From Swing and Hip Hop to Tango!

When I was in elementary school, I remember watching some older kids dancing while holding hands, spinning and laughing to music blasting from record player spinning a 45- inch vinyl record. I wanted to do what they were doing but it would be twenty five years before I would discover the name of that dance!

Growing up, I loved music and constantly listened to my mom’s classical music like Edward Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King. She also played lots of Strauss music especially the Strauss Viennese waltzes, which is what my mother and family danced in their youth.

Then one day, in the early sixties, I saw something on the television that swept me off my feet, Chubby Checker’s “Twist.” Pretty soon it was all the rage across the nation. I decided I had to be an expert at dancing the twist, so I practiced and learned how to twist on one leg or squatting all the way to the floor and while doing back bends. I became the life of my parent’s dinner parties when they invited me out to dance for their guests.

Dancing became my passion and has stayed with me since those early years. Also, I’m certain that dancing changed my life by contributing to my health and happiness through the sheer joy it has given me. I danced often while in High School and taught other girls to dance in my living room. During college, I entered local nightclub dance contests and won prizes, gifts and some extra cash. My favorite music was the fabulous Motown artists and songs. But during these years all the dancing was solo dancing, without holding hands or dancing together. Most people didn’t even look at each other.

Years later while working as a teacher’s assistant in a Junior High art class, the teacher I worked with asked me, “Why don’t you teach dancing since you love to teaching and dancing?” Later that week, I stopped by a neighborhood dance studio and jumped into a dance lesson. I thoroughly enjoyed it but didn’t return until my mom asked me where she could take Tango dance lessons. I mentioned the place that I had taken the dance lesson. It was called “Terry Clark’s Social Dance Studio.” My mom asked me to go to a dance party with her because she didn’t want to go alone. I went. Later that evening, Terry Clark asked me if I wanted to teach dancing at his dance studio. I thought about it and told him I thought it would be a fun job while I was in college. I started teaching dance there late in 1976. I was the only Free Style (Hip Hop) teacher there, so I taught a lot of people how to dance solo while I trained in social partner dancing.

Shortly after I started teaching dance lessons, I was introduced to swing dancing . First, I learned the East Coast swing and immediately recognized it as the dance those older kids were doing all those years ago. I was so thrilled to finally learn swing dancing! Later, I learned the West Coast swing. I fell in love with the West Coast swing dancing in 1977. I have danced West Coast swing pretty much continuously since those early years. It still holds a special place in my heart.

In the early sixties, our culture changed from people dancing together, holding hands and at times pressing up close to each other to people dancing apart and hardly looking at each other for about two decades until the movie Saturday Night Fever brought social and competitive partner dancing back into the lime light. Social partner dancing has been popular ever since. The popular form of dancing shifts from time to time like the Hustle fad shifted to Salsa dancing in the early 80’s then Country Western dancing in the early 90’s with the popularity of Country music. The nineties brought back swing with the neo swing bands and Hustle had a resurgence with the contemporary soul and Hip Hop of the nineties and early two thousands. And Tango resurfaced with the traveling Tango show, Forever Tango, in the eighties. Finally, competition dancing has really fueled West Coast swing, Lindy Hop and Ballroom dancing across the globe with television hits like Dancing with the Stars.

I’m happy that I’ve lived during a period in our culture when people danced close together, holding hands while looking at each other to fabulous genres of music like R&B, Blues, Soul, Funk and Pop. I guess the question now is, “Am I ready to dance even closer ala Argentine Tango?” 

Stay tuned for more at: http://www.pwdancetime.blogspot.com/ or http://www.dancetime.com/

About the Author

Pattie Wells hails from San Diego, California where she writes article and video blogs for her world dance resource website at DanceTime.com. Also, Pattie is working on several writing projects including her new website at PattieWells.com, a novel in linked stories and a poetry manuscript titled Fire In Rain.  In addition, she continues to teach a limited number of private dance lessons in San Diego including dance lessons for weddings.

Dancing from Mambo to Hustle and Salsa!

