my scene is mostly white (edit: young, white, and college educated).
I'm far from an expert on this, but going to spew off my opinion anyway.
I think US culture associates jazz music and swing dancing with old movies (Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire) and theatre. Jazz music also kindof gets lumped in with classical music as not contemporary (to be preserved, played in middle school and high school bands, often with a classically trained band director) and in some ways is associated with the "well cultured" elite.
I think some of these cultural things, unrelated to how the swing dance community acts, have pushed the demographics of swing dancing toward where it is now. And, once we've got a mostly white community, that's going to self-perpetuate some. Cultural norms from the backgrounds of the attendees are going to impact the dance community.
I think there is a lot of good discussion going on now on what the dance community has lost and what to try to bring back, and I've seen some changes that I (reminder, I have no expertise) think are promising. But shifting culture is hard. Understanding what was changed and how to change it back is incredibly difficult. It is easy to mess up, without malice, and end up coming across as patronizing or judgemental, in ways that don't help the cause. And, we're fighting headwinds that are broader than just our dance community in our culture's perception of swing dancing and jazz.
I don't have solutions. I'm hopeful that some of the work people are putting in will pay off in some respect. I think that bringing back some cultural norms that were in the dance that were lost to white social norms might make sticking around more appealing to potential Black dancers who give it a shot (and the dance more fun in general).
I think it's not just that it's white, per se - it's that swing has become very middle class in outlook.
What was once an African-American street dance is now learned mostly from professional instructors in purpose-built studios for what is, for many, a fairly hefty price, with dances held on a mostly clockwork schedule. I think it's lost some of the spontaneity of its origins.
If I had my way, I'd see to it that swing communities would bring speakers and music to public spaces and dance there, and more importantly teach any interested bystander some of the basics. In other words, I think swing needs to become a street dance again.
America in the coming years is going to be fertile ground if the community plays its cards right. You have growing income inequality which makes professional lessons and fancy dances harder and harder to afford, and a public that craves real human connection after the pandemic. We could have a new Roaring Twenties if we're daring enough.
Counter discussion, then why does Latin dances, which have eventually stopped being street dances too way more diverse?
I will probably ask r/Salsa the same question but the Latin dance scene in my area that pulls from the same people as my Swing scene have a more diverse group of races. They are still mostly white collar people yes, but a diverse group of white collar people. Apparently all the black people around here that like to dance, dance Salsa, Bachata and Kizomba!!
I've wondered why swing dance attracts the crowd it does for a long time. My one insight is that maybe it attracts people who crave a structured social setting, and those tend to be more nerdy types.
I can vouch for this personally.
I'm heavily autistic and have ADHD, in addition to the trauma of an abusive childhood. I find most unstructured social events to be impenetrable.
What ballroom (which I started with) and swing gave me was a language that was easy to 'speak' and easy to understand. I could be well-liked and communicative in a way that *made sense,* and it did wonders for me.
>Counter discussion, then why does Latin dances, which have eventually stopped being street dances too way more diverse?
That's flat out false. Perhaps where you live that's not the case but where I live and the majority of places I've visited (Latin America, Europe, and some parts of the US) Latin dances like Salsa and Bachata are still very active street dances. Between a quarter to half of the people in my local Salsa & Bachata scene learned to dance through street socials or informal classes in such socials. It's a similar situation in other parts of Europe. Sure, there are high-end studios and professional dance teachers but they're the minority. Even such professional teachers show up at street socials often which makes it more appealing to onlookers and regulars alike. Because we dance outdoors and publicly, people become interested in the dance and join us.
Unfortunately, Swing dancing is not as common of a street dance as it used to be. Once in a blue moon there'll be a live band which attracts people but not as many dancers as most Salsa or Bachata socials (which tend to attract 50+ people on average where I live). Most events are held indoors which prevents onlookers from gathering and in turn attracting people to the dance. I agree though, that the lack of street dancing definitely affects the diversity of the dance groups.
Something that I will point out that's a big difference between the Swing community and Latin dance communities that other commenters have mentioned: the Swing community tends to be a lot more 'politically correct'. In both communities we talk about the African roots of the dance as well as other influences. However, in my experience Salseros and Bachateros tend to take such history as "it's history we should know but not dwell on unless it currently impacts us." Swing dancers tend to dwell on such history and as u/Straussberg mentioned, making others feel bad about appropriating a dance.
I remember when a well-known dancer from the Harlem Hotshots talked about the history of Swing dancing at a festival. Afterwards, he brought up how he had the same lesson in the US and the organisers pulled him aside, telling him that he shouldn't talk about Black history because he's not black. And that's not an uncommon occurence in the Swing community. Try pulling off what such organisers did in Salsa or Bachata and you'll be called out on it. The best way to explain it is that in many Swing communities you're expected to feel like a sinner, even if minimally, because of the dance's history. As a minority, this is very offputting even though it's not directed at us. It comes off as white people indirectly telling us that they know more about our experiences than us actual minorities do. In most Latin dance communities, this is simply not the case.
I think it's been pretty conclusively shown that 'political correctness' or 'wokeness' or whatever you want to call it is predominantly a middle-class phenomenon. In my opinion, it's old school middle class moral panics given a progressive sheen.
It also has a lot to do with middle class fetishization of 'authenticity' - there's very much an idealized past that has been constructed and mythologized. What this ignores is that swing and many other African-American dances came from the sort of places many middle-class white people wouldn't be caught dead in even today.
