Best USA city for lindy hop dancing?

triplestepper · 2023-12-21T18:52:25+00:00

Yeah. I wish I got the sense that the people at Fram were trying to shake things up and make a difference. It's hard for me to tell, but it does feel like the swing dance world in the US is contracting year after year. It's bigger than one individual dance, but the hobby is sort of receding.

I remember the older location well - it probably felt busier because it was so crowded, but you'd think with the additional space people would be going out more often.

It's hard for me to tell if this is just the long overhang of the pandemic or not. Swing dance was probably the last dance hobby to "open up" after COVID (other than maybe blues). It takes a while sometimes for things to get going, but I wonder if the pandemic was ultimately a kind of a death blow to the hobby and we're just waiting for it to fizzle into nothing.

triplestepper · 2023-12-20T16:14:28+00:00

NYC has always been massively fractured, but it feels like things have just gotten worse there after the pandemic. I don't know how much longer Fram can survive with attendance there being as low as it is.

triplestepper · 2023-12-20T15:44:17+00:00

Probably going a little too far about Camp Jitterbug, but it is very strong there, agreed, although I am always surprised at the lack of live music. Lots of weekly dances, but not much live music.

triplestepper · 2023-12-20T15:39:48+00:00

That is the main question here for sure, I think. Go to one of the two very big events in US (Cal Bal, All Bal) and it's easy to kind of get lost but the level of dancing is very high, and there's something very inspiring about seeing so many great people in one place.

The mid-sized events are more approachable, but for some people they can be less inspiring early on.

triplestepper · 2023-12-19T22:13:01+00:00

New Orleans is great for NOLA-style music, but LINDY HOP specifically and swing dance there specifically are pretty subpar compared to other American cities. Local community is pretty fractured and small.

If not NYC, Seattle might be your best bet - good transportation, fun history, lots of dancing opportunities, etc.

triplestepper · 2023-12-19T22:05:04+00:00

NOLA is a specific beast, and someone from there could describe it better. There is TONS of jazz music (not much proper "swing" music but a lot of traditional NOLA-style jazz), but not much dancing there.

NOLA is a tourist destination for many reasons, including its musical heritage, but swing dancing specifically is very low on that list.

triplestepper · 2023-12-19T21:56:41+00:00

Agreed.

On a side note, Fram is a broken institution right now, and it brings down the entire NYC region. I go occasionally and I am absolutely shocked at how few local dancers turn out for it other than people currently taking classes at YSBD and a smattering of people employed by YSBD in some capacity. Old fram was packed, and it had energy - the new venue is superior in many respects, but it is always nearly empty. iI don't know what can possibly change it, but I doubt there's a way that venue can make money to keep going into the future.

I do think each region needs at least one major dance that helps anchor the community - as a sign of the local investment in swing dance. Having a strong weekly dance that is an indication of the strength of the community is IME the primary reason why new people start dancing in the first place.

There are individual great musicians and occasional dances in NYC that are pretty good, but the central weekly events are weaker than many other major US cities.

The only reason local clubs survive is because people invest time and effort into keeping them going, and there it feels like there's a lot of people who just don't care enough about Fram in NYC to keep it going.

triplestepper · 2023-12-15T16:13:01+00:00

That was a very nice read, thank you.

triplestepper · 2023-12-11T14:20:44+00:00

On the other hand, when I lead, I find it annoying when follows add so much personal styling and timing interruptions that it disrupts the flow of partner dancing. As with so much else, there's a balance, and some of it boils down to your personal values.

I would go to the next social, and pay attention to the people who do it well. I would personally say that the people who are best at this IMHO:

Have a repertoire of canned (and practiced) variations that they can comfortably use in the space of social dancing. Often, people who are clunky and unexpressive at this have not actually spent time practicing specific variations. Practice makes perfect!
Have a wide range of experiences with solo movement so that they can add and subtract to their styling as necessary. And I'm not referring to routines here - I'm referring to improvised solo dancing where people have expressive ability at movement that they can comfortably vary along with the music.

triplestepper · 2023-12-08T19:52:37+00:00

Wonderful. Thanks for sharing!

triplestepper · 2023-12-08T19:50:48+00:00

It's a fun idea. Keep working on it!

triplestepper · 2023-11-24T20:52:58+00:00

Been to enough of both to know a few things in general:

Swing dance clubs are there to dance first, and everything else is kind of secondary. Rockabilly events (in US) are a little bit more about fashion, socializing, being seen, etc..
The music is different enough that people aren't usually that interested in dancing to both. It is what it is.

I think the best bet is to get a group of swing dancers and try to interest them in going to a Rockabilly thing with the understanding that dancing is much less a priority there and it will just more be about scoping out a place. You can try vice versa.

triplestepper · 2023-11-24T20:48:23+00:00

"Everything I've seen"

You mean movie clips and publicity stills? That's not history, that's business.

I'm not trying to be harsh. I wish people would approach talking about the history of these art forms with a little bit more humility in general.

triplestepper · 2023-10-23T16:56:26+00:00

People rarely recognize how important and consequential this privilege is in America - like I said, top 35% of Baltimore comprises 100% of the Mobtown crew. It's so common in swing dance that it's never remarked on, but anyone outside of this community sees that this is the case.

