About Swing Dancing

Swing dancing in general is difficult to define. It can refer to:

• A group of swing era dances done to jazz music of the time — this would include Lindy Hop, Collegiate Shag, St. Louis Shag, and Balboa as well as a few lesser-known styles.
• Any kind of dancing done to swing music — in this case we could add East Coast Swing, as well as the Quick Step and the Fox Trot to the list.
• Any dance directly related to the family of swing dances — which increases our list to include earlier jazz and blues dances such as the Charleston, the Black Bottom, and the Peabody, as well as later descendants such as West Coast Swing, Hand Dancing, Steppin’, Carolina Shag, Boogie-Woogie, Rock ‘n Roll, and the different styles of Jive. Earlier dances such as Charleston were done to styles of Jazz that didn’t include the definitive “swinging” feature of Big Band era jazz, and the later dances adapted existing swing dance styles to newer styles of music.