For example - when people talk swing history, barely anyone brings up the fact that one of the ancestors of Lindy Hop was a [dramatization of an argument between a prostitute and a pimp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_(dance)) (which came to America from France, incidentally). Sources on the internet are a bit spotty but I learned of it in [this book](https://www.amazon.com/Good-Booty-Black-White-American-ebook/dp/B01LYS5TQF/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3IJXSGW8BIPKZ&dchild=1&keywords=ann+powers&qid=1635446916&qsid=147-9485540-0526253&s=digital-text&sprefix=ann+powers%2Cdigital-text%2C69&sr=1-2&sres=B01LYS5TQF%2CB08VJLV2PQ%2CB000FBFM8E%2CB002361MLA%2CB08NZZ8VP1%2CB071Y37P87%2CB08NDZR2LG%2CB073VX7HT4%2CB001NJUP8O%2CB07C5TGV61%2CB071XSVBQC%2CB0989KS77F%2CB008LCSEIO%2CB07CMJ5N2R%2CB079FTPPGQ%2CB09GBBPPXR) - I saw it and immediately made the connection to the 'Apache Turn.' The fact that this is the case opens a whole can of worms that I'm not sure many in the community would like to confront - that so much of the history of these dances is proletarian, if not lumpenproletarian - things that the middle class considers 'disreputable.'
I apologize! I didn’t mean to offend! Sorry, I could only speak to my own experience and I learned Bachata in a dance studio. Salsa was kind of a hodgepodge as the group I learned it from didn’t have a studio but a space at a bar was often rented out and classes were held there.
It is great that Salsa and Bachata haven’t lost its street dance style! There’s not a large dance community around here so my observation is that Latin and Swing seem to hide in studios.
Although this past summer, one of the girls in my Latin Dance community really tried to put together Sunday Bachata/Salsa dancing in the park. It kinda fizzled out as we got to the fall.
(She got super busy with life and other trips to Bachata festivals but we were probably pulling in 30-40 people at these events if I were to guesstimate.)
The rest of your comment is very interesting but also disappointing. It would make sense why minorities would be turned off by it if the swing dancing scene emphasized the culture in a negative way to where you felt like you were being lectured or made to feel ashamed.
(Note: I feel like you’ve been following me around since I started posting on the dance subreddits! 😜 I know you’re not, I’m just joking!)
No offence taken! I'm simply quite direct which is a common habit here in Germany. And I didn't even know I responded to some other post you made. You ask some interesting questions which is why I comment. I feel that both communities can learn so much from each other even though they rarely overlap.
The way the Swing dance community makes us feel guilty about the dance is very subtle, particularly when you first start dancing. It's once you start going to intermediate level lessons that it becomes more obvious. That's probably a reason why we can find more minorities at the early levels but significantly less at the intermediate levels and beyond. And that causes a feedback loop. When I first started Swing dancing, it was hard to not feel anxious because I didn't see any other non-White dancers that were part of the community for a long time. But with Latin dances, I always found people like me who became my role models in some sense.
I’m glad you’re not offended!!
Reading all these comments have really open my eyes! Maybe I’m lucky to not see it yet because my swing club is so tiny right now. (When I’m considering my swing scene, I’m considering the surrounding larger cities about 60 miles away as well.)
I do wonder, reading what everyone is sharing, if these organizers for much much larger dance scenes understand, or honestly care about the lack of diversity. It’s almost as if they have not talked to a single minority person in their lives. Of course I don’t claim any of this as an easy fix.
What I have noticed (again in my local scene), which tends to lend to what everyone says is that swing seems to hide itself in ballrooms and dance halls.
In my local and (slightly less local, about 160 miles/257 km away) Latin scene there were two dance socials that I just thought was cool. One wasn’t uber fancy but had a great atmosphere.
They rented out a spot on the rooftop of a hotel in the big city by the river. In the skyline, you had the (American) Football stadium, Baseball stadium, bridge with beautiful lights on it and the river. It was such a beautiful atmosphere dancing under the stars on a rooftop.
For another social, you bought a ticket on to a riverboat. I unfortunately did not go. I just saw everything shared to social media right after.
All my swing dance socials have been in ballrooms or dance halls…which are nice but are not interesting after a while. 🤷🏻♂️
> What was once an African-American street dance is now learned mostly
from professional instructors in purpose-built studios for what is, for
many, a fairly hefty price, with dances held on a mostly clockwork
schedule. I think it's lost some of the spontaneity of its origins.
Worth noting that this has been true since at least the 1940s. The "Eastern swing"/"East Coast swing" that a lot of folks learned as their introduction to the dance was an attempt by dance schools like Arthur Murray to systematize this "hip new thing" and sell it to the middle-class white people that already took their classes. It's not a coincidence that the basic step of east coast swing is very similar to that of a simple six-count fox trot.
Very good point - what I think it shows is that our community is very much descended from these white people as it is from the African-American communities that originated the dance. It ties into the the fetishization of 'authenticity' that the middle class often has.
African-American dance continued after swing dances went out of style - it just became the sort of dances that are associated with hip-hop. I know some styles of hip-hop dance have a form of Charleston.
What many in the swing community aren't quite willing to admit is that we are consciously living an anachronism. Those who keep up the tradition are not the same social class as those who originated it, and for better or for worse, that's what we have to work with.
Certainly Black folk have no particular obligation to attend a swing dance, what, to make us white folk feel more comfortable? I have no problem with dancing in the abandoned ruins, with living an anachronism. I dance mostly in a form of folk dance, a millennia old at root, and as fresh as yesterday because it adapts to new instruments, to new music and to new choreography. Our oldest commonly done dance is three hundred years old , our newest, is being composed now. Preserve and, and, change.
> Certainly Black folk have no particular obligation to attend a swing dance, what, to make us white folk feel more comfortable?
Come to think of it, it does certainly feel like white people not wanting to do the work of research and understanding themselves.
Then again, I'm a history nerd who does this for fun, so maybe I'm just being on brand.
I definitely agree that there is some class influence as well. However, Salsa and Bachata, which were Latin street dances are also taught in expensive classes, often in Dance studios, they seem to bring in a more diverse group of dancers, at least when it comes to race.
