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Swango Blues FAQ’s!
Updated 03/29/08 Q: Do you have to know all three dances to
learn Swango Blues? Chris: Not really, but it would certainly
help to know as much as you can about all the individual dances that
influence Swango Blues. In my classes I teach the fundamental elements of
each dance, and then progress to show how they can be connected together at
that level. This is different than just learning to combine patterns of
movements. Then I highly recommend further study in each dance, with a
variety of qualified local instructors. As you progress as a dancer, it is
also a good idea to start taking workshops or privates with national and
international pros in each dance style. Taking as many classes and workshops
as you can will give you a variety of perspectives on the same type of dance
movements, which will in turn give you more choices for developing your own
style of dancing. And don’t be surprised if some high level dance
professionals differ, or even contradict each other, in how they teach their
technique. Dancing is a life long journey, and people take different routes
to get where they want to go. Q: Is this Ballroom dancing? Chris: No, I’ve never actually done much
ballroom dancing. Ballroom versions of Swing and Tango are significantly
different in connection, posture, movement, and styling than the historical
or “street” versions of these dances. The dedicated versions of these dances,
as taught in each of their respective scenes, are also more relaxed,
improvisational, and complex than the ballroom versions, and often require
more time to learn. Swango Blues is a fusion of the modern dedicated versions
of these dances, and retains the same essential qualities even though I have
modified them to better combine them. Q: Who have you learned from or taken
classes with? Chris: I have taken classes, workshops, or
privates with the following local Orlando instructors: Rob & Dawn
(Lindy), Adam & Marcie (Lindy), Mark Traynor (WCS), Shawn & Donna
(WCS), Johnny & Lisa (WCS), Jen Deluca (WCS, was local, but now she has
gone national pro), Richard & Mariel (Tango), and Roberto Hoyas (Tango). Some of the national or international
instructors I have taken classes, workshops, or privates with are (in other
words, I recommend all these instructors): Frankie Manning (Lindy), Kevin
& Carla (Lindy), Yuval & Natalie (Lindy), Steven & Virginie
(Lindy & Blues), Ryan & Jenny (Lindy), Marcus & Barble (Lindy),
Eric & Sylvia (Lindy), David Reim (Lindy & Balboa), Sylvia Sykes
(Lindy & Balboa), Nick Williams (Lindy & Balboa), Doug Silton (Lindy
& WCS), Jordan & Tatiana (WCS), Michael Kielbasa (WCS), Mary Ann
Nunez (WCS), John Lindo (WCS), Mario Robau (WCS), Fabian Salas (Tango Nuevo),
Miriam & Hugo (Tango), Fernanda & Guillermo (Tango), Colette &
Richard (Tango), Eddy & Veronica (Tango Nuevo), Bill Borgida (Blues and
Lindy), Solomon Douglas (Blues), Charlie & Heidi (Blues), Ogden &
Amanda (Blues), and Jerry & Kathy (Blues). Q: What kind of music can you dance Swango
Blues to? Chris: The nice thing about this combination
of dances is that it can be danced to a variety of contemporary music. It
works best danced to slow through medium tempo Swinging Jazz, Blues, Soul,
and modern Tango and WCS style remixes. I’ve even enjoyed dancing it to 70’s
style Funk (Parliament, Rick James, etc), and 80’s style Goth music (Depeche
Mode, The Cure, etc). Because Swango Blues combines a range of smooth style
dances, however, you can vary the amount of each dance style you mix in based
on the song style. This gives you a variety of fun and challenging dance
choices. But I have also found this combination doesn’t work very well to
vintage Swing, Hot Jazz, or classic Tango. For these types of songs you will
probably want to dance traditional Lindy Hop, Q: Do you dance Swango Blues in a slot like
in West Coast Swing, or in the line of dance like in Tango? Chris: Not necessarily, but you can if you
want to. In my opinion, these are artificial rules that developed with these
dances, but are not required elements to practice these dances, unless you
are in a competition. You can slot some of your movements if you want, or
break or re-arrange the slot if you want. You can travel in the line of dance
if you want, or not. Using a slot can be essential for some Swing movements,
