Swing history and culture

The family of swing dances is rooted in a culture and a way of living music that traces back to African folk culture, carried to the United States through the slave trade, above all in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Black music and dance, known today as blues and jazz, emerged around New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, against a backdrop of racial discrimination that we are still fighting to eliminate today.

The search for better living conditions led Black Americans to migrate north, to the big cities. Although African Americans took their art with them to cities all over the country (Kansas City, Chicago…), the liveliest hotspot of all was the Harlem neighbourhood in New York. Ballrooms flourished there in the 1920s and 30s, and people flocked to them to dance and enjoy the music. The most famous of them all was the Savoy Ballroom.

The Savoy had live music every night, battles of the bands were held there, and the best dancers invented new steps to stand out and wow the crowd. One group of dancers shone above the rest: Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, whose surviving footage still leaves us open-mouthed: soundies such as Hot Chocolate (Cottontail, 1941) or Blip Blip (1942), and films such as A Day At The Races (1937), Radio City Revels (1938) and above all Hellzapoppin' (1941).

The dance style that was born in New York to the rhythm of swing was called Lindy Hop. It got its name at a party celebrating the first solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, by Charles Lindbergh, nicknamed “Lindy”: that flight was dubbed “Lindy's hop” — the Lindy Hop.

The Lindy Hop became so popular that it spread beyond New York and across the whole country, with a great deal of help from the cinema. Smooth Lindy appeared in California, along with other swing styles such as Collegiate Shag, Saint Louis Shag and Balboa. This African American art form was gradually adopted by white Americans too.

The golden age of swing faded with the social and economic upheavals of the Second World War. The music market changed and the jazz craze gave way to rock'n'roll, rhythm and blues and boogie woogie.

However, in the 1980s and 90s interest in the Lindy Hop and the dances of the swing era came back to life: the revival had begun. Some researchers tracked down the few Savoy dancers still alive and persuaded them to pass on their knowledge. The most important figures in this transmission were Frankie Manning, Al Minns, Norma Miller and Dawn Hampton, among others. Thanks to them we can get a faithful picture of the true swing aesthetic and culture.

This renewed interest arose at the same time in Sweden, Los Angeles, New York and London, and from there it spread all over the world. Today we enjoy this wonderful African American culture by helping it grow in popularity while always staying true to its roots.

If you'd like to learn more, we recommend these books:

• La Reina del Swing: las memorias de Norma Miller (Queen of Swing) — Norma Miller and Evette Jensen (Ediciones Carena)
• Historia del Jazz (The History of Jazz) — Ted Gioia (Turner Libros)
• Frankie Manning: The Ambassador of Lindy Hop — Frankie Manning and Cynthia R. Millman (Temple University Press)
• Swing Dancing — Tamara Stevens (Greenwood)