Swingtime Lausanne

Info

Swingtime Lausanne in an Association that aims to promote swing dances and deliver authentic Lindy hop and solo jazz lessons

Geschichte

Studio Swingtime is a new swing dance school that provides local weekly swing dancing lessons to all abilities and all ages.

About Swing
Swing dancing is a family of american social dances from the early 1900’s, danced to swing music. The key here is that they’re social. It’s all about going out and having fun dancing with others.
To really see what it looks like, check out the videos we’ve posted.
Types of Swing
We dance a few differenct swing dances here in swing club. The short list is Lindy Hop, Charleston, Balboa, Blues.

Lindy Hop
Lindy Hop is often seen as the grandfather of swing dance. It formed in ballrooms in Harlem in the 1930’s. Most notably, the Savoy ballroom. Famous dancers of the time include Frankie Manning, Shorty George, Al Minns, Norma Miller, etc. The story of the name Lindy Hop is that Shorty George got asked what the dance was called, saw a newspaper about Charles Lindbergh “hopping” the atlantic, and he told the reporter it’s the “lindy hop”.
Key aspects of Lindy Hop are it’s playful spirit, relaxed connection, break-away patterns, and integrated rhythms. It can be hard to pin down, since Lindy Hoppers will throw everything they can into the dance, and as long as it fits the style/feeling, it works as lindy hop. An important footwork ppattern is the “triple-step”.
A few other swing Dances like West-Coast Swing, East-Coast Swing, Jive, Boogie-Woogie, all came from Lindy.

Charleston
Charleston actually predates Lindy Hop… It’s not even technically swing. Actually, there’s a style of Charleston that comes later, and is sometimes classified as Lindy Hop, and really is swing. So what are we talking about?
Charleston is the dance of the flappers during the roaring twenties. It’s a carefree, sometimes silly dance that works great for more ragtimey music. Swing dancers usually call this 20’s charleston.
As music changed, and dancers experimented, Charleston started integrating moves from other dances. Most notably, the breakaway or “swingout”. This is how Lindy Hop came about.
This is also where you get 30’s or 40’s Charleston, sometimes called flying lindy. Here, we get lots of kicks and hand-to-hand patterns, and more.
Finally, Charleston is also a solo dance. Both styles mentioned work without partners as well, with 20’s more twisty, and 30’s more kicky.

Balboa
Arising separately of Lindy Hop on the West Coast (there’s an island called Balboa in California. Look it up!). The story behind Balboa is that the dance halls all got too packed with dancers. So, you dance close, take smaller steps, and don’t break away from your partner. Eventually, dancers would experiment with larger patterns like throw-outs, lollis, and crossovers, which we call Bal-Swing. Still, in some ballrooms, these moves would actually be banned, since there was so little room on the floor.

Blues
Blues is a dance swing dancers usually do to slow music. It’s extremely free-form, and if you ask a blues dancer what it is, you’ll probably get a different answer every time. For some of us at the club, we like to focus on the lead-follow, rhythms, and movement style.
Others

There are so many other types of swing, we couldn’t possibly cover them all in our studio for now (i.e. shag (collegiate or carolina), west-coast, east-coast). If you like any of these, please come out and show us what you know!

Swing Music
Swing music came about in the early 1930’s on the heels of ragtime, blues, and other early jazz. The music itself was a huge influence on the dancing, and though it might not sound like it now, swing music was a very rebellious and youthful genre.
Want some tips for good music? Here are a few recommendations. We’ll let you find copies to listen to.
• Bill Bailey — Ella Fitzgerald
• Your Feets Too Big — Fats Waller
And a classic blazin’ fast one:
• Jumpin’ At the Woodside — Count Basie