and is a useful teaching device, so I often slot my dancing. However, I also
like to do over-rotated whips from Lindy Hop, which do not follow a slot. In
Argentine Tango, most demonstrations and performances do not follow the line
of dance. They maneuver around the floor however they want. Most people
believe these rules were integrated into these dances to help manage crowded
dance floors. Eventually they became part of each dance. However, neither
Lindy Hop or Blues dancing is slotted or follows any line of dance, and
people have been successfully dancing these styles on crowded dance floors
for years. The main thing is that you avoid bumping into other dancers when
you travel across the floor. As my dancing has developed over the years, I’ve
become more and more adverse to imposing artificial rules on any kind of
dancing. I even think counting and standard step patterns should be dropped
for pure movement based on rhythms in the music. Blindly following artificial
rules eventually limits your creativity both kinetically and musically. Q: What inspired you to start combining
these three dances? Chris: During the first few years of learning
Lindy Hop I took a bunch of classes, and traveled a lot to workshops and
camps. At one of Steven & Virginie’s Lindy Hop workshop weekends I was
introduced to Blues dancing, and was also inspired to start learning
Argentine Tango. S&V recommended broadening your dance vocabulary
by learning other dances and then by incorporating some of those movements in
your Swing dancing. They specifically focused on Blues, Fox Trot, and
Argentine Tango. Shortly thereafter I started learning Tango from a local
Argentine teacher, and began traveling to Tango and Blues workshops. At some
point, I also started learning West Coast Swing, mainly because we had a
mixed statewide Swing event, and the WCS dancers were noticeably better than
the Lindy dancers on a technical level. No one was really combining these
dances yet, so I studied them separately for several years. I danced in each
of these separate scenes, and rarely saw the same people at different dances.
Then a couple of years ago I started
experimenting with combining the Argentine Tango into the Blues. I did this
mainly to expand the complexity of leading weight changes while Blues
dancing. I was teaching basic Lindy Hop and Blues classes at that point, and
I kept getting the complaint from students that the Blues movements were too
simple. They wanted more moves like they were used to getting in Lindy Hop.
Argentine Tango is quite developed in leading-following a variety of complex
weight changes, so it seemed to be a good fit. I thought this was especially
true of the cross-foot weight changes known as Ochos, and the turning
movements known as Molinetis. These movements also get you traveling around
the floor, which I prefer. Many people still Blues dance primarily in place,
doing micro-blues or contact improve, with very little maneuvering around the
dance floor. I’m Ok with doing this for short periods, but I find it boring
to do this for an entire song. To me, dancing means floor craft. One global change that occurred in my dancing
from learning Argentine Tango is what rhythms in the music I focus on. Tango
got me dancing more to the melodies in songs, and off the main tempo. At this
time I was also dancing to a lot of Blues music because I was running a
weekly Blues dance at Café Annies in downtown Q: Why not just keep these dances separate,
and only dance them in their own respective scenes? Why create a new fusion
dance and scene? Chris: Well, if you really learn these dances
separately, I think it is a natural progression to start combining
elements at some point. At least, it is for me. The thing is, most people
never branch out to learn different dances in the first place. As I
mentioned, I rarely saw the same dancers in different scenes in my area. Many
people seem to get comfortable with one thing, and stick with that out of
habit. Eventually they start to identify with that one thing, and everything
else becomes undesirable. I noticed this traveling between the scenes that
many people dislike other dances without ever really trying them. At one
point, I even tried to bring people from the different scenes together by
