If
there ever was an underrated pastime, it’s swing dancing. Popular from the
1920s to the 1930s, swing dancing was born out of the smoky underground dance
halls of Boston, New York, and Chicago. Big band jazz bands were the soundtrack
for this particular era of dance, which brought swing dancing enthusiasts of
all nationalities together. Swing dancing was also a major stepping stone in
the birth of jazz dance, which is currently far more well-known than the art of
swing dancing.
Lucy
Falkner is the owner, administrator, instructor, and a performer at Rhythm City
Productions, a Vancouver dance studio devoted to vintage jazz dance. She
teaches the popular jazz dance style of lindy-hop, a partner dance that was
created in Harlem in 1927. Falkner began swing dancing in 1999, and has since traveled
extensively to dance, train, and teach lindy-hop.
“I
was just one of those beginning students in 1997. I went to a drop-in lesson
and was immediately hooked. I kept going and a few years later, I was asked to
teach a class. So I’ve traveled around the world because of dance,” says
Falkner.
Falkner
has taught Charleston, vintage jazz, lindy-hop, and blues all across Canada and
the Pacific Northwest, and at the world-famous Swedish Herräng Dance Camp. In
2000, Falkner spent two months studying African dance in Ghana, and is now
involved in African dance, jazz dance, and tap dance classes back in Vancouver.
Though Falkner has dabbled in other swing dance styles, her first love will
always be lindy-hop.
With
all the new styles of dance today, Falkner still values the style of dance that
she originally learned over newer music or styles of dance, and is thankful to
be able to teach other swing dancing enthusiasts who are willing to learn: “What’s
important to me is fostering more enthusiasm for lindy-hop and have it in
thriving in the Vancouver scene. The more people I have in lessons, the more
people who get to experience swing dancing,” she explains.
What
she sees as even better is the way first-time dancers experience the art of
lindy-hop, and then tend to like it so much that they will gravitate towards
other styles of vintage dance. “People who were students of mainly lindy-hop are
now into other dance styles, and are exploring more than they ever planned to
because they liked the first class they took,” says Falkner. “I still dance
only in the classic vintage range, though,” she adds.
Falkner’s
swing dance classes aren’t the only ones in which students can get exposure to
classic vintage dance in Vancouver. The UBC Swing Kids program on the UBC
campus, for instance, offers lessons, practice sessions, workshops, and group
social dances for everyone in the Vancouver community, not just UBC students.
Swing Kids not only covers the classic lindy-hop style of dance, but also West
Coast Swing, Balboa, and other kinds of swing dance styles.
Though
swing dance made its premiere almost a century ago, that hasn’t stopped it from
regaining popularity, since the 1990s when swing culture experienced a revival.
In a time when both boy bands and grunge swept North America, a more
contemporary style of swing dance called “retro swing” made an appearance and
has been going strong since. The origins of retro swing dance can be credited
to the Los Angeles band Royal Crown Revue, who played an essential role in the
revival of rockabilly and neo-swing music in the 1990s. Beginning their careers
by playing in California clubs, the band popularized swing and ska music in the
underground scene, and eventually went mainstream.
During
the 1990s revival of swing dancing, pop culture was also influenced by the
popular dance style. The 1993 film Swing Kids, which portrayed the
challenges of German youth who loved swing dancing during WWII, was one such
film that helped to promote the dance to a modern age. The 1994 film The
Mask also
attracted attention to modern swing dancing, as it featured scenes that
portrayed modern styles of swing dancing and music. The Mask also featured music by Royal
Crown Revue, which further helped to popularize the genre and create more fans
of swing dance and swing music.
As
music trends change what seems like every other day, Falkner and other swing
dance enthusiasts know that the longevity of classic dance is something to be
treasured as much as possible. And with over 13 years of dancing under her belt,
Falkner believes that it isn’t hard to teach and inspire future swing dancers
to popularize a form of dance that was so well-loved almost 100 years ago.
//Victoria Fawkes, writer
//Graphics by Chris Dedinsky
//Victoria Fawkes, writer
//Graphics by Chris Dedinsky
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