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.