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Just Say "No!"
Herein lie a few of the reasons why Friends Don't Let Friends Dance Swing; brought to you by the self-appointed Czar of America's War on Swing: the Pseudo-Latino.
Yes. It's a rant. Get over it.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::I suppose it's time to subject my intrepid readers to a first rant, which can be summarized pithily and thusly: swing sucks. I don't care which coast, I don't care what version. Swing sucks. I intend to clarify and defend this statement, natch . . . but before I do, let me say that I owe a large debt to west-coast swing as it is danced at the Omni Hotel here in good ol' DFW. During the month of July (a shaky month for the PL, for personal reasons) I wandered (read: was dragged almost forcibly) into the Omni with Luna, an experienced dancer of C&W and a big fan of West-Coast, on two different occasions. We both sat on the sidelines watching and commenting on the various dancers. My comments were always based upon three non-technical factors (the only commentary of which I was capable); (1) are they dancing musically?, i.e. do their dance-related choices correspond to the music being played? (2) do they have good rhythm? (3) is their movement fluid, natural, and--as a result--sexy? There were a few dancers (all women) who caught our attention on all these points, and the whole exercise--watching, evaluating, and discussing the dancers--reminded me of a long-dormant passion of my own. Yes, I mean Salsa. Duh. So, you see, I owe a debt of gratitude to Swing and to Luna for drag . . . ummm . . . taking me to the Omni.
Bestowal of credit having been successfully accomplished, I reiterate vituperatively: swing sucks. Big swollen 'nads.
In order for me to claim that something is good or bad, I obviously need to provide you with my criteria for evaluating such things. Fine. Here is what I value in life and art and love: sincerity, respect, loyalty, authenticity, honesty, substance, complexity, craftsmanship, curiosity, open-mindedness, intelligence, perseverance. What I despise: dishonesty, duplicity, superficiality, genericism, intolerance, flightiness, stupidity, plagiarism (the opposite of authenticity). These are my criteria. I've had a pretty good time finding these things in art and life (love is a different matter, but hey . . . can't win 'em all).
Now, with that in mind, let's talk about the Ongoing Plague of Suckage known as "Swing." Hopefully it is clear that I don't think Swing dancers are doing something easy, or that they are technically deficient (as dancers. On other levels I'm not certain. *cough*). I am technically deficient. Ability has nothing to do with my Crusade to Not Let Friends Dance Swing. Nope. I'm most emphatically not talking about the dancers, but the dance itself. No. Not even the dance, rather the entire culture that is Swing. Actually, this already gives Swing more credit than it deserves. Swing has no "culture." It is a superficial, regularly recurring fad perpetrated largely by aging, generic, middle-class white folk who wouldn't know passion if it gave them the Mother of All BlowJobs. Swing has no music to call its own, unless you (incorrectly) want to limit it to music of its origins--music that is now 60 - 70 years past its sell-by date (and was pukey, generic whiteboy bullshit even then . . . an already pasty-faced rip-off of authentic musical expression happening elsewhere). It does not grow out of any cultural tradition or experience. It is a fad in the same way as plaid or polka dots. Superficial. Without substance. Generic beyond compare. There is no one in the world dancing Swing who isn't self-consciously a "Dancer," by which I mean that there aren't untrained kids dancing Swing at parties or clubs or anywhere else. No one gives a shit about Swing except for people who have decided to fill their leisure time with bloodless, formal, ballroom dancing. No one. And again: how could they? There is nothing to give a shit about, except for the actual mechanics of the dance. You can't care about the culture as you can for, say, Hip Hop or virtually any Latin genre. . . because there is no such culture. With the exception of an historical interest in long-dead music, you can't be interested in the music for its own sake as you can for, say, Argentine Tango or Cuban Danzon or Dominican Merengue. Even C&W is associated with an evolving musical tradition, fer chrissakes! But not Swing. No.
"[Swing] is not music dependent, (meaning that) IT CAN BE DANCED TO ANY 4/4 time music available. The basic music for West Coast Swing is generally the Blues which, is generally made up of swung eighth's (shuffle rhythm). However many dancers also like dancing to the more up-tempo rhythms of Funk, Disco, Jazz, Soul, Motown, Beach, Techno, Rap, Pop, as well as Country, Big Band Swing, Retro, and even some Latin. As long as they can count it and feel the "swing" or pulse of the Down and Upbeats and is basically of good rhythmic sound it becomes a song you can dance West Coast Swing to (however, it is not swing music)."