Social partner dancing can be divided into at least three categories: social dance, performance and competition dancing. Here I will focus on several social dances and their relationship to each other and how they have evolved. This is a quick fly by of Mambo to Salsa through Swing, Cha Cha and Hustle and a discussion on how these dances are all related.

 I believe it is important to understand the way most dance styles evolve organically and syncretically, blending several dance styles and music from different influences over time. In order to trace Salsa dance history, we have to travel through Mambo, Swing, Cha Cha and Hustle.

Mambo is a mix of Afro-Caribbean and Latin American musical rhythms thought to have originated in the early 1940’s. The dance is often attributed to Perez Prado in 1943 playing at La Tropicana in Havana, Cuba. Afro-Cuban and American jazz influenced the development of the dance genre. In the 1990’s, Eddie Torres in New York launched a campaign to bring back the Mambo. The original Mambo dance that breaks on the two beat evolved to Salsa in the 1970’s. Some people think of it as the next generation Mambo.

I danced Mambo regularly in the mid to late 70’s before the Salsa spread to Southern California. It was very popular in dance studios and among dancers that enjoyed dancing to Latin music. I was lucky to be able to dance Mambo with Latin dancers who learned it in the height of its popularity. Among the dancers, there was a joke that Cha Cha evolved for those who could not dance as fast as most popular Mambos. There may be some truth to this but I believe that popular music changed, becoming slower and incorporated a triple rhythm from swing thus creating a perfect environment for the Cha Cha dance to evolve.

Cha Cha became popular in the early 1950’s and was sometimes referred to as the Triple Mambo due because it uses a triple rhythm like swing. Cha Cha can be danced to many different types of music including Cuban, Latin Pop, Latin Rock and contemporary pop. It is believed to have roots in the religious ritual dances of the West Indies. In 1952, it was brought to England and became Ballroom Cha Cha and eventually International Latin Cha Cha. Like Mambo, Cha Cha uses a staccato movement and the break step is on count two. Its popularity has continued into the new millennium. Today it is danced as an American Ballroom dance, a Latin dance and even included in venues that do mostly swing or hustle dancing.

The Hustle dance Hustle started in the 1970’s as a blend of Latin and Swing dance styles mixed to Disco music. Disco music has a rhythm that is more like a thump-thump while other dance genres use a tick tock type rhythm. Of course, there was the early song by Van McCoy titled “The Hustle” recorded in 1975, which led to a widely popular line dance of the same name. The partner dance that became known as the Hustle had earlier incarnations like Latin Hustle, Disco Swing, Rope Hustle, Tango Hustle, Street Hustle then later L.A. Hustle and New York Hustle, both are still danced today. There are styling differences between the N.Y. Hustle and the L.A. Hustle but both incorporate the original 6-count rhythm and the ball flat footwork of the Mambo. The N.Y. Hustle has maintained more of the original Latin styling. American Smooth and Rhythm dancing and West Coast Swing have influenced the L.A. Hustle, so it incorporates a smoother, flowing form of the dance genre.

Finally, we arrive at Salsa dancing, which is a truly syncretic dance form with influences from Mambo, Cha Cha, Swing and Hustle. It’s a true blend of Latin American and European cultural influences like Danzon and Mambo. Styles of Salsa vary from Cuba, New York, Los Angeles, Columbia and Miami. In most of its forms it uses Cuban hip movement but some styles use a slot like Los Angeles style Salsa and others use a more circular motion like the Cuban style. It comes from older traditions in the 1920’s of Afro-Cuban Rumba and Son dancing. L.A. style Salsa generally breaks on count one, whereas, New York breaks on count two like Mambo. Salsa dancing today continues to evolve and incorporate movements from all the other dance genres and remains unique by region of the Americas where it is danced. Salsa's popularity has mushroomed across the globe. Today it is danced all over the world!

There is much left to say about Latin dancing from Mambo to Salsa and beyond. In recent times other Latin dances have thrived like Merengue and Bachata. Look for upcoming articles on these fantastic dances!

~The Dancetime Center is proud to have been one of San Diego's premier dance centers from 1998 to 2013!

