The Power of Transformation

A hot recent topic on iLindy’s Instagram was this post where Gabriela asks “Do we want to keep promoting the story of "Lindy Hop is for everyone", or do we want to establish clear values that we expect from people who want to be a part of our community?” It’s worth reading, listening to and sharing. Here are are thoughts originally shared as a comment on this post:

We're of the opinion that since Black social dances are transformative when taught acknowledging their roots, history, theirstories, kinetic/social/community values, everyone can be initially welcome (there are exceptions). Since this isn't necessarily centering whiteness, white supremacy, patriarchical, hierarchical values, people will learn to likely self-select out though they may experience transformation.

You Drive, I Navigate?

Ever since I was introduced in 2010-ish to Brandi Guild’s concept of the follower as the driver, leader as the GPS unit, I’ve been utilizing that analogy when talking about dance roles. It’s more reflective of the interpersonal dynamics that happen on the dance floor and those dance values shared by Lindy Hop’s Black creators, past, present and future.

Recently, I had the opportunity to embody those values during a one-on-one software training session. My default would have been to show with the expectation they’d take notes, mental or written, and then see if they could duplicate my efforts but instead of I offered if they’d be willing to drive with my navigation. It went rather well with both of us having a bit of a struggle at times, me making sure I was communicating my IRL practice and her experiencing trial-and-error. Much like a dance, either person’s initiation can land us in a new place but we adapt and attune.

What's Your Worth

20+ years ago I was in the green room pre or post-performance where I learned the owner of the studio I was working for was earning $400 for each of us for a 3-minute performance alongside a big band at a dinner where the KC Chiefs cheerleaders were also making an appearance. It was a classy affair where us swing dance performers saw $0 of that income. Why? Because we had a verbal understanding that, in exchange for performing across metro Kansas City, we’d receive free training at our weekly practices and had access to all the group classes the studio offered. It took me a few years to realize the math wasn’t mathing and I was being taken advantage of in a way.

This is where it gets murky. I loved performing swing dancing and thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of performing in front of people. I still do but I make sure I and others get paid or make sure there is meaningful value being exchanged and everyone knows the terms & conditions before providing consent - “yes, I will accept.” Back then I’d likely do those performances for free for the feels and “the glory” but I wish I was taught the value of those services being offered. It made me easy to exploit later on and I falsely assumed that others would do the same - work and train for free.

• A few years back I met with a newer local DJ to discuss rates because a national event was offering them $12/hour to DJ. This person was viewing this offer as experience, practice and paying of dues. We delved into this and reframed their offer as exploitative and undervalueing their work.

• An event producer demanded I make an appearance on a television show to promote an upcoming event I wasn’t part of. It was uncompensated and would take me away from my compensated work. When I discussed declining, they threatened to hire someone else for an upcoming gig I was already hired for and working on so I dissolved that contract and walked away. They exploited my replacements with lower pay than my original quote sourced from performers in LA and NYC.

• A year ago I’m informed that a venue changed their band compensation to be $100/person instead of a fixed flat rate where a band could show up with the right amount of people for more fair compensation. $100/person is the rate I was encouraged to pay on a Wednesday night back in 2014 and that’s increased to a minimum of $125/person and I decreased my typical show from 3 hours to 2 due to musician feedback.

• An Aussie event hired me to DJ in 2012 for $25/hr for a 90 minute set. 48 hours before I was to DJ they informed me I’d have to pay the $35 admittance fee for the dance I was DJing. I quit.

• A Melbourne event whose DJ coordinator was Sam Carroll told me I was going to be paid $30/hour to DJ the band breaks and, since I was expected to contrast the music of the band, the expectation would be that I’d be working while the band was playing and would be compensated for my time listening to the band and the band breaks. She also gave me the band’s set list. Sam’s a badass.

DJs

• In 2006-2008 or so, I was being compensated $20/hour to DJ the Mercury Cafe when slots were highly competitive. Swingin’ Denver rates in 2017-2019 were a sliding scale of $20-50/hour depending if you were a newbie in training versus big events hire you.