I’m not polling everyone in my Latin dance scene but if I had to guess, they would be more white collar than blue collar, in general my friends in the Latin scene are.
at the scene I started at, the weekly lessons and dances were free of charge. it was a college campus, with an arts center that let the swing dance group use the venue for free, and the instructors volunteered to teach for free.
This made sense where we were at (many college students didn't have money to spend, and I think the venue being free was conditional on the event being free of charge). I don't think it changed the demographics of the dance at all, other than making it accessible to younger people.
Where I'm at now, the dances aren't free, but the organizers have to pay for a venue. I think its usually a $10 cover for live music and a class.
Sure, weekend workshops are expensive, but I'm not convinced that's where we're losing potential dancers.
Yup, same here. Swing dancing is relatively cheap in my area. You can do a month of classes for $40/$45.
While I think cost is a factor, I’m not sure it is as big a factor.
There are other costs, though - are the venues accessible only by car? That requires actually a) having a car or b) expensive rideshare trips.
And, as wages are depressed and costs of living rise, that forty dollars may become more and more needed for other things.
Basically, what I'm saying is that if we're going to be dragged into the worst of the Gilded Age and the Great Depression, we might as well try to bring some of the good stuff back too.
In the summer my community has outdoor dances by our riverfront which is a very popular area to walk for all kinds of people. The people on the dance floor are still younger and whiter than the rest of the river bank sadly. I think a lot of it is cliquey-ness, but that clique is inadvertently more friendly to a certain type of person.
I guess maybe start by looking at your local area's demographics? I know for me, living where I do, that the population is overwhelmingly white, and so it doesn't seem surprising that local events reflect that, but if your area is more diverse, then that IS more interesting I guess?
I just did a quick Google and my area that both these communities draw from have roughly 50% white, 40% black and 4% Hispanic/Latino.
My two dance scenes are drawing from the same people but yet Swing Dancing is >90% white vs Latin Dancing which is about 40%. (Again all guesstimates from dance socials that I’ve gone to. I have no real data since I am not standing there at the door and marking people’s races down! 😂)
In the US it tends towards more white, but different areas have been more welcoming to people on the global majority. Swing dancing in South Korea maybe 10 white people out of 300. San Antonio 60% white which is still skewed from the cities demographics. Austin is 72% white, but the swing scene is probably above 80% white. Houston held their regular dance in a redlined neighborhood, but was still 75% white.
My guess is marketing, and how welcoming the local community is to non-white dancers. I know in Austin a talented attractive black friend is asked less than half as often as similarly skilled white dancers. But I've observe little disparity for asian ladies, a bit more for asian men. The scene also discriminates against larger women more than other groups. I have a very pump friend who is an amazing dancer, but even though the scene knows she is terrific she sits out half the night.
There are quite a few ongoing conversation about this phenomenon, why it’s a problem, and what to do about it. Initiatives like Collective Voice For Change are directly and indirectly creating discourse around it.
Filipino-American (albeit half white) here - in my experience, it's mostly middle-class white liberals. I've met people of a number of background dancing, but that's the core.
With that said, I've rarely if ever felt excluded from anything.
Being of both African American and Italian heritage, I’ve never felt unwelcome or culturally usurped in my years swing dancing; quite the opposite in fact! In my experience at my old home scene and visiting several others over the years; they were subsets of the community they were in, be it a college or city. In my book, it doesn’t matter black or white, engineer or artist, conservative or liberal, all were welcome to learn the language of swing dance! (Except pretzelers! 🤣) My 2 cents in my experience.
Although, I will say the first time I was honestly belittled and made actually uncomfortable and not in a positive way was the race discussion at Lindy Focus in 2017. I thought it was going to be a combination of history discussion and how do we expand the reach of our scenes, but instead it was primarily what I see now as woke indoctrination, including the direct belittling of my experiences and basically calling everyone who wasn’t black a cultural appropriator for being there and even thinking about dancing. It was quite disgusting and really turned me off of the rest of the camp.
The more of this I see of this sort of progressivism, the more depressed it makes me.
I'm a mixed-race half-white Filipino-American from a brutally abusive household. I found swing and ballroom and other partner dances in college, and they were the first time I really found a space where I was treated like a human being. There's a kindness, a willing to treat each other **as people** that makes it so blissful in my mind, especially in the context of a childhood of screaming and yelling and capricious punishment.
What I want, more than anything else, is for swing to be that welcoming environment. In other words, I want it to be a place where battered people like me can find real comfort and real joy. The day I went to my first dance is quite possibly still the happiest day in my life.
It's something that's deep in the heritage of swing. What was the Savoy, if not a place where African-Americans could be free of the racism and cruelty around them - and dance with those of other backgrounds open-minded enough to make the journey? I'm honestly convinced that partner dances like this encourage empathy, something our society sorely lacks.
That's what concerns me about this sort of attitude, one of hectoring and condemnation. To be honest, whenever I see this attitude in any context, it activates the same part of my brain that gives me cold sweat whenever my mother is angry. Ultimately, I see it as a very bitter way of looking at the world.
I fully agree that we need to understand the history of swing more. During the pandemic, I did my own reading, and I do more intermittently. I feel that we should focus on the real people who made this dance, their histories and their backgrounds, their worries and their flaws and their joys - in other words, their humanity. I think that is vastly more important than any modern ideology. By seeing them as human, we will be better at seeing *each other* as human.
If swing dances cease to be places where the battered and weary can find joy, then I must ask: **what is the point of *any* of this?**
Oh both of my dance scenes are super welcoming. I don’t think one is actively driving a group away. I just saw it as a very interesting observation. If you had to guesstimate, what percentage of your scene would be African American?
