Let's Face The Music & Dance....!
Ever since humans were first capable of walking and breathing, we have danced ourselves into the night for mating, social or pleasure purposes, or all of the above at the same time ! We are all too aware of how bodies move, yet still, we are captivated when we watch people dancing. There is something very hypnotic and inspiring about watching humans move in calculated motion to the backbeat of music, hence the success of dance shows on TV, which captures large audiences.
We Lindyhopped over to chat with Carla & Stuart at "Glasgow Jitterbugs" to get the lowdown on what they do in their dance class studio in Glasgow's Garnethill, not too far from the GFT.
Q: How did you guys get into dancing, becoming professionals then eventually teaching ?
"My husband Stuart and I have always loved traditional jazz-based music from the 1920s-1940s. We were looking for something we could do together that was fun but also good for fitness, so it was a natural step for us to seek out the dance styles that developed at that time alongside that music."
Q: How did it come about for you to teach in Glasgow and start Glasgow Jitterbugs ?
"We had been attending swing dance classes on a very immersed level for 4 years when it felt like we had reached a point in our dancing that indicated we were ready for the next challenge: teaching. At that point, we had been attending a lot of international dance festivals that feature very high-level swing dance teachers that make a living from travelling the globe teaching swing dance. We were also getting private lessons from these teachers in addition to attending advanced level group lessons. In order for our local Glasgow swing dance scene to keep feeling relevant to us, it made sense at that point to share what we were learning - from the best swing dancers out there - with our local dance scene. The Glasgow swing dance scene was experiencing a lot of growth at that point too – so much so that the small venue where we learned could often not fit the amount of people turning up for classes. So we added another Lindy Hop class as well as a Collegiate Shag* class on a different night to try and meet the demand. *Collegiate Shag is another style of swing dance – often referred to as Lindy Hop’s crazy cousin. Glasgow Jitterbugs were the first to offer regular weekly classes in this style in Scotland and the first in the UK to offer an annual international Collegiate Shag Festival, which started in 2016 and takes place in July."
Q: What music do you play at your classes to aid in the Teaching ?
"Traditional jazz music from the late 1920s-the late 1940s is the predominant style of music we play in classes. This can be broken into a few categories: 1). Big Band (think Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller) 2). Featured singers of the time like Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Lunceford, Cab Calloway, Ella Mae Morse, Skeets Tolbert, The Mills Brothers, Slim Gaillard to name a few 3). Jump Blues (think Louis Jordan, Louis Prima, Roy Brown, Big Joe Turner).
Sometimes we do venture into early Rock & Roll and Rockabilly for Collegiate Shag, as the rhythms in those styles of music lend itself very well to that particular dance style, but those styles of music weren’t developed until the early 50s so to use this style of music for any swing dance is not - strictly speaking – traditional, but it does work well. It’s also definitely worth mentioning that there are plenty of (thankfully!) modern swing bands around that play in the style of the early Jazz bands and we also use their music in our classes. Some of our favourites are Awkward Family Portraits (aka Baby Face & the Beltin’ Boys) who play regularly around Glasgow. The Tenement Jazz Band and Ali Affleck, who play mainly around Edinburgh. Rose Room and Old World News are Glasgow-based swing bands that definitely deserve a mention too. We are absolutely delighted that musicians now are keeping this music alive and well".
Q: What age groups attend your classes ?
"One of my favourite things about swing dancing is the wide age ranges it attracts. We’ve had people in our classes from age 18 all the way up into their 70s. To see young and older people finding common ground and dancing with each other is a real joy and I can’t think of many, if any, other pursuits where this happens."
Q; Lockdowns hit hard, what are your plans now for 2022 ?
"Our first classes after lockdowns returned in Oct 2021, albeit we did have to make several adjustments to the normal way we usually do things. Masks were mandatory at all times, we stopped rotating partners, ie people would have to sign up as a partnership, and social dancing was pretty much off the menu. However, we are now seeing restrictions ease, so masks have now become optional, partner rotation is back, and we are planning our first social where partner rotation is allowed on the 24th March.
We hope to see restrictions continue to ease as covid numbers continue to fall. Our International Collegiate Shag Festival will probably not return until July 2023 however, just due to the fact that we need a full year to plan this type of event and we need confidence during planning that we will not be derailed by lockdowns or similar restrictions."
Q: Dancing styles have been kept alive with people like yourselves, but do you think it would all demise if you didn't preserve the styles and teach folk ?