---from streetSwing.com's excellent history of swing dancing
So . . . fine. Swing is a Dancer's dance . . . but that is ALL it is, and that's reason A-number-1 why it sucks. It's a bunch of steps. Period. Why should anyone care? (Answer: Friends Don't Let Friends Dance Swing)
By way of contrast, consider an involvement with Argentine Tango. To engage oneself with Tango requires the engagee to learn about (and, hopefully, participate in) a living, breathing cultural heritage; an ongoing and ever-evolving tradition. It requires understanding the passions and upheavals which forged that tradition and which find expression in a unique intersection of music and dance. It involves the entire political and social history of a nation and its people. To learn Swing involves learning . . . ummmm . . . dance steps. That's it. Nothing more. Not a single thing.
Zip.
Nada.
Nix.
Null.
Zero.
That's the embodiment of superficiality. It's the Biggest of all Big Woops. That the dance merely gloms on to whatever music its practitioners happen to be fascinated with at that particular moment is the embodiment of genericism and flightiness and disinterest and (in some cases) disrespect. It's the Blandest of all Blands. It shows an utter lack of curiosity and indicates a non-existent drive towards authenticity. Swing is a cultural parasite, which I suppose bodes well for its continued survival in some form or another . . . but bodes ill for it in all other ways, and qualifies it for Major Suckdom. Let's listen in:
Buffy: "hey, biff, do you think this music to which we're dancing might possibly have a tradition of its own??"
Biff[munching on a container of Freedom Fries]: "Who cares, buffy? We're just gonna blindly co-opt for our own ignorant and vapid purposes everything we encounter, according to the dictates of whatever passing fad we happen to be following at this particular moment! It's the american way!"
Buffy: "Oh. Of course! You're right Biff! [coyly] Now let's go home and fuck while watching Melrose Place!"
[stay tuned next week, when Biff has a heart attack, joins the young republicans, rediscovers jesus, and gets a divorce after learning that Buffy . . . gasp . . . during her college days . . . groan . . . once experimented with Ecstasy and . . . slept with . . . gag . . . a . . . WOMAN!!!]
And that's about enough said for now. Yup. Swing sucks. Just say "NO!" to Swing. Friends Don't Let Friends Dance Swing. Etc, etc, etc.
End of Rant for Now,
---e[ch]
Posted by earwicker at September 6, 2004 08:05 PM
Comments
Kind of ironic (from the Pseudo-Latino's perspective) that swing evolved from jazz music, n'est-ce pas?
Posted by: Kyle at September 10, 2004 06:35 PM
OK… I’ll admit to being a dancer of swing (as one of the many forms of dancing that I enjoy). I have been on the quest to learn swing for 6 months, and a long, tortuous journey it has been at times. Blues, especially slow Blues, happens to be the music that hits me in the groin and spreads from there to my limbs, but finding a way to dance to Blues in something other than the pelvic grind with an over fifty, grizzly, cigarette stinky, stranger (which seems to be the description of the majority of men that will ask me to dance in a blues bar, as the other guys, overly groomed twenty something studs who think they are God's gift to women don't tend to fawn over this somewhat intimidating woman) is a challenge. (If I had a tall, dark and handsome someone in my life with a good sense of rhythm and a love for dancing to anything you could move to, well…pelvic grind would be, of course, the dance style of preference). When I saw the dancers at the Big Easy on the floor gliding and spinning to the blues music I was inspired to try to learn this dance style.
Unlike our gracious igniter of this argument, the illustrious e[ch], I am not so concerned with the origins and culture that accompanies much of the music I enjoy dancing to. I just like to dance. Some music moves me more than others, but I will dance to just about anything. Being the lover of argument that he is, I expect to be ripped to sniveling shreds for my flimsy, vacuous, white-girl arguments. But hey, I like to dance. What’s wrong with enjoying a simple pleasure in life, simply? I dance not only for the passion that drives me to move my body to music, but for the social contact as well (being single again in the middle of my life). For almost the entirety of my twenties and thirties I went without dancing (thanks mostly to my willingness to give up that pleasure in my life because the man I fell in love with in college, and subsequently married, did not like to dance; I realize that giving up a part of me was insanity, and have come to my senses and no longer have the non-dancing husband) and so my dance adventures of the last 10 months (yes, it’s only been that long since my re-acquaintance of this joy in my life) have been an exploration of styles to see what I enjoy the most. Swing is just one of those explorations.
