Happy feet. That’s what you get when you dance Swing. Happy face. Happy body. Happy mind.
Once you start there’ll be no stopping. You’ll be totally seduced by this rhythm driven partner dance, an extrovert expression of musicality that is loose - whole of body movement where individual style has few constraints bar feeling the swinging bounce of the beat.
The genre is broad and varied but has its roots in American black communities, emerging in the first decades of the 20th century with the freedoms that the 1920s brought and evolving with jazz and blues music until Jive hit the dance halls mid century with the break through of Rock n Roll.
Swing dance is an umbrella term that describes the various styles such as Balboa, Lindyhop the granddaddy of styles, Jitterbug, Blues dance, West Coast Swing and other contemporised iterations. It had a renaissance in the late 20th century credited to Frankie Manning, a septuagenarian dancer and choreographer who had danced at Harlem’s Savoy ballroom through the heyday of the dance style and who re-emerged and shared his expertise with young dancers and featured choreography in movies such as Malcolm X.
Auckland has a vibrant Swing dance scene that is well established, and regular dance events with live bands happen throughout the city offering dancers the opportunity to impress with their footwork and energy. It is an improvisational form, so no two couples will dance the same steps but everyone will be having fun.
Ponsonby resident Rob Bloom has been dancing Swing for thirty years and was key to the start-up of Swing dance classes in Auckland twenty five years ago. 4 March sees the celebration event marking that anniversary where there will be displays, performance and a live band to get the joint hopping. He administers the Swing Dancing in Auckland Facebook Group which updates followers about dance-possible events all round the city and further afield.
Where there’s jazz music of any description there’s the potential for dance of one form or other – fast or slow - and Swing dancers are not shy to get up and strut their stuff, because who doesn’t love to have fun and smile till your cheeks hurt?.
Bloom says there are now twenty active Swing dance schools in New Zealand compared with sixty across Australia, where he started teaching Swing after learning in London from some of the early rebirthers of the dance form. In those days these early enthusiasts took advantage of the development of VHS technology to view footage in slow motion and teach themselves the high paced steps, turns and throws of the dance masters of the 1930s through the 1950s.
Bloom himself has workshopped with Frankie Manning, who died still tapping his feet at 95 in 2009, so his knowledge is built up from the originals. Like most people who discover Swing dance, Bloom says it’s the music and the connection through it to the dance partner that drew him to Swing and keeps him addicted to the undeniable pure happiness that the dance generates.
So get yourself addicted as 2023 classes resume.
Swing Out Central Ponsonby – 2023 classes begin Thursday 23 February. 7pm beginners; 8.30pm Intermediates at St Stephens Church Hall, Jervois Road. There are also classes in Parnell and Mt Eden. (Cait McLennan Whyte)
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