hosting some local crossover events. But inevitably, only dancers from one or
the other showed up. I couldn’t get them together in the local This brings me to the best reason for starting
a new fusion scene like Swango Blues by naming, categorizing, and teaching it
systematically; to get more people dancing this specific combination of
dances. Many people won’t have the same dance history as me, and even if they
did, only a handful will evolve to combine the dances in a similar way. If I
waited for it to occur naturally, I would only be able to dance this
combination with a few follows at best. By naming the dance style, teaching
it, and having fusion oriented dances like Underground Swing, I can get
others to start doing this combination. Hopefully this will generate a dance
scene that will more frequently allow me to lead elements from my favorite
dances. As you can see, my reasons are strictly selfish! I am happy to say
that there are other similar fusion scenes popping up around the country,
including in Q: What about some critics that claim these
dances are too different to combine successfully, musically, kinetically, and
historically; and that you are disrespecting cultural traditions by even
attempting to combine them? Chris: When I started combining these dances,
I didn’t think of it as anything controversial. It is just what I do in all
areas of my life. I study something thoroughly, both historically and
technically, and then at some point start to deconstruct and reinvent it to
suit my tastes. I’ve learned over the years as an artist and a teacher that I
have one main talent; that I can see connections between things that other
people have a hard time seeing. I have used this ability to create new things
in art and culture throughout my personal and professional life. Actually, I
really don’t have a choice; it’s my nature as an artist to continuously be
creating new works of beauty and insight. Years ago I did the same thing in
the martial arts world, in which I had studied a variety of styles since I
was eight years old. I always gravitated towards smooth styles that had a lot
of rhythmic movements, such as Chinese Wing Chun Kung Fu, Filipino Kali,
Indonesian Silat, Tai Chi Chaun, Aikijujitsu, and Western Boxing. I also took
Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do conceptual approach of taking movements from any
style to make your own personal style. Basically the idea is to incorporate
any martial arts movement that works for you into your own personal style,
based on your unique physical traits and talents, and discard everything
else. Today this is usually called Mixed Martial Arts, and it is quite
popular with the public through competitions like the UFC. My particular
combination of styles I called Rhythm Fist,
because of my interest in rhythmic flow drills for both empty hands and
weapons fighting. As you can see from my approach to dancing, I have repeated
this same process to create Swango Blues.
When I posted about my Swango Blues web site
on a Lindy discussion board, a handful of Blues dancing traditionalists in
the Blues-Lindy scene expressed an extreme negative reaction to the very idea
of dance fusion. They want to keep these dances separated into their
historical niches, while I take a modern approach of integrating them. They
see these dances as being incompatible. I, on the other hand, see the
similarities. All the styles have African roots, are improvisational street
dances, and were integrated with European dance movements to create a new
dance form. They did evolve into separate dances to separate types of music
at their height in the 40’s and 50’s, but things have changed since then.
Both the music and the dances have spread across the globe to be adopted by
people in a variety of cultures, who are integrating them into their cultural
and aesthetic backgrounds. Anyone can see the truth of this in music by
looking at the wide variety of recognized Blues, Jazz, and Tango artists in
the world today. World fusion music is becoming very popular, and is creating
new variations or mutations of Swing, Blues, and Tango. Just go to any Barnes
and Noble and look in the International section to see lots of examples.
Dance is an equally creative art form, and it makes sense that there are some
dancers out there combining forms in the same way as musicians are doing it.