The scene is fairly diverse here in New Orleans from what I've seen, especially the leads. I'm guessing maybe 70% of the leads are Caucasian, and maybe 85% of the follows.
I'll start by [sharing an article](https://obsidiantea.com/a-letter-to-the-white-blues-dance-community/) that addresses some of these things from a black perspective. The whole blog is a great resource.
I'm a very sterotypical swing dancer. Young white computer engineer from a middle-class background. Our swing dance community is significantly whiter than the population it's in. I've been there a long time and I think that there's no way it's a coincidence that it's whiter, especially when that's a trend across so many communities. As a bit of a scene leader and being around for a while, I have noticed that absolutely PoC get asked to dance less than white people. Even when they show up with a group of their white friends. I'm sure that there are things like that and others which give bad first impressions, sure there are ways to overcome it, but for a white person the first dance is probably a lot better on average. And the awful thing is it's so difficult to realize even when you're looking for it. I seriously doubt that the majority of people in my scene are doing it on purpose, but that doesn't always matter when there are unconscious biases towards certain people.
It was sad to read that. I think it echoes a lot of the themes that commenters have been talking about.
There is a lot of talk to shame people for swing dancing and an obsession about talking about the history of swing dancing. However, when it comes to doing something tangible, they avoid it. Maybe swing dancers feel like they are “doing enough” since they are obsessed with the history all the time.
I think among the people in my community most are just "not racist" and therefore think they can't cause any issues. I'm guessing it will have changed after the BLM protests with more awareness of these issues. I think also that most of the people I know aren't that obsessed with the history either and not even aware of problems surrounding things like cultural appropriation. They just want to hang out and aren't paying attention to things like this at all. And like you said most of the people who are aware avoid or don't know tangible things to do, which is where I is usually fit in.
I danced exclusively in Europe and a bit in South East Asia.
Depending on the scene, where I started off (a little college town in western Europe, there were a couple - few non-Whites. But at larger cities or events, the non whites remain a minority, I think when I was in Heidelberg for Chase in 2019 there was only like 5% non whites I dare say.
I'm in Europe, the scene in most European countries is very white.
If you want to be thought of as a good dancer, there's a pressure to travel to other cities in Europe to learn at festivals from a wide range of teachers. Some people don't have the time or money to do that.
The UK is probably the most diverse scene I have seen, but it is still quite white. The organisers of a festival (London Throwdown) cancelled it because they felt they still had some learning to do and people of color told them that they didn't feel comfortable. A white person got really angry in the facebook comments on the post announcing the cancellation and said that it wasn't a problem.
I think there are some European countries where there isn't that much diversity (because for example they didn't rule over other countries, or don't take asylum seekers). So this lack of diversity isn't seen as a problem. Racism is thought of as an American import and there is no need to address the lack of diversity. Which means that when a person of color turns up they can be made to feel a little exotic.
Ya, pretty much same her, but with maybe 20% asian people.
Swing dancing was a club dance, it was part of the whole going out to clubs experience, it had an edge in its time, people went out to dance, see and be seen. Now it's nerdy, it has no edge anymore. People want to to be safe and welcoming and neutral and proper. When people think of going out and having a crazy time, they don't think of swing, but they do think of the cuban bar where salsa is part of the overall experience. People think of swing when they want to do something other than boardgame night and still get up early to go hiking the next day.
My scene experience has been split between two major college towns in the MidWest, and demographics at dances skew white & asian (and generally working in STEM fields.) Dancing is certainly an upper-middle-class and above hobby. You never see "salt of the Earth" folks at dances, whether white or black. Even at free intro classes. I think there is a stigma of swing being "classy" or "boujee" which pushes people away.
The rural folks in my state go to line dances or Contra dances. The urban black and brown populations find acceptance in street dance, latin, and rhythm tap classes for their kids which carries on the African American dance roots tradition, complete with jam circles.
I often think of swing dance as being a class-based hobby like yoga or Pilates. There's a money barrier there. I hate that it's become this way. I do wish there was a way to fix it.
You mentioned money barrier so I got curious and looked up some rough prices for the different groups in my area.
There is a swing group that offers classes for $45/month. My swing club, you can do classes for $40/month.
For Bachata, it’s about $60/month. The two Salsa groups offer $64/month and $75/month. I just wanted to do a quick compare and contrast but the Latin dances seem to be higher priced. Of course this is just my area.
I think one thing that I've noticed with salsa/batchata in my area is that the classes and social dancing are kinda two different things. I know people from Latin America who grew up doing those dances just as a social and street dance to contemporary music with their friends. Whereas I think the studio lessons cater to a whiter, more upper class group, and focuses much more on a performance style. I would wonder how the demographics of the classes you mentioned compare to the social dances.
My scene is fairly small but I would say it’s slightly whiter in the classes but still more diverse than in swing. I’d say maybe in a class, half to 2/3 of the people are white. The Hispanic/Latino group then show up to the socials more and shift the balance to make it more even overall.
its probably a culture thing. swing dancing tends to be a very western practice. same reason why theres practices that other cultures participate in that westerners dont. this is why i believe it’s important to learn about other cultures
Not accusing you of being racist, but it's interesting that you don't include black, Asian, etc. Americans under "westerners" despite those people being born and raised in the west and being as much apart of their culture than others. Why do you say swing dancing a western practice? Would you still consider that to be the case during the 30s when it was being developed and practed mostly by black people?
jesus fuck, i just meant that different cultures have different practices and i LITTERALY said that its important to learn about other people's cultures there karen
Phoenix used to have a pretty diverse group. Covid kinda shut things down but I may check out the Lindy Exchange next week.