I don’t have an overwhelming passion for any one style of dance (yet), and so am not very enthusiastic about defending to the death the superiority of swing on any level of intellectual, argumentative debate that was prompted by the original posting. My arguments about my preference in dances are derived from personal likes and desires, not any socio-cultural, intellectually driven, academically correct propositions. It’s dance we’re talking about - booty shaking, acceptable public foreplay, shake-it-if-you-feel-the-groove, gut (or groin) level stuff, not religion or politics or societal ills.
College Station was my training ground for country dancing and I can two-step, waltz or polka with almost anyone in a cowboy bar who asks, from cowboy boot scootin’ to the accomplished pattern dancer. Which is to say; I have rhythm and can follow a lead very well.
Swing has been a quite difficult style of dance in which to become proficient and has caused me enormous amounts of frustration and insecurity. I wanted to learn this dance to be able to dance in a blues bar with the guys who can dance. I had no idea it would be so difficult to become good enough to get asked to dance and feel comfortable at it. Salsa, in contrast, has been an easy dance to pick up in a very short time. It’s definitely a more friendly dance to regular people like me (thus the fabulous time that was enjoyed at El Tren Latino on Satruday night) and not just to the dance snobs (of which, even I’ll admit, the swing groups are full of).
***Pause here for a personal gripe about dance partners***
The only partners who have caused me to feel incompetent as a dancer have been those arrogant fellows who expect their partner to rise to their level instead of adjusting to the level of the lady being lead (and if that’s the case, it’s the only dance they’ll ever get with me) {Having walked off the dance floor in the middle of a particularly frustrating ordeal with such partner, I guess I’m too proud of a woman to be humiliated on the dance floor by an overzealous dance prick.} We ladies are told repeatedly during lessons that we are to FOLLOW the man. It would be only the most gentlemanly thing for the man to be a gracious lead and not try to showcase himself while making his partner look like a gawky, ugly duckling on the dance floor. Lead something that we can actually follow, guys.
But back to the swing argument…
In spite of the ease with which I have picked up the basics (and even some of the intermediate moves) of Salsa, I will not give up on swing. I’m finally good enough to dance with quite a few people that I’ve come to know. Granted, the only time I get to put into practice my swing moves is when the local swing club meets at a neighborhood dive to dance with each other. But on those few occasions when the DJ is spinning blues tunes, I’ve been in heaven on the dance floor. It’s those moments that have kept me interested in learning swing. Perhaps one of these days I’ll meet a dance partner who likes live blues music as much as I do, who can dance well enough to feel comfortable on the floor, who’s willing to hang out with me and accompany me to the Big Easy Social & Pleasure Club or Cactus Moon occasionally.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to explore other dance venues and styles. This weekend of dancing with Jim was a wonderful exposure to the salsa (merengue, too) dancing possibilities. Salsa was what I dabbled in when I first started exploring new dances, before I felt driven to learn swing, so it’s not a totally new idea for me. I have, admittedly, pursued adding this style to my repertoire because of my best friend, Jim. Salsa is definitely mucho gusto on my list of dances.
Dancing has given me an opportunity to meet many wonderful acquaintances who share a common passion, and to relax and release the tensions of responsibility and life in general. The social aspect of dancing has been an enormous driver in my quest for learning to dance to any music. It’s the act of dancing that is important, not the style. And to quote the earmeister, “What matters is that you are out there to express yourself through dance.”
So, as far as the argument of friends don’t let friends dance swing, I realize that I probably haven’t made a very good argument for swing dancing in general, but it works for me. And until that friend (or another enticingly charming handsome someone) is willing to take me out to a blues bar and dance the pelvic grind with me, I’ll stick to swing dancing for blues music.. Being solely dance proficient to only Latin music is not my desire. I like two-step, waltz and polka, so I tolerate country music in order to enjoy those dances. But, I also want to be able to dance to whatever is playing. I love slow Blues music, I like partner dancing; if swing is what the partners are dancing, at this point in time, to Blues music, then I’m all over it.
Keeping life full is what it’s all about.
Luna
Posted by: Luna![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.pseudoLatino.com//nav-commenters.gif)
at September 8, 2004 07:51 PM