"No, I do not think these dance styles would die if people like ourselves were not teaching classes, and this is really down to the age of the internet and what’s available online now. There is so much content online that if someone really wanted to, they could learn a certain degree of swing dancing from YouTube. To really add credence to my answer however, you need a little swing dance history. From the late 1940s, swing dancing fell out of fashion due to the introduction of an entertainment tax that was based on the number of musicians in a band that were performing at venues in the United States (where swing dance originated). This meant that it was no longer affordable for Big Bands – the predominant music acts of the day that attracted swing dancers – to perform in venues and so that music began to lose popularity, so swing dancing did too.
Then followed a 30-year period where there was pretty much no swing dance classes and no one doing it. Then in the early 1980s (still pre-internet), a few people in Sweden and the UK got a hold of some old recordings of the original swing dancers and transferred those to VHS. They studied and analysed these and started to piece together a structural way to approach and learn swing dance. They even pulled one of the original swing dancers – Frankie Manning – out of retirement in New York and flew him to Sweden where they enlisted his expertise to help with this project. Frankie had actually been working as a postal worker for all these years before retiring, but he was delighted to reconnect with his passion, and he taught all over the world from that point until his death at the age of 94 in 2009. This project that was started in the 80s grew into what we now refer to as the swing dance revival and now the revival has been going on longer than the original period of swing dance.
So back to my original answer – if a few lay people in Sweden and the UK can resurrect swing dancing from old archived film pre-internet and turn it into a global pastime for thousands of people, folk would have no problem learning this today if the internet was all they had. Don’t get me wrong, there are certain invaluable things that can only be gleaned from in-person tuition, but the vast amount of swing dance content online today would be enough to certainly give someone some basics."
Q: Are there any modern dance styles being devised to modern/vintage music etc ?
"Not in terms of complete, totally new, structured dance styles. At least not that I am aware of. What tends to happen is more of an evolution of existing dance styles. For example, if you look at Lindy Hop or Collegiate Shag danced today, while they still retain much the foundations of those styles, there are now certain flourishes and refined techniques that the original swing dancers didn’t use."
Q: Do you run or students partake in any competitions ?
"Yes. Competitions usually happen as part of an international swing dance festival. We run them as part of our Collegiate Shag festival, The Glasgow Shag Festival, in July."
Q: What is it about those early dance styles which captivate people when they watch dancers, its rather hypnotic - were humans born to dance ?
"I believe people were born to dance, yes. Your body needs to move and music is a natural catalyst for that. The thing that I think captivates people when they watch those early swing dancers is the absolute raw energy they brought to the dance, but you have to understand that it’s the jazz music of that time that motivated this. The music came first, then the dancing was an expression of that music. This is why when you try to swing dance to other non-jazz based styles of music, it stops looking like swing dancing. There is something very unique about the syncopated rhythm of early jazz music that informs a very specific type of movement that became swing dancing."
Q: What reasons do people come to the classes, for health, mental well being, joy etc ?
"Everyone has different dance goals. Some people come for the social aspect as you get to meet a lot of new people, attend a lot of fun events and this can become a big part of your life. Some come for fitness, which positively effects mental health as well. Some people desire to become as proficient as they can so they can teach and perform. And yes, it is an absolute feeling of joy you get when you have a great dance with someone, and you are both moving together in the same way with no words needing to be spoken because you are enjoying the conversation of dance. In this way, dance is its own language and it’s universal. You can go just about anywhere in the world and connect with the local swing dance scene there – you don’t even have to speak the same language, but you can still have a dance conversation with a total stranger. And that’s beautiful."
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Another aspect of the history of modern dance, as with music (R&B/Rock & Roll, Blues, Soul etc), is that they were tangled up in socio-political and racial controversies & issues from the 1920's up to the 1960's/70's and beyond....
Carla elaborates more ...
One thing I would really like to add is how important it is to understand where swing dance styles like Lindy Hop and Collegiate Shag came from. These styles were born in the United States by African Americans during a time in history where they were subjected to horrific racism, much of that brought about by the Jim Crow laws that came into effect in order to maintain segregation and oppression of the African American race. So you had a situation where white people were trying to learn and copy these black dancers, popularising and profiting from it in Hollywood, etc, while at the same time black people were still being lynched in the southern United States. When white people like me dance these styles, we should always respect and recognise this, as well as give credit where credit’s due.
Put the Boom-Boom into your heart and pop along..