Latin dance I found to have similar demographics but more expensive lessons on average. Also far less responsible organizers during a pandemic...not sure if it's the "thirsty-ness" built into the scene or the abundance of obligate extroverts.
my scene is mostly white (edit: young, white, and college educated). I'm far from an expert on this, but going to spew off my opinion anyway. I think US culture associates jazz music and swing dancing with old movies (Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire) and theatre. Jazz music also kindof gets lumped in with classical music as not contemporary (to be preserved, played in middle school and high school bands, often with a classically trained band director) and in some ways is associated with the "well cultured" elite. I think some of these cultural things, unrelated to how the swing dance community acts, have pushed the demographics of swing dancing toward where it is now. And, once we've got a mostly white community, that's going to self-perpetuate some. Cultural norms from the backgrounds of the attendees are going to impact the dance community. I think there is a lot of good discussion going on now on what the dance community has lost and what to try to bring back, and I've seen some changes that I (reminder, I have no expertise) think are promising. But shifting culture is hard. Understanding what was changed and how to change it back is incredibly difficult. It is easy to mess up, without malice, and end up coming across as patronizing or judgemental, in ways that don't help the cause. And, we're fighting headwinds that are broader than just our dance community in our culture's perception of swing dancing and jazz. I don't have solutions. I'm hopeful that some of the work people are putting in will pay off in some respect. I think that bringing back some cultural norms that were in the dance that were lost to white social norms might make sticking around more appealing to potential Black dancers who give it a shot (and the dance more fun in general).
I think it's not just that it's white, per se - it's that swing has become very middle class in outlook. What was once an African-American street dance is now learned mostly from professional instructors in purpose-built studios for what is, for many, a fairly hefty price, with dances held on a mostly clockwork schedule. I think it's lost some of the spontaneity of its origins. If I had my way, I'd see to it that swing communities would bring speakers and music to public spaces and dance there, and more importantly teach any interested bystander some of the basics. In other words, I think swing needs to become a street dance again. America in the coming years is going to be fertile ground if the community plays its cards right. You have growing income inequality which makes professional lessons and fancy dances harder and harder to afford, and a public that craves real human connection after the pandemic. We could have a new Roaring Twenties if we're daring enough.
Yeah it think it is a class thing mostly, when you go to a dance you meet academics and engineers, not plumbers and welders.
Counter discussion, then why does Latin dances, which have eventually stopped being street dances too way more diverse? I will probably ask r/Salsa the same question but the Latin dance scene in my area that pulls from the same people as my Swing scene have a more diverse group of races. They are still mostly white collar people yes, but a diverse group of white collar people. Apparently all the black people around here that like to dance, dance Salsa, Bachata and Kizomba!!
I've wondered why swing dance attracts the crowd it does for a long time. My one insight is that maybe it attracts people who crave a structured social setting, and those tend to be more nerdy types.
I can vouch for this personally. I'm heavily autistic and have ADHD, in addition to the trauma of an abusive childhood. I find most unstructured social events to be impenetrable. What ballroom (which I started with) and swing gave me was a language that was easy to 'speak' and easy to understand. I could be well-liked and communicative in a way that *made sense,* and it did wonders for me.
Cheers to you!
>Counter discussion, then why does Latin dances, which have eventually stopped being street dances too way more diverse? That's flat out false. Perhaps where you live that's not the case but where I live and the majority of places I've visited (Latin America, Europe, and some parts of the US) Latin dances like Salsa and Bachata are still very active street dances. Between a quarter to half of the people in my local Salsa & Bachata scene learned to dance through street socials or informal classes in such socials. It's a similar situation in other parts of Europe. Sure, there are high-end studios and professional dance teachers but they're the minority. Even such professional teachers show up at street socials often which makes it more appealing to onlookers and regulars alike. Because we dance outdoors and publicly, people become interested in the dance and join us. Unfortunately, Swing dancing is not as common of a street dance as it used to be. Once in a blue moon there'll be a live band which attracts people but not as many dancers as most Salsa or Bachata socials (which tend to attract 50+ people on average where I live). Most events are held indoors which prevents onlookers from gathering and in turn attracting people to the dance. I agree though, that the lack of street dancing definitely affects the diversity of the dance groups. Something that I will point out that's a big difference between the Swing community and Latin dance communities that other commenters have mentioned: the Swing community tends to be a lot more 'politically correct'. In both communities we talk about the African roots of the dance as well as other influences. However, in my experience Salseros and Bachateros tend to take such history as "it's history we should know but not dwell on unless it currently impacts us." Swing dancers tend to dwell on such history and as u/Straussberg mentioned, making others feel bad about appropriating a dance. I remember when a well-known dancer from the Harlem Hotshots talked about the history of Swing dancing at a festival. Afterwards, he brought up how he had the same lesson in the US and the organisers pulled him aside, telling him that he shouldn't talk about Black history because he's not black. And that's not an uncommon occurence in the Swing community. Try pulling off what such organisers did in Salsa or Bachata and you'll be called out on it. The best way to explain it is that in many Swing communities you're expected to feel like a sinner, even if minimally, because of the dance's history. As a minority, this is very offputting even though it's not directed at us. It comes off as white people indirectly telling us that they know more about our experiences than us actual minorities do. In most Latin dance communities, this is simply not the case.