More dance info at DanceTime.com!

About the Author

Pattie Wells hails from San Diego, California where she writes article and video blogs for her world dance resource website at DanceTime.com. Also, Pattie is working on several writing projects including her new website at PattieWells.com, a novel in linked stories and a poetry manuscript titled Fire In Rain.  In addition, she continues to teach a limited number of private dance lessons in San Diego including dance lessons for weddings.

Ballroom, Partner or Social Dance?

I am often reminded that not everyone eats, drinks and breathes dancing like I have since age nine. One day while hanging out around the front desk at The Dancetime Center someone asked me, “What is this type of dancing called?” One would think that after three decades of teaching dance classes to tens of thousands of people, I would have a quick standard answer, but I didn’t, so I began mumbling things like social dancing, social ballroom dancing, partner dancing and realized that each of these seem to be part of the answer but not the whole answer.

Social dance isn’t quite right because it includes square dance, round dance and line dance and I don’t do these much although I do secretly like line dancing. It has been called Ballroom dancing for years but somehow in the 21^st century it doesn’t seem to include all the dances we do like Zydeco or Blues dancing. So I have concluded that it might be close to correct to call it “social partner dancing,” so that it can include Country Western dancing, some folk dances like Polka and Argentine Tango.

Here are a few ways to look at the classifications of Social Partner Dance and by the way, hip hop, is a social non-partner dance, which is also taught in many dance centers.

The classic Ballroom dances Ballroom dancing, which are classified by organizations like DVIDA and include certain dances because they are done competitively, are divided into two main categories of American style and International style. Generally, we dance American style in the United States as a social dance and it is also included at competitions under two sub-categories: American Smooth includes Waltz, Foxtrot, Tango and Viennese Waltz and American Rhythm includes Rumba, Cha Cha, Mambo, Bolero and East Coast Swing. Some of us still do an American Samba as well.

International style is danced at competitions and taught instead of American style in Europe and Asia. It includes Latin dance genres like Cha Cha, Rumba, Samba and Paso Doble. International Standard dances include Waltz, Foxtrot, Tango Viennese Waltz and Quickstep.

In recent years, the club dances have become very popular and include dances like Hustle dance, Night Club Two Step, Salsa, Merengue, Bachata and Swango but also could include the swing dances like East & West Coast Swing, Lindy Hop, BalSwing and Charleston.

I like to think of the swing dances in their own category including  East Coast Swing, Jitterbug, Lindy Hop, Baboa, Charleston, Collegiate Shag, Carolina Shag, West Coast Swing and Swango. Although Swango could just as easily be put into a group which might be labeled Fusion dances where you incorporate two different dances into one song.

The Country Western dances seem to rise and fall in popularity every decade or so and includes the Country Western Two Step, Waltz, Cha Cha, Night Club Two Step and Polka but there is the very enjoyable Cowboy Cha Cha, which is kind of a partner and line dance mixed together.

Folk dancers also sometimes partner dance in the Polka and Viennese Waltz.

Cajun dancing is done to New Orleans Cajun and Zydeco style music, which includes the Cajun Jig, Zydeco and Cajun Waltzes.

Blues Dancing is a slow dance done to Blues music if you’re not West Coast swinging!

Tango has at least three different styles: Argentine Tango, American Tango and International Tango.

This sums up my short discussion on the social partner dances or does partner social dance sound better? And some ideas as  how they might be categorized. When I first started dancing, there was an American Smoothe dance that I never learned and seems to have disappeared called the Peabody. I seldom meet people who know or dance it and it seems near extinction. Maybe someone should start a Peabody Society to resurrect the dance?

Hopefully, this sheds some light on what we do at the Pattie Wells’ Dancetime Center. Interestingly, we teach lessons, group dance classes in most of these dance genres. The ones not offered in a group dance class are taught in individual private dance lessons or we have an instructors who can teach all of the dances in this blog with the exception of Peabody!