• Based off polling in an international swing dance organizers group, those numbers are average with college scenes compensating less

Local Classes

• We were compensating $40-50/75 min classes which is line with our national peers.

Private Lessons

• These vary city-by-city based off your experience and if you’re folding studio rental in your cost and how you’re feeling about that fold. In Madrid, I was charging 40 Euro while the going rate in Zurich was 100 Swing Francs.

• In Denver, I charge between $75-100 + studio rental but your value is your own. If you need to charge a certain amount to make it worth your time or you want to peg it to a certain value based off research/peers in other dance disciplines, do it. Don’t let the value I associate with myself, my other work, my lifestyle determine your worth.

Workshops

• I started at $100/hour but am now at $150/hour. It could be higher based off peers in the space but the number will fluctuate within the state of Colorado for accessibility and the importance of the work dependent on the space. I find it’s important to have transparent conversations about your value and if you’re offering discounts for a specific reason.

Class Pricing

• Back in 2015 or so, I sat down with a long-time Denver swing dancer who asked me why I was devaluing my offerings. I specifically chose to be competitive with the pricing at the Mercury Cafe but she asked to tell her what other dance and movement classes were charges and if I thought I was offering similar or greater value. The answer was “yes” and we increased our pricing while offering student and accessible pricing over the years.

• Lindy Hop and other social dances that emerged from Black American spaces where white people like myself commodified them seem to have devalued pricing compared to other African diasporic dances such as Salsa, Bachata, Zouk. Another example is where African diasporic dances retain the names their creators gave them (for the most part and there are conversations within the Zouk communities) but Black American dances like Lindy Hop might be renamed to Jitterbug to invisibilize their Blackness. I’m unsure what conclusions to draw but this has been on my mind.

Hopefully this information helps someone providing their talent to the swing music and dance community in the future. Your contributions are valuable and you deserve to work with non-exploitative people and organizations.

I Do The Lead Role and I Feel Boring

We saw an excellent question appear on the r/swingdancing subreddit today and we think it’s worth chatting about. First, these types of questions appear a lot - I do such-and-such role and I feel boring or I feel that I’m not entertaining enough for my partners. We get it, we’ve been there, we’ve received help over the years so let’s talk about what kind of “games” you can add to your lead role (or even follow role) repertoire:

1. switch hand combinations. Most passbys and swingouts start into L2R from the leader's perspective. Why not do it L2L, R2R, R2L, crossed hands, etc? We received this one from Jeanne DeGeyter in Tulsa when she was providing West Coast Swing coaching to me. It really opened up my mind when she sat me in front of competition video tape and went “passby, tuck turn, passby, whip, sugar tuck - labeling what I thought were fancy patterns to their most basic elements. It’s amazing how much you can dress up a pattern by choosing a different connection.

2. Play with the rotation. A swingout normally goes clockwise. What about anti-clockwise? What about over-rotated? What about under-rotated? What if everything you did circled clockwise? Subvert expectations of what is "prescribed as best practices." Peter Strom once had us a play a game of constantly circling clockwise no matter what patterns we were initiating. Tremendous fun!

3. Before the follower gets a turn you have to insert one of your own. Or after. Maybe you do two! My wife got tired of me expressing my dance through turns so she’s introduced the “every time I turn, you turn twice” to reduce that practice on the social floor.

4. Random (insert jazz step): big kick, kick ball change, switches. Just try it.

5. Make a sound: slap, clap, snap, tap are all ideas. Classic from Casey Koroshec and Michael Faltesek. Let’s make some noise together!

6. Repeat a rhythm: the double kick in side-by-side charleston, the walk walk in a circle, two turns for your standard tuck turn, multiple switches/suzy Q's. Again, we often fall into these prescribed rhythm patterns where we execute the start and finish within the counts we learned. Keep repeating and see where you end up.

