Swing Canada - What is West Coast Swing

What is West Coast Swing ?
(a passionate personal account)

West Coast Swing evolved from Lindy during the mid 1940's. It is distinguished from other forms of Swing by its generally smooth leveraged styling and slotted orientation. It has adapted to many major musical trends, including Blues, R & B, Country, Rock n' Roll, Pop, Funk, and Hip Hop. This dance provides the opportunity for both partners to interact at a high level of improvisation and to contribute equally to the dance, challenging their musicality and the very definition of lead and follow. West Coast Swing is known as a dancer's dance.

What is West Coast Swing? A better question is what can West Coast Swing mean to you? West Coast Swing has many definitions, depending on whom you are speaking to. The following version reflects my own biases, research, and interaction with as many people as possible. There are 3 styles of West Coast Swing. Ballroom: Country and Classic (please see Dance Scene article). Country West Coast Swing has a coaster step for the follower, which makes it easy to distinguish from the other two. The follower moves forward on the last count of the pattern. Country has a lot of spins, turns and neck wraps. Ballroom has the most similarities to Classic in that most patterns can be done in both. The lead and follow of Ballroom is translated into Action/Reaction through the use of Leverage and Compression in Classic WCS. This in turn creates a dynamic between the partners that dance aficionados claim is closest to Argentine Tango.

The main reasons for this unique relationship is that with proper technique, the two individuals don’t move as one (as in Ballroom), but create an action that could have a slight delay in the lead (almost like an accordion). With the power created in this dance, it’s possible to harness and channel it in a continuous flow of energy, where each partner can interpret it in their own way. This leads to a 3-way conversation between the dancers and the music.

We learn to "listen" to our partner through a finely tuned connection, and have many choices to respond. We can imitate their footwork or body rhythms, take them as a departure point, or throw in something completely unique and personal. There is no obligation to follow anything other than the basic direction of the lead. However, when we choose to synchronize our centres, high levels of integrated movement can occur with fingertip connection. Of course, most of these concepts exist in other dances as well, most notably Lindy.

So what makes WCS unique? WCS has evolved to maximize the improvisational characteristics of the dance by taking out the bounce, slowing down the tempo and constantly adapting to new musical trends. The dancers have responded by bringing in aspects of other dances, creating a huge vocabulary of syncopations and body rhythms and never being content with "the status quo".

As we look at WCS into the 21st century, we see a significant change from the way it looked a couple of years ago and yet we still incorporate and marvel at some elements that defined it more than 30 years ago. What will the dance look like two years from now? Nobody knows! Get out your surfboard and enjoy the ride!