And since this is what the originators of these dances did in the first place
to create them in the early 20th century, from combining elements
of both African and European traditions, how can anyone say I am
disrespecting them by doing the same thing today? The arguments of these traditionalists just
don’t hold up to any intelligent scrutiny. It’s funny really, that they are
enshrining the things that the original Swing, Blues, and Tango dancers
didn’t even care about. Those historic dancers of the 1920’s-40’s were just
dancing, and making it up as they went along, without a care if it fit any
particular historical dance. The traditionalists today universally complement
them on their original styling and innovations, while condemning contemporary
dancers for doing their own thing. Some of the same traditionalists even
claim that historically acknowledged American fusion dances like Tap, Personally, I think it is a good thing to
examine the roots of each dance style, and learn as much as you can about its
history and techniques. But I recognize there will always be a minority of
traditionalists who will never like a fusion approach that changes any dance
from its historical origins; and that’s OK with me. I will still support
their efforts to promote the history of each dance, even if they don’t
support my efforts to create something new. I will say this, however; when
some closed-minded traditionalist dance instructors try to keep others from
exploring their own interests, then they are clearly on a ego-power trip, and
their students should run in the other direction. There are some Lindy Hop,
WCS, Tango, and Blues instructors on both the local and national scene who
have used their teaching status to coerce their students into giving up
non-traditional dance interests, with the shallow excuse that they only want
to prevent their students from being misled down the wrong path. They
arrogantly claim to know what is best for their students, and have both
disrespected their student’s intelligence and their fellow instructor’s
integrity in the process. I saw this attitude a lot in the martial arts world
as well, and it was as easy to see through their arguments as it is in the
dance world. It is high time dance students stopped supporting and following
such negative instructors, no matter how good of dancers they are. They are
just a bad influence for any dance scene. I always encourage students to explore other
styles, learn from whoever they want, and try to help them create their own
style of dancing if they want. I believe even a beginning level student has
the intelligence and right to make up their own minds on what appeals to
them, and no instructor has the right to tell them they are wrong in doing
so. The only time a dance instructor should tell their students that
something is wrong, is when the student is doing something that may
physically harm someone. Otherwise, it is just dancing, and they should be
able to creatively explore making the techniques work for them. Rules are
important for competitions, but filling student’s heads up with too many
rules just blinds them to creative options.
The proof is when we frequently go out and dance Swango Blues to a
live Blues band, and a pack of non-dancers track us down to ask us what we
are doing, and where they can learn it. They are usually very specific that
they want to learn our style over other more traditional styles on the dance
floor. They don’t know what it is, and really don’t care if it breaks any
traditional dance rules; but it looks modern, cool, and fun to them, and that
is all that matters. Q: And what about other traditional critics
who say you are losing the essences of the individual dances when you combine
them, and that it can make the dancing too generic? Chris: What is truly the essence of dance? To
me, it is your personal interpretation of music through movement. To put it
in a style is to use the movements of that style to interpret the music. I
don’t think the essence is some ethereal feeling, or attitude, or cultural
associations, or a historically accurate recreation of another cultures
dance. I am a modern dancer in a modern integrated culture, and I like my
dancing to reflect this. Do I have to dress in 1940’s vintage clothes, and
speak Hep Jive, and make wild faces like in the old movie clips to be dancing
Lindy Hop? I don’t think so. That’s not the essence, but a slice of history
(and in some cases, it just ain’t cool anymore). If you want to do that as a
vintage performance, or just because you think it is fun, fine. But the dance
has evolved to be something different to different people from different
backgrounds, even though it is still recognized as versions of Swing, Tango,
and Blues. So what I believe defines the real essence of any dance is the
essential movements. If you look at any of my Swango Blues clips, you
will see these movements from all three dances. I would say the essences are
still intact in my dancing, only modified slightly to suit my needs as a fusion
dancer. I’ve even heard the criticism that it is not
really fusion dancing because we don’t merge all three dances all the time