Hope this helps and happy dancing!

Lindy Hop Isn't For Everyone

“Lindy Hop isn't for everyone." Someone said this last summer and it's been living rent-free in my head since then. As a complicated truth giving rise to uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, it takes time to unpack, to be clarified, to be understood. This post from Niké Aurea, M.Ed Community Consultant, is helping distill my thoughts.

We discovered Niké fairly recently thanks to Instagram’s algorithm recognizing our research into community and what that word means. The Guilty Feminist shared on social media - “We loved this reminder from @seastersjones: true community isn’t about how often we gather — it’s about how deeply we care. Community requires commitment, accountability, and support. Without those, it’s just regular socialising. At The Guilty Feminist, we believe in building spaces where care is a practice, not a performance.” And elsewhere - “People often mistake socializing regularly for community. If there's no commitment for care, there's no community, no matter how fun the socializing is.”

Sometimes it seems that community is used much like inclusion - to maximally welcome people but oftentimes that inherently favors white, cis, het folks who centered their stories in the midst of the so-called “swing revival” in the 1980s/90s which reverberates today and de-centered Black, queer and other marginalized voices. We find these power dynamics still at play when folks use jitterbug/east coast swing to denote Lindy Hop, use language devaluing the role of following and individuals bringing their own unique expression to dances, and use coded language to denote Blackness while avoiding giving explicit ownership to Black creators for these swing-era traditions. As Niké states in another post, “Some folks genuinely feel comfortable having communities that are primarily white because it feels easier.”

Lindy Hop isn’t for everyone. To quote loudmouthbynature, “What a lot of white liberals don’t seem to understand is that Lindy Hop was an act of resistance against racism. It was a pathway to Black liberation.” So when we dance and teach Lindy Hop, are we resisting racism and white supremacy, and working toward Black liberation?

Kaitlin B. Curtice writes in Living Resistance, “I/you are always arriving” which pairs well with Barrett Holmes Pitner’s, “existence isn’t static.” You/I/we can change. Over the years we’ve changed and still will. It’s active work and one place this works shows up is in our Values and Responsibilities document which helps attune us with potential partners and collaborators.

A cornerstone to our guiding philosophy is the concept of being a cultural surrogate or tradition bearer, as coined by Black dancer, LaTasha Barnes. For us, this means treating Lindy Hop and other traditional swing-era dances as living dances, acknowledging their Black creators, naming what we teach by the names given by Black tradition-bearers, and being a proponent of Black dance tradition values - social, dance, kinetic. These values are reflected in making African-American rhythms visible on the dance floor, promoting equity on and off the dance floor, and sharing traditional jazz dance and social values. We acknowledge that others might enjoy keeping swing simple, light and fun. However, this approach tends to diminish BIPOC voices and experiences while ignoring the multi-faceted nature of Black dances and the realities Black people face. By holding each other accountable and aspiring to be comfortable with uncomfortable truths, we hope to make the swing community a better and more welcoming place for everyone.

Going to Harold Pener's

When I was a newer swing dancer dancing in Overland Park, KS, Randy, a scene regular, told me I needed to go to the pimp store for new dance duds. As he or another male dancer told me (memory fades after 20+ years), every swing dancer needed a pimp store. It’s where you get your zoot suit, flashy ties, snazzy suspenders and sweet shoes.

And Harold Pener’s was the go-to spot in Kansas City for the white jitterbuggers hopping on the neo-swing craze. Harold Pener’s was also the go-to destination for Black men wanting to look their best for church, Kansas City Two-Step parties and other functions important in their lives. So not only was I engaging in appropriating a Black dance form, Lindy Hop, I was costuming myself in Black culture’s clothing while engaging in derogatory terms for fashionable Black men.

It’s interesting when the present (see above) can elicit memories that cause you to analyze your previous choices. Some of the reasons for my choices then was peer pressure, desiring to fit in and having a lack of curiosity so I cosplayed Blackness. In reality, I was participating in something that was meant to be punk that became “small c conservative” according to this podcast hosted by Slate.