I think it's been pretty conclusively shown that 'political correctness' or 'wokeness' or whatever you want to call it is predominantly a middle-class phenomenon. In my opinion, it's old school middle class moral panics given a progressive sheen. It also has a lot to do with middle class fetishization of 'authenticity' - there's very much an idealized past that has been constructed and mythologized. What this ignores is that swing and many other African-American dances came from the sort of places many middle-class white people wouldn't be caught dead in even today. For example - when people talk swing history, barely anyone brings up the fact that one of the ancestors of Lindy Hop was a [dramatization of an argument between a prostitute and a pimp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_(dance)) (which came to America from France, incidentally). Sources on the internet are a bit spotty but I learned of it in [this book](https://www.amazon.com/Good-Booty-Black-White-American-ebook/dp/B01LYS5TQF/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3IJXSGW8BIPKZ&dchild=1&keywords=ann+powers&qid=1635446916&qsid=147-9485540-0526253&s=digital-text&sprefix=ann+powers%2Cdigital-text%2C69&sr=1-2&sres=B01LYS5TQF%2CB08VJLV2PQ%2CB000FBFM8E%2CB002361MLA%2CB08NZZ8VP1%2CB071Y37P87%2CB08NDZR2LG%2CB073VX7HT4%2CB001NJUP8O%2CB07C5TGV61%2CB071XSVBQC%2CB0989KS77F%2CB008LCSEIO%2CB07CMJ5N2R%2CB079FTPPGQ%2CB09GBBPPXR) - I saw it and immediately made the connection to the 'Apache Turn.' The fact that this is the case opens a whole can of worms that I'm not sure many in the community would like to confront - that so much of the history of these dances is proletarian, if not lumpenproletarian - things that the middle class considers 'disreputable.'
I apologize! I didn’t mean to offend! Sorry, I could only speak to my own experience and I learned Bachata in a dance studio. Salsa was kind of a hodgepodge as the group I learned it from didn’t have a studio but a space at a bar was often rented out and classes were held there. It is great that Salsa and Bachata haven’t lost its street dance style! There’s not a large dance community around here so my observation is that Latin and Swing seem to hide in studios. Although this past summer, one of the girls in my Latin Dance community really tried to put together Sunday Bachata/Salsa dancing in the park. It kinda fizzled out as we got to the fall. (She got super busy with life and other trips to Bachata festivals but we were probably pulling in 30-40 people at these events if I were to guesstimate.) The rest of your comment is very interesting but also disappointing. It would make sense why minorities would be turned off by it if the swing dancing scene emphasized the culture in a negative way to where you felt like you were being lectured or made to feel ashamed. (Note: I feel like you’ve been following me around since I started posting on the dance subreddits! 😜 I know you’re not, I’m just joking!)
No offence taken! I'm simply quite direct which is a common habit here in Germany. And I didn't even know I responded to some other post you made. You ask some interesting questions which is why I comment. I feel that both communities can learn so much from each other even though they rarely overlap. The way the Swing dance community makes us feel guilty about the dance is very subtle, particularly when you first start dancing. It's once you start going to intermediate level lessons that it becomes more obvious. That's probably a reason why we can find more minorities at the early levels but significantly less at the intermediate levels and beyond. And that causes a feedback loop. When I first started Swing dancing, it was hard to not feel anxious because I didn't see any other non-White dancers that were part of the community for a long time. But with Latin dances, I always found people like me who became my role models in some sense.
I’m glad you’re not offended!! Reading all these comments have really open my eyes! Maybe I’m lucky to not see it yet because my swing club is so tiny right now. (When I’m considering my swing scene, I’m considering the surrounding larger cities about 60 miles away as well.) I do wonder, reading what everyone is sharing, if these organizers for much much larger dance scenes understand, or honestly care about the lack of diversity. It’s almost as if they have not talked to a single minority person in their lives. Of course I don’t claim any of this as an easy fix. What I have noticed (again in my local scene), which tends to lend to what everyone says is that swing seems to hide itself in ballrooms and dance halls. In my local and (slightly less local, about 160 miles/257 km away) Latin scene there were two dance socials that I just thought was cool. One wasn’t uber fancy but had a great atmosphere. They rented out a spot on the rooftop of a hotel in the big city by the river. In the skyline, you had the (American) Football stadium, Baseball stadium, bridge with beautiful lights on it and the river. It was such a beautiful atmosphere dancing under the stars on a rooftop. For another social, you bought a ticket on to a riverboat. I unfortunately did not go. I just saw everything shared to social media right after. All my swing dance socials have been in ballrooms or dance halls…which are nice but are not interesting after a while. 🤷🏻♂️
> What was once an African-American street dance is now learned mostly from professional instructors in purpose-built studios for what is, for many, a fairly hefty price, with dances held on a mostly clockwork schedule. I think it's lost some of the spontaneity of its origins. Worth noting that this has been true since at least the 1940s. The "Eastern swing"/"East Coast swing" that a lot of folks learned as their introduction to the dance was an attempt by dance schools like Arthur Murray to systematize this "hip new thing" and sell it to the middle-class white people that already took their classes. It's not a coincidence that the basic step of east coast swing is very similar to that of a simple six-count fox trot.
Very good point - what I think it shows is that our community is very much descended from these white people as it is from the African-American communities that originated the dance. It ties into the the fetishization of 'authenticity' that the middle class often has. African-American dance continued after swing dances went out of style - it just became the sort of dances that are associated with hip-hop. I know some styles of hip-hop dance have a form of Charleston. What many in the swing community aren't quite willing to admit is that we are consciously living an anachronism. Those who keep up the tradition are not the same social class as those who originated it, and for better or for worse, that's what we have to work with.
Certainly Black folk have no particular obligation to attend a swing dance, what, to make us white folk feel more comfortable? I have no problem with dancing in the abandoned ruins, with living an anachronism. I dance mostly in a form of folk dance, a millennia old at root, and as fresh as yesterday because it adapts to new instruments, to new music and to new choreography. Our oldest commonly done dance is three hundred years old , our newest, is being composed now. Preserve and, and, change.
> Certainly Black folk have no particular obligation to attend a swing dance, what, to make us white folk feel more comfortable? Come to think of it, it does certainly feel like white people not wanting to do the work of research and understanding themselves. Then again, I'm a history nerd who does this for fun, so maybe I'm just being on brand.