throughout a dance. Again, that would just limit our dancing with unnecessary
rules. I want to have the freedom to use the entire range of styles whenever
I choose while dancing. The moments of fusion come when we create seamless
transitions between the dances. I have made a conscious effort to modify the
fundamental technique of each dance so the posture, connection, and movement
is consistent as we transition between them at any point in our movements. I
believe we have successfully achieved a strong basic structure for true dance
fusion that can be built upon. What people may also be seeing when they say
fusion is making the dancing more generic is that I purposely stripped down
some of the styling to get at the essential movements, in order to find the
connections between the styles. But as this fusion evolves, more styling can
be put back in place wherever we want, whenever we want. Or maybe we will
choose to be more minimalist. A lot of it depends on the music and our
reaction to it. Q: And lastly, what about other critics who
say you are doing nothing new with your style, and that people have been
dancing this combination for years? Chris: This just shows that these critics
don’t have a leg to stand on. If their arguments don’t work, then they just
try to discount what you are doing by saying it is nothing new. I freely
admit that anyone with ample knowledge in all three dances, could have made
the same choices as me in combining them, and would obviously come up with
the same style of fusion dancing. However, you would think there would be
some evidence of it somewhere. If so many other people were doing it for
years, there would be some YouTube videos out showing it. I’ve done quite a
few searches, and never found someone that dances just like me. My answer to
those critics is show me a video from before 2004 when I started combining
these dances that is the same as Swango Blues, and I will acknowledge that it
has been done before in the exact same way I am doing it. It is possible, but
I just haven’t seen it anywhere. I attended Cheap Thrills back in 2005,
taking the advanced Blues track with Steven & Virginie, and didn’t see
anyone who danced in this same style. People have come up with different
versions, though. The West Coast dancers who developed their version of
Swango do not have the Lindy and Blues background, so their dancing looks
distinctly different than mine. The Lindy-Blues-Tango dancers developing
their fusion style do not have the West Coast background, so their dancing
looks significantly different as well. As far as I know, the way I have
systematically designed and teach my style is unique, and in this sense is
definitely a “new” hybrid fusion style. Q: You specify that you are combining modern
styles of these dances. Is there one main common element that you see as the
key to fusing these modern styles? Chris: One big difference between modern
styles of Swing and more traditional Swing styles is the smoothness of the
movements. Many traditional Lindy Hoppers, who come from the Savoy-Frankie
Manning style, have a noticeable bounce, especially when dancing at slower
tempos. You also see this in a lot of Blues dancers who come from the same
Lindy Hop background. I prefer the non-bouncy style of Swing as seen in
California-Hollywood style Lindy Hoppers and West Coast Swing dancers. West
Coast dancers like Jordan & Tatiana have really smoothed this out. Because
I prefer this smooth styling, I have purposely tried to remove most vertical
bouncing from my Swing dancing. And even though I still sink in my legs when
doing Blues movements, I extend and emphasize the horizontal movement to
minimize the bounce. I feel this also brings the movement closer to Tango,
because unless you are dancing Milonga style, Argentine Tango doesn’t bounce.
As far as how modern styles of Tango differ from traditional styles of Tango,
it is mainly in the flexibility of the connection. Traditional styles of
Argentine Tango tend to have a constant embrace, usually close, that only has
a barely noticeable gear effect on the torso. I gravitate towards modern
styles like Tango Nuevo that emphasize a very flexible embrace that also
achieves a rubber band or sling shot effect in closed position. To do this
effectively, Tango Nuevo dancers also constantly vary the size of their
steps, sink into their legs, and adjust their connection. In fact, the main thing that I believe makes
these dances compatible is their elasticity, both in connection,
movement, and timing. This is especially true of the modern versions of Swing
and Tango that I like, where there are a lot of stretch and timing delays to
create leverage and compression throughout each movement. To be more
specific, one of the main qualities of West Coast Swing is to achieve a
rubber band effect at the ends of the slot. We do this with the anchor step
to vary the timing to create more stretch, then speed up to achieve more
momentum or compression in the middle of the movement, and then slow down at
the end to repeat the process like a rubber band. Smooth Lindy Hop has a
similar approach to create a sling shot effect in the over-rotated whip.
