Allowing Students Space To Find The Dance

One thing I've learned over the years, and this could be why I gravitate toward or value particular teachers, is to provide space for students to find the dance. From Peter Strom - "Many people come absolutely bereft saying 'please tell me what to do.'" And this is a fine place to be. After all, students are coming to learn, start a new hobby, join a community.

It's the teachers' job to teach culture, movement vocabulary, music appreciation and more, and then step aside. This could take the form of playing whole songs for the students to dance to, providing time for students to workshop ideas, or teach patterns that encourage call-and-response from students.

And then provide encourage, shout praise, give a thumbs up, make eye contact and nod "I see you," bring students up to demo what they've accomplished and/or created, or even dance demo what you saw from students as a way of encouraging greater exploration and then quickly turn the music back on.

As I state in the teacher trainings I lead - Lindy Hop is dynamic, full of choices, and ambiguous at times. You just have to believe your students are capable and project that belief to them, so they can believe it to and become independent dancers dancing as themselves.

Call-and-Response - In The Pocket

Last Friday, I attended a staged reading of Jeff Campbell's new play "In The Pocket: The Ballad of Bobby Trombone.” at The Savoy Denver. This was a collaboration between Emancipation Theater and Theatre Artibus.

One section that stood out was the first time Shane Franklin broke out his tap shoes to involve the audience by rhythmically tap dancing and getting us to respond with “in the pocket.” In the pocket, as you can likely guess from the play’s title, was a recurring theme. Since things can get lost in writing, I’ll say it was very similar to Frankie Manning calling out “uh1, uh2, uh you know what to do” - very rhythmic, timed, leaving space for the response of Shane’s taps’ calls to audience members. Innnn the Pocket.

And that got me thinking. Can we at Swingin’ Denver get our students more audibly involved in a similar way? And could that help them find Lindy Hop’s pocket?

Uh 1 Uh 2
We Know What To Do!

Food for thought

March 2022 Class Playlist

I am ridiculously pleased with the amount of music we played opening night in both our Intermediate and Beginner Lindy Hop classes! 50+ minutes were played and we were maximizing students’ dance time. The same goes for Boulder Swing Dance too!

These are the classes I love to teach and participate in - where it’s movement focused and we can put into practice what we’re learning to music. Anyway, we’re building a Spotify playlist of music below that students are dancing to in class.

Embed Block

Add an embed URL or code. Learn more

Get Out Of The Way Of The Dance

Lindy Hop speaks for itself. It’s wonderfully dynamic, playful and powerful. As Jacqui Malone writes “its hallmarks are improvisation and spontaneity, propulsive rhythm, call-and-response patterns, self-expression, elegance, and control.” A Lindy Hop social dance rarely repeats itself because the partner, the song, and your life experience are rarely the same at that moment in time.

So why do some lindy hop instructors get in the way by trying to share the dance verbally when it’s a physical expression? When teaching, strive to let your dance students experience Lindy Hop through dancing as much as possible, especially dancing to swing music. This is because, as I sit here and reflect on my past dance experiences, there is nothing quite like dancing it out for yourself, dancing through mistakes, and trying to connect to a different partner to a new section of music. Lindy Hop is best experienced kinesthetically.

So let’s dance more and speak less.