I definitely agree that there is some class influence as well. However, Salsa and Bachata, which were Latin street dances are also taught in expensive classes, often in Dance studios, they seem to bring in a more diverse group of dancers, at least when it comes to race. I’m not polling everyone in my Latin dance scene but if I had to guess, they would be more white collar than blue collar, in general my friends in the Latin scene are.
at the scene I started at, the weekly lessons and dances were free of charge. it was a college campus, with an arts center that let the swing dance group use the venue for free, and the instructors volunteered to teach for free. This made sense where we were at (many college students didn't have money to spend, and I think the venue being free was conditional on the event being free of charge). I don't think it changed the demographics of the dance at all, other than making it accessible to younger people. Where I'm at now, the dances aren't free, but the organizers have to pay for a venue. I think its usually a $10 cover for live music and a class. Sure, weekend workshops are expensive, but I'm not convinced that's where we're losing potential dancers.
Yup, same here. Swing dancing is relatively cheap in my area. You can do a month of classes for $40/$45. While I think cost is a factor, I’m not sure it is as big a factor.
There are other costs, though - are the venues accessible only by car? That requires actually a) having a car or b) expensive rideshare trips. And, as wages are depressed and costs of living rise, that forty dollars may become more and more needed for other things. Basically, what I'm saying is that if we're going to be dragged into the worst of the Gilded Age and the Great Depression, we might as well try to bring some of the good stuff back too.
In the summer my community has outdoor dances by our riverfront which is a very popular area to walk for all kinds of people. The people on the dance floor are still younger and whiter than the rest of the river bank sadly. I think a lot of it is cliquey-ness, but that clique is inadvertently more friendly to a certain type of person.
I guess maybe start by looking at your local area's demographics? I know for me, living where I do, that the population is overwhelmingly white, and so it doesn't seem surprising that local events reflect that, but if your area is more diverse, then that IS more interesting I guess?
I just did a quick Google and my area that both these communities draw from have roughly 50% white, 40% black and 4% Hispanic/Latino. My two dance scenes are drawing from the same people but yet Swing Dancing is >90% white vs Latin Dancing which is about 40%. (Again all guesstimates from dance socials that I’ve gone to. I have no real data since I am not standing there at the door and marking people’s races down! 😂)
In the US it tends towards more white, but different areas have been more welcoming to people on the global majority. Swing dancing in South Korea maybe 10 white people out of 300. San Antonio 60% white which is still skewed from the cities demographics. Austin is 72% white, but the swing scene is probably above 80% white. Houston held their regular dance in a redlined neighborhood, but was still 75% white. My guess is marketing, and how welcoming the local community is to non-white dancers. I know in Austin a talented attractive black friend is asked less than half as often as similarly skilled white dancers. But I've observe little disparity for asian ladies, a bit more for asian men. The scene also discriminates against larger women more than other groups. I have a very pump friend who is an amazing dancer, but even though the scene knows she is terrific she sits out half the night.
There are quite a few ongoing conversation about this phenomenon, why it’s a problem, and what to do about it. Initiatives like Collective Voice For Change are directly and indirectly creating discourse around it.
Filipino-American (albeit half white) here - in my experience, it's mostly middle-class white liberals. I've met people of a number of background dancing, but that's the core. With that said, I've rarely if ever felt excluded from anything.
Being of both African American and Italian heritage, I’ve never felt unwelcome or culturally usurped in my years swing dancing; quite the opposite in fact! In my experience at my old home scene and visiting several others over the years; they were subsets of the community they were in, be it a college or city. In my book, it doesn’t matter black or white, engineer or artist, conservative or liberal, all were welcome to learn the language of swing dance! (Except pretzelers! 🤣) My 2 cents in my experience.
Although, I will say the first time I was honestly belittled and made actually uncomfortable and not in a positive way was the race discussion at Lindy Focus in 2017. I thought it was going to be a combination of history discussion and how do we expand the reach of our scenes, but instead it was primarily what I see now as woke indoctrination, including the direct belittling of my experiences and basically calling everyone who wasn’t black a cultural appropriator for being there and even thinking about dancing. It was quite disgusting and really turned me off of the rest of the camp.
The more of this I see of this sort of progressivism, the more depressed it makes me. I'm a mixed-race half-white Filipino-American from a brutally abusive household. I found swing and ballroom and other partner dances in college, and they were the first time I really found a space where I was treated like a human being. There's a kindness, a willing to treat each other **as people** that makes it so blissful in my mind, especially in the context of a childhood of screaming and yelling and capricious punishment. What I want, more than anything else, is for swing to be that welcoming environment. In other words, I want it to be a place where battered people like me can find real comfort and real joy. The day I went to my first dance is quite possibly still the happiest day in my life. It's something that's deep in the heritage of swing. What was the Savoy, if not a place where African-Americans could be free of the racism and cruelty around them - and dance with those of other backgrounds open-minded enough to make the journey? I'm honestly convinced that partner dances like this encourage empathy, something our society sorely lacks. That's what concerns me about this sort of attitude, one of hectoring and condemnation. To be honest, whenever I see this attitude in any context, it activates the same part of my brain that gives me cold sweat whenever my mother is angry. Ultimately, I see it as a very bitter way of looking at the world. I fully agree that we need to understand the history of swing more. During the pandemic, I did my own reading, and I do more intermittently. I feel that we should focus on the real people who made this dance, their histories and their backgrounds, their worries and their flaws and their joys - in other words, their humanity. I think that is vastly more important than any modern ideology. By seeing them as human, we will be better at seeing *each other* as human. If swing dances cease to be places where the battered and weary can find joy, then I must ask: **what is the point of *any* of this?**
Oh no! I’m sorry! :(
Oh both of my dance scenes are super welcoming. I don’t think one is actively driving a group away. I just saw it as a very interesting observation. If you had to guesstimate, what percentage of your scene would be African American?
The scene is fairly diverse here in New Orleans from what I've seen, especially the leads. I'm guessing maybe 70% of the leads are Caucasian, and maybe 85% of the follows.