There is slow-stretch at the beginning, speed to achieve momentum, a moment
of slow-torque in the turn, and then speed in the send out to achieve the
sling shot effect. Tango Nuevo also specializes in the same type of
elasticity to create a rebound type effect that is utilized to produce the
modern colgada and volcada movements. Blues movements also have some of this
elasticity, especially in relation to body isolations where you speed up and
stop abruptly to create a popping effect (I consider Break Dancing’s Popping
and Locking a direct descendent of some traditional Blues movements, so I
categorize it under Blues). The elasticity of the movement in these dances
comes from playing with tension and relaxation, as well as with leverage and
compression in the dancer connection. This movement mirrors the elastic
variations in complex contemporary music, which often have a lot of tempo
changes throughout a song. I believe this elasticity is the flexible glue
that has the potential to profoundly bind these styles into an exciting
fusion dance. Even though I have been exploring the connections between these
dances for some time, I only truly realized this main ingredient recently,
and currently you can only see a hint of this elasticity in our dancing. But
I’ve seen a vision of what this dance can become, and now it is just a matter
of realizing it in our dancing. This will be my goal to achieve over the next
few years. Q: How do you see Swango Blues evolving in
the future? Chris: I really don’t know exactly how it
will evolve. In the end analysis this is just my personal style of dancing,
so it will evolve as I evolve as a dancer. Right now I have established all
the basic connections between the three dances, and smoothed out the
transitions. I consider this Swango Blues version-1, which I believe is a true
fusion style. I can see the next step in the evolution is to explore the
elasticity in movement and timing to refine the basic technique. This should
take me to Swango Blues v-2, which should be significantly different than
version 1. After that, I have no idea where it will go. Also, if more people
start dancing it, I expect it may evolve it into something totally different.
In addition, I intend on continuing to study all the individual dances to
keep refining my technique, and then integrate those movements into the mix.
But I have no desire to ever go back to dancing any one particular style
exclusively. There are other interesting dance styles that
I may eventually start adding more elements from, such as Soul, Hip Hop,
Carolina Shag, Salsa, and DC Hand dancing. There is a whole world of dancing
out there to explore, and a whole world of good music out there to also
explore. In addition to the Jazz, Blues, Soul, and Funk music we currently
like to dance to, we are heavily getting into partner dancing to contemporary
Goth/Alternative music by The Cure, Depeche Mode, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails,
Muse, Vast, The Feint, Soul Coughing, etc… We call it Dark Swango, and Swango
Blues technique works really well with it. Q: What is Underground Swing? Chris: This is a new musical format I am
using for my Swango Blues dances that transitions over the night from more
traditional Swing and Jazz to classic and modern Blues, Soul, and Funk, to
contemporary Indie, Goth, and Neo-Tango. The one-hour sections are called
Kick’it Old School, Funky Blue Soul, and Dark Swango. This format was
designed to have a lot of variety while still having some structure and
musical flow. More traditional dancers may prefer songs earlier in the
evening, while more experimental Swango dancers may prefer songs later in the
evening. At any rate, it gives most levels and styles of dancers some music
they are used to, as well as something new that they may not have tried
dancing to. It is meant to be experimental and fun, and so far, people seem
to like it! Q: Do you consider yourself an expert? Chris: Absolutely not. I am a student,
dancer, and teacher. I have learned a few things over the years, and I like
to share that knowledge with other open minded individuals. That is all. Q: If you’re not an expert, why are you
producing a Swango Blues Fundamentals DVD? Chris: Mainly because I think it is the best
way I can give back to the developing fusion dance scene, and share my joy of
this type of dancing. I will be selling the 2 hr DVD cheap (probably $20 to
download, or $25 plus shipping in the mail). That’s less than most classes or
workshops, so I’m not doing it to make a lot of money. The important thing
for me is to get what I call Swango Blues version-1 out to as many people as
are interested in it. And even though I’m not done evolving it, I think the
fundamental connections are pretty solid at this point. I believe it is time
to put it out there, and see what other creative and talented dancers do with
it. Q: Does Swango Blues have a Basic Step? Chris: Yes, Swango Blues has a 8-count Basic
Step that integrates movements from all three dance styles. Swango Blues also
has 5 basic patterns that do the same, which can be combined with the Basic
Step to make many variations. Once anyone learns how these basic patterns are
being designed, the concept should be clear how you can combine any movements
from these three dance styles. This is all taught on the Swango Blues
Fundamentals DVD. To learn more about Swango Blues click here… |
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