Also, be cautious about the terms "I swing" or "I'm a swinger," or referring to yourself or anyone else as a swinger since this term refers to something other than dancing and is usually done among couples in private settings. Certainly, we don't offer this at my dance center (wink)! So remember to always use the word “dance” when you mention swing, swing dancing!

The Dancetime Center is proud to offer San Diego's Best Dance Lessons since 1998!

More dance info at: http://www.dancetime.com/

About the Author

Pattie Wells hails from San Diego, California where she writes article and video blogs for her world dance resource website at DanceTime.com. Also, Pattie is working on several writing projects including her new website at PattieWells.com, a novel in linked stories and a poetry manuscript titled Fire In Rain.  In addition, she continues to teach a limited number of private dance lessons in San Diego including dance lessons for weddings.

AIN’T GOT THAT SWING?

Swing dancing evolved in the 1920’s along with the development of a swing style beat of jazz music. One of the earliest forms of swing, Lindy Hop, began in Harlem. A key component of swing dancing is the syncopated timing in swing music that lends itself to a triple rhythm, three steps done in two beats of music, referred to as triple steps. The Lindy Hop branched out and evolved into new forms of swing like Charleston, Shag, Balboa, West Coast Swing, East Coast Swing, Hand Dancing, Jive and Jitterbug as it spread around the country. The names still used today like West Coast Swing referred to the region of the country where the dance was more prevalent. Today these regional distinctions are not as relevant since both Lindy Hop and West Coast Swing have spread around the globe. For instance, there is a thriving Lindy Hop scene in Sweden. More Swing dance information

East Coast Swing evolved as a 6-count form of Lindy Hop with the advent of Big Band music in the 1940’s. Arthur Murray and dance studios across the U.S. further developed and promoted the various forms of swing dance and developed teaching methods and syllabi for educating dancers. East Coast swing works for many genres of music including jazz, blues, pop, rockabilly, big band and 90’s neo swing. It is generally danced in a circular motion and patterns often end with a breaking action rock step. The term Jitterbug is often used to mean a single rhythm form of East Coast Swing although some use it solely to mean a person who dances the swing. The East Coast Swing uses three different rhythm units: singles, delayed singles and triples depending on the tempo of music.


West Coast Swing evolved from Lindy Hop in the 50’s with a distinctive style of its own. It is danced in a slot, the distance between partners holding hands with arms relaxed where the follow moves back and forth in the slot and the lead steps off the slot as the follow passes. West Coast Swing is danced to a variety of medium tempo music like Jazz, Blues, R&B, Honky Tonk, Country Western style swing, Funk, Pop, Rock, Ballads and Hip Hop. It has had an incredible resurgence in recent years and has spread to places like France, Australia and Russia. Most U.S. major cities have their own West Coast Swing Clubs and there are West Coast Swing competitions almost every weekend somewhere in the world. West Coast Swing morphed into a very distinctive form in the last five years or so. Some people refer to Lyrical Swing as a subset of West Coast swing that is danced to contemporary pop, rock, ballads or hip-hop music where the sound and content of the lyrics are expressed in the dancing. In competition, routines are often built around musical phrasing in eights, triples are diminished when the dancers are dancing to a pulsing non-triple rhythm.

I find it appealing that I can dance West Coast Swing to blues, soul, hip hop or rock with or without triples in eights or sixes. In the incredible non-verbal dialogue that is partner dancing we can respond to the words, the voice or any of the other instruments in the music! It allows for a wonderful spontaneity in the creative process that is dance.


Oh, one last thing before I sign off. The word “Westie” refers to a person who dances West Coast Swing. I will be posting additional articles on West Coast Swing on the Dancetime website in the near future, as well as developing a page for resources like music, venues, etc.


Thanks for checking out my blog article, Ain’t Got That Swing!

More dance info at: http://www.dancetime.com

About the Author

Pattie Wells hails from San Diego, California where she writes article and video blogs for her world dance resource website at DanceTime.com. Also, Pattie is working on several writing projects including her new website at PattieWells.com, a novel in linked stories and a poetry manuscript titled Fire In Rain.  In addition, she continues to teach a limited number of private dance lessons in San Diego including dance lessons for weddings.