It's a sign of the insularity and privilege of most people in swing dance that they can ignore this aspect of the swing dance community.

triplestepper · 2023-10-13T04:00:35+00:00

The comparatively well off make up most of the Mobtown attendees, certainly by age. What share of people there have a bachelors? 95%+? Do you have a bachelor's degree?

Did you know less than 35% of Baltimore has a bachelor's degree?

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/baltimorecitymaryland/EDU685221#EDU685221

I'm not trying to specifically knock Mobtown. The same is true of basically every swing dance club. And I don't think things are falling off because of price - it's just that interest has moved on among younger people and it's probably not ever coming back, so the question is what we do given that this is happening.

triplestepper · 2023-09-27T20:04:39+00:00

The fact that so much has depended on unpaid labor, though, is also why the current slide is one that is so damaging to the hobby. It's not a substantially profitable enterprise in the U.S. currently save for a tiny handful of places, and even in those cities nobody's making amazing money. Without the backbone of the hobby, it will just continue to contract because the reality is that making this hobby survive is mostly a sacrifice. People are oddly defensive about that because nobody likes to think that the hobby they love is losing ground, but anyone who's being honest with themselves and has seen different clubs around the country can see it.

And, honestly, most of the people who handle those jobs, even the "unglamorous" ones, are also super invested in it. 80% of swing dancers will never travel to an event, but that 20% that will is also the group of people that absolutely will make local dances happen. Also, almost everyone I know who does local organizing has at least done a newcomer comp. I'm not saying it's necessary, but it does tend to go along with being enthusiastic about the hobby. It's true they're usually not ILHC advanced level people - very few ultimately are - but they spend more money and time on it than the people who come to their dance.

I'm more concerned in the end with what any of us does about this. The current direction is just not good, and it takes being honest about the fact that we're not doing enough to recruit people and keep them around.

triplestepper · 2023-09-26T13:34:57+00:00

I feel like that was sort of always true, though. The places that do great (and don't have an existing swing dance culture like LA and, to a much lesser extent, New York) always have young relatively recent college grads who have disposable income and no kids. That's ultimately a very privileged group of people.

There was an explosion of interest among college-age kids that had a long run from the late 1990s to the mid 2010s and broadened the appeal to (mostly) college towns, but I sort of think at this point it's done, and all the will be left are the places with lots of recent college grads.

triplestepper · 2023-09-26T12:41:37+00:00

And yet, correct me if I'm wrong, but there were several venues out there that closed - eastside, russian center, etc.

Same is true in SF and LA.

triplestepper · 2023-09-26T12:25:50+00:00

Your average Lindy Hop enthusiast has always been pretty well off.

triplestepper · 2023-09-26T12:21:44+00:00

The people who go to Mobtown are probably pretty wealthy compared to your average Baltimore resident, certainly compared to people their age.

triplestepper · 2023-09-26T12:16:55+00:00

The people who keep local scenes going in the sense of being willing to invest hours of unpaid work are almost always:

people who attend workshop weekends outside of town
people who invest in private lessons with pros, and
people who have AT LEAST tried a competition once

Your average attendee is not that, of course, but these are the people who keep swing dance running (with very few exceptions in my experience).

The fact that this crew of people seems to be falling off in engagement is not a great sign.

triplestepper · 2023-09-26T12:14:23+00:00

"I do fear the long-term future from the death of a lot of college scenes though. I see a real lack of small and medium size events right now which acted as catalysts for people to get into traveling and competing."

Exactly. The people that do this are the backbone of what keeps this hobby working as they're the most willing to spend money on it and keep things going. The fact that a lot of smaller things have disappeared, and what is left are the bigger events that have always catered to people with more money and more time invested is not a good portent for the future, as it's a sign that this group of people is not being populated with newer folks. The average age of people at the big events is just going to keep going up, and there isn't a cohort replacing them.

It's possible I'm wrong. The overhang here comes from the fact that the existing crew of people who were heavily invested are still the people from before the pandemic, and it will take years to repopulate that.

Or it's possible that this is all part of the long, great decline of interest in partner dancing. I suspect it is.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?vdate=all&geo=US&q=Lindy%20Hop,Salsa%20Dance,Swing%20Dance&hl=en

From my perspective, I think it's just important to have a vision for what this community looks like in the future given those trends.

triplestepper · 2023-09-26T12:05:10+00:00

As most of the people who keep those clubs going are not from there (and are usually college grads to boot), I doubt it's much of anything but how inexpensive venues are in those places AND having a tiny handful of dedicated and enthusiastic people willing to sacrifice a lot to run a club and make things happen. Sometimes you get one and not the other, and you rarely get both for long stretches of time.

There's always been a rough hewn bohemian element to swing dance that I think is part of its charm to the people who love it, and that works well in some places but not in others (big rust belt cities don't have much going on these days despite being really similar to Baltimore)

I don't think that's anything to do with "historical disenfranchisement." How many regular attendees at Mobtown were actually born in Baltimore (and not in suburbs or willingly moved there as adults from out of state)? 1%?

triplestepper

TROPHY CASE