Tag Archives: swing

Creative Combination of Social and Competitive Dancing

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Jim and Melody 1100 x 717

Whether you’re already an enthusiastic social dancer, or just interested in an up-close look (from front row table seats) at world-class ballroom dancing, you might want to take advantage of a thoughtful “guided tour” during the San Francisco Open DanceSport Championships April 11-13 at the Marriott Hotel near the San Francisco Airport. Senior champs James Kleinrath and Melody Singleton, who have recently taken over the Imperial Ballroom in Redwood City (where Dancing with the Stars standout Anna Trebunskaya trained former San Francisco Forty Niners star Jerry Rice), will be the tour guides. Top dancers in all four divisions will be dancing Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Viennese Waltz, Quickstep, Rumba, Cha Cha, Swing, Bolero, Jive, Paso Doble, Mambo, Samba and more. Because the worlds of social and competitive dancing have recently grown apart, and because competitors are now being groomed (mostly outside the United States) to compete from an early age, these two worlds rarely overlap. Wilddancer believes taking advantage of local opportunities for promotion is all too rare in both the ballroom and country-western dance worlds, so applaud the creativity of James and Melody …who are exceptions, having started as social dancers, and are imparting their skills to social dancers. And if the past is a guide, there will be some opportunity to do social dancing during breaks in the competition, with a nice large floor and great dance music. The $50 tour will start at 8 pm on Sunday, April 13, and there is an optional dinner nearby starting at 5:30 pm. Contact James Kleinrath, at 650-591-6757 or jameskleinrath@hotmail.com.

Annual South Bay Dance Fling in San Jose August 29-September 2

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This long-running event includes tons of workshops and competitions, as well as social dancing and a great dinner show that has been an annual must for Wilddancer for the last few years. It covers a wide range of country western music–including polka, triple two-step, nightclub two-step, cha cha, waltz, (cowboy) two-step, east coast swing, and west coast swing—the eight dances whose competition is sanctioned by the UCWDC (United Country Western Dance Council). It is one of a bevy of regional events that lead up to a national championship meet in Nashville at year-end. Its activities are also licensed through the National FastDance Association. Owned and managed by Glenn, Sue & Candace Cravalho, who hold a lot of competitive championships, it can be reached at www.southbaydancefling.com.

Decadance Group Crafts Performances from Social Couples Dancing

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Stanford University has been a driving force for technology companies starting in 1939 when Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard founded Hewlett-Packard, and its graduates have created many giant companies in electronics, software, and other fields. But Stanford is also on the cutting edge of couples dancing, perhaps most notably through the vision and energy of Richard Powers. One of the innovative groups that has sprung from this supportive environment is Decadance (a subtle pun on “decadence”), which bills itself as “a social dance performance group that strives to make traditional couple-dancing less traditional”. This team is unlike many of the other teams you can see on TV or YouTube, whose choreography is either secondary to their crazy costumes or outrageous-but-baseless dance steps, because they craft their performances from time-tested dances like waltz, swing, tango, and cha cha. Wilddancer attended their Spring Show 2013: “how I met your mother” tonight. It was terrific! The members of the group had created all of the 15 professional-grade routines (though some of them came from previous performances); such good choreography takes a lot of skill and a lot of time. And the quality of the dancing matched the quality of the choreography. (We could parse many of the figures using our own social dance training, and they were often advanced ones.) You wonder how they can do it AND keep up their studies at a demanding university like Stanford.

Politics, Other Trends Hurt Swing Dancing

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The popularity of couples dancing rises and falls over time, affected by lots of causes and other trends, as chronicled by a Wall Street Journal article on March 18, 2013 and a subsequent letter to the editor on March 25. (East Coast) Swing music played by touring big bands such as Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman attracted a lot of dancers during the 1930’s and first half of the 1940’s, but it declined following the end of World War II, apparently a victim of several factors, including (1) the 1942-44 musicians’ union strike against the record companies, (2) the 1944 “cabaret tax” on venues that combined food, drink, and dancing, (3) wartime shortages of commodities that curtailed the amount of traveling that could be done by the bands, (4) loss of musicians to the military, (5) formation of BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.) that collected royalties from businesses who played music and distributed them to composers and publishers, enabling new forms of music such as R&B (rhythm and blues) and country to receive funding, combined with migration from the south of listeners and dancers who preferred this music over swing. This didn’t destroy couples dancing, but it changed the music that people listened to while dancing. For the most part Baby Boomers (born 1946-1963) grew up on rock & roll, and don’t identify closely with the older swing music. And in about 1963, it is said, the Twist destroyed touch dancing.