me by using the local class search & use the filters to find classes in your area.
For Lindy Hop and Jitterbug, use Swing as the search term. This will display dance clubs and dance schools that offer the various forms of Swing dancing classes. If you can’t find Jitterbug in your search, look for schools and teachers offering Lindy Hop.
We have a range of Jive dance clubs and dance instructors who specialise Jive dancing instruction.
You can also learn to dance Ballroom Jive which is a more stylised form of Jive dancing. Choose Latin Ballroom in the search to find teachers who offer this form of instruction.