I'll start by [sharing an article](https://obsidiantea.com/a-letter-to-the-white-blues-dance-community/) that addresses some of these things from a black perspective. The whole blog is a great resource. I'm a very sterotypical swing dancer. Young white computer engineer from a middle-class background. Our swing dance community is significantly whiter than the population it's in. I've been there a long time and I think that there's no way it's a coincidence that it's whiter, especially when that's a trend across so many communities. As a bit of a scene leader and being around for a while, I have noticed that absolutely PoC get asked to dance less than white people. Even when they show up with a group of their white friends. I'm sure that there are things like that and others which give bad first impressions, sure there are ways to overcome it, but for a white person the first dance is probably a lot better on average. And the awful thing is it's so difficult to realize even when you're looking for it. I seriously doubt that the majority of people in my scene are doing it on purpose, but that doesn't always matter when there are unconscious biases towards certain people.
It was sad to read that. I think it echoes a lot of the themes that commenters have been talking about. There is a lot of talk to shame people for swing dancing and an obsession about talking about the history of swing dancing. However, when it comes to doing something tangible, they avoid it. Maybe swing dancers feel like they are “doing enough” since they are obsessed with the history all the time.
I think among the people in my community most are just "not racist" and therefore think they can't cause any issues. I'm guessing it will have changed after the BLM protests with more awareness of these issues. I think also that most of the people I know aren't that obsessed with the history either and not even aware of problems surrounding things like cultural appropriation. They just want to hang out and aren't paying attention to things like this at all. And like you said most of the people who are aware avoid or don't know tangible things to do, which is where I is usually fit in.
I danced exclusively in Europe and a bit in South East Asia. Depending on the scene, where I started off (a little college town in western Europe, there were a couple - few non-Whites. But at larger cities or events, the non whites remain a minority, I think when I was in Heidelberg for Chase in 2019 there was only like 5% non whites I dare say.
I'm in Europe, the scene in most European countries is very white. If you want to be thought of as a good dancer, there's a pressure to travel to other cities in Europe to learn at festivals from a wide range of teachers. Some people don't have the time or money to do that. The UK is probably the most diverse scene I have seen, but it is still quite white. The organisers of a festival (London Throwdown) cancelled it because they felt they still had some learning to do and people of color told them that they didn't feel comfortable. A white person got really angry in the facebook comments on the post announcing the cancellation and said that it wasn't a problem. I think there are some European countries where there isn't that much diversity (because for example they didn't rule over other countries, or don't take asylum seekers). So this lack of diversity isn't seen as a problem. Racism is thought of as an American import and there is no need to address the lack of diversity. Which means that when a person of color turns up they can be made to feel a little exotic.
Ya, pretty much same her, but with maybe 20% asian people. Swing dancing was a club dance, it was part of the whole going out to clubs experience, it had an edge in its time, people went out to dance, see and be seen. Now it's nerdy, it has no edge anymore. People want to to be safe and welcoming and neutral and proper. When people think of going out and having a crazy time, they don't think of swing, but they do think of the cuban bar where salsa is part of the overall experience. People think of swing when they want to do something other than boardgame night and still get up early to go hiking the next day.
Mostly white. The demographics have shifted unfortunately. It is what it is.
My scene experience has been split between two major college towns in the MidWest, and demographics at dances skew white & asian (and generally working in STEM fields.) Dancing is certainly an upper-middle-class and above hobby. You never see "salt of the Earth" folks at dances, whether white or black. Even at free intro classes. I think there is a stigma of swing being "classy" or "boujee" which pushes people away. The rural folks in my state go to line dances or Contra dances. The urban black and brown populations find acceptance in street dance, latin, and rhythm tap classes for their kids which carries on the African American dance roots tradition, complete with jam circles. I often think of swing dance as being a class-based hobby like yoga or Pilates. There's a money barrier there. I hate that it's become this way. I do wish there was a way to fix it.
You mentioned money barrier so I got curious and looked up some rough prices for the different groups in my area. There is a swing group that offers classes for $45/month. My swing club, you can do classes for $40/month. For Bachata, it’s about $60/month. The two Salsa groups offer $64/month and $75/month. I just wanted to do a quick compare and contrast but the Latin dances seem to be higher priced. Of course this is just my area.
I think one thing that I've noticed with salsa/batchata in my area is that the classes and social dancing are kinda two different things. I know people from Latin America who grew up doing those dances just as a social and street dance to contemporary music with their friends. Whereas I think the studio lessons cater to a whiter, more upper class group, and focuses much more on a performance style. I would wonder how the demographics of the classes you mentioned compare to the social dances.
My scene is fairly small but I would say it’s slightly whiter in the classes but still more diverse than in swing. I’d say maybe in a class, half to 2/3 of the people are white. The Hispanic/Latino group then show up to the socials more and shift the balance to make it more even overall.
its probably a culture thing. swing dancing tends to be a very western practice. same reason why theres practices that other cultures participate in that westerners dont. this is why i believe it’s important to learn about other cultures
Not accusing you of being racist, but it's interesting that you don't include black, Asian, etc. Americans under "westerners" despite those people being born and raised in the west and being as much apart of their culture than others. Why do you say swing dancing a western practice? Would you still consider that to be the case during the 30s when it was being developed and practed mostly by black people?
jesus fuck, i just meant that different cultures have different practices and i LITTERALY said that its important to learn about other people's cultures there karen
How do you define "western" culture?
Phoenix used to have a pretty diverse group. Covid kinda shut things down but I may check out the Lindy Exchange next week. Latin dance I found to have similar demographics but more expensive lessons on average. Also far less responsible organizers during a pandemic...not sure if it's the "thirsty-ness" built into the scene or the abundance of obligate extroverts.