And you see the conservatism play out when swing school organizers choose teaching east coast swing, jitterbug or swing because, as they explain, that’s what the audience is most familiar with and it’s more inclusive this way. Dr. Thomas DeFrantz said it a talk for CVFC '- “Dance is technology transforming dehumanization into joy but Black people can’t hold the patent.” It’s about time swing dance school organizers honor Black culture rather than stripping cultural meaning from their creations.

Al Minns Interview with Johnny Carson

The stories we tell about Lindy Hop's history and passage through time is wildly important. Listen to Al Minns as he recounts an interview with Johnny Carson where he says how he (Johnny Carson) is amazed how jazz dancing had somehow or another been obliterated from the American scene. He said it's the only time in history that he knew where a country stamped out its own art form. And yet Black people still showed us what living resistance and resilience look like when they keep nurturing Lindy Hop.

Celebrating You

Parker (kweenwerk) shared a reel today that bears listening to and reading the description. She starts off by talking about us living in a world where we’re told if we want to belong we have to disappear, meaning you need to take the things that make you unique and hide them away. However, keeping our culture, community and lived experience is so important as Parker reminds us.

She also reminded us of an interview with second-generation Lindy Hopper, Al Minns, speaking to the uniqueness of a jazz or swing dancer. You have no way of making a comparison because each person is unique. He’s also spoken, though we can’t find it at the moment, about how you could look out at The Savoy and see hundreds of different styles being danced.

In contrast, I used to teach there was one way to do a swingout for beginners because that is how I was taught to teach it. I can only imagine my co-teachers and mentors were modeling after their own mentors this notion there is a singular way to do a swingout along with other jazz steps and movements. Just as I was being pigeonholed into a singular expression not necessarily representative of me, so too would I model this learned practice on my own students.

Paolo Freire talks about this in Pedagogy of the Oppressed where he outlines steps for the oppressed to become fully liberated rather than repeating the oppressive cycle. This takes critical reflection so as not to mimic the witnessed power dynamics. So are we liberating people when we teach them or are we repeating dynamics not of the originating Black culture?

Politics Belong On The Dance Floor

FD Signifier on YouTube recently talked about folks flattening complex issues which led us digging into this subject matter and discovering this article, When Political Unity Becomes the Goal, Our Democracy Suffers, by Robert B. Talisse. What Robert writes about reminds me how some people’s concerns and issues get swept aside within the swing dance community because they challenge the image of a unified happy place. Black Lives Matter, women self-reporting predators, swing schools not wanting to discuss their cultural appropriation - all topics that have been labeled politics so oftentimes organizers can avoid dealing with complex issues and a visible happiness/unity can be preserved. But under all the “Home of Happy Feet” talk lies turmoil.

A relevant excerpt from Robert’s article is:

“However, as I document in my forthcoming book ‘Sustaining Democracy,’ when groups adopt fidelity to group cohesion as necessary for authentic membership, they begin to splinter. As groups ‘circle the wagons,’ they become increasingly invested in maintaining the border between those within the circle and those outside. This often takes the form of policing their ranks for poseurs. The goal of partisan unity hence transforms into a demand for doctrinal conformity. Purity and loyalty to the group itself take center stage within the group. Consequently, those who deviate from the dominant conception of the group’s core are disciplined, stifled or expelled.”

There’s quite a bit of chatter these days within the swing community espousing this notion of unity but it appears quite performative and naive. Unity isn’t just showing up. Unity is about addressing deficits and critiques so that unity is a byproduct of the work put into address complex issues. As we once wrote to someone who asked - “how do we help Denver be better as a whole?”

“As to how we help Denver be better? My answer is by holding people accountable, demanding demonstrable proof of growth, respecting people's time and talents, making room for difficult conversations, and sometimes choosing better people and organizations to devote personal energy toward.“