It’s taken us a while to get to this point, but we’re no longer teaching jitterbug, east coast swing, or swing dance for our quick < 30 minute lessons. Jitterbug is a person, east coast swing is an American rhythm ballroom dance, and swing dance is just a generic umbrella term.
You’ll more than likely find us teaching Lindy Hop, maybe Charleston, or perhaps another style during these 15-30 punchy entertaining lessons. Whatever you’ll see us teaching, we’ll be honoring it with its actual name rather than appropriating or renaming it.
What has helped us get here is -
A. Acknowledging that Lindy Hop is a Black vernacular dance, dancing that makes African-American rhythms on the dance floor. Hallmarks of authentic jazz dance, African-American vernacular and West African dance include community, vocal encouragement, call-and-response, joyousness, groundedness, improvisation, polyrhythms and syncopations (“Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches,” edited by Lindsay Guarino and Wendy Oliver).
B. Accepting that Lindy Hop is comprised of several different rhythms including what we refer to as single-time rhythm or taking a single step in two beats. Oftentimes, you’ll find swing dance instructors calling this rhythm jitterbug or east coast swing, which is likely a holdover from the neo-swing era and the need to mass-market teaching dance, and reserving Lindy Hop to mean triple steps and/or 8-count rhythms. This has just led to confusion.
C. Realizing that learning Lindy Hop is easy, mastering Lindy Hop is difficult. Anyone can learn to Lindy Hop and be instructed in the hallmarks of vernacular dance. Being comfortable embodying these trademarks can be a long journey and that’s okay. As teachers, we should be paying proper homage to the creators of these dance styles we enjoy so much rather than renaming them so as to make these easier for the masses. Besides, students can and will rise to the occasion.
So, yes, those single-time rhythms and patterns you’ll see us teach at Little Man Ice Cream or Aspen Grove - that’s Lindy Hop. The jury is still out on some of those steps (I’m looking at you, pretzel), but at least take a moment to reflect on vernacular dance’s hallmarks. And then we’d like to see more swing dance schools stop calling it Jitterbug (a person) or East Coast Swing, unless you’re teaching the ballroom dance. Cheers!