Dick van Dyke was only about 90 when this was recorded. He's 100 now! I visited a Rusty Frank swing dance back around 2010. Did YouTube know?
Dick van Dyke & Rusty Frank ... Plus Benji Schwimmer talks about "Modern Swing"
- Thread starter Steve Pastor
- Start date
Good topic since I'm so interested in West Coast Swing & its very early history, but ... Let's call this 40 minute long "podcast" wordy. Still looking forward to see where he goes with this.
Mengu
Forum Master
Came here to tell you about this podcast, but you're already on top of it.
There are a few things he said that really resonated with me regarding the current climate. Like what he said about late night dancing resembling a cosplay of a spotlight J&J. That is exactly what it looks like, the dancers are dancing for an audience and not for themselves or each other, or just for the sake of exploration or vibes. I think this is partly because when competitive dancers social dance, they are usually just practicing. Sadly I don't have anything to compare that to from 25-30 years ago, to understand what he's comparing it to.
I really want to see more individuality, but I also understand the difficulty of that for competitive dancers. You need to look like "you belong" if you want to make it to a final at the lower divisions. If you are too far off on your own, it's seen as "mistakes" and not "choices". You almost have to get to highest levels, top layer of all-star, before you can express more individuality, and have that be seen as intentional and respectable. It's possible that it sometimes gets rewarded at lower levels, but it's rare.
I also agree with him on his thoughts around music, but he has stated those many times in other platforms. We need bolder dj's.
I watched the video, but had big problems to understand what it was actually about. So as a last desperate step, I asked M$ copilot to make a summary for me ... and if it understood him correctly, Benji complained about monoculturalism and everything being the same, international communities just copying everything from US etc. It's very unexpected to me - people usually complain about a style drifting too far from the roots (although roots rarely actually exist as everything changes ...)
Or it was about something else that AI misunderstood ?
Didn't know that Robert Cordoba was the name that big so he was mentioned in the video ... our WCS teacher invited him to our town several times and his workshops were excellent
Or it was about something else that AI misunderstood ?
Didn't know that Robert Cordoba was the name that big so he was mentioned in the video ... our WCS teacher invited him to our town several times and his workshops were excellent
Mengu
Forum Master
You kind of have to understand where Benji is coming from. He started WCS as a kid. His parents were already swing legends. He then diversified his own training (probably was encouraged to), delving into many styles, ballroom, contemporary, jazz, tap etc. I think he has done 9 years of tap. He has done lindy hop, and studied many other styles of swing. He has studied swing history in depth. So his own dancing comes from a culmination of all those styles merging into his version of swing, while holding true to what he again considers to be fundamentals of swing, and even philosophically staying true to the roots of swing.
What he wants to see more from other dancers is individuality. He wants everyone to study whatever interests them, and bring it to the floor in their own way. There are a lot of people trying to copy/emulate other top/successful dancers. And they get applauded for being perfect copies. Benji would prefer if dancers became the best version of themselves, instead of copies of others.
This is probably an oversimplification because dance is a complicated journey. Copying is very much human nature, it's how we learn. and it's easy to equate perfect copies with success. Artists learn by copying masters. But somewhere along the journey, we all have to find our own voice. For some, this comes easier, for others, it takes a long time.
In the podcast, he's pointing out some of his swing heroes, and how they each brought something new, a piece of their own experience into the dance. Obviously this doesn't really apply to brand new dancers who are at the start of their journey. It's mostly for those who have been on the journey for a while, but beginners certainly can keep it in mind.
He does repeat himself quite a bit, as I will too here to explain his reference to monoculturalism... It is referring to dancers drawing from the same small pool of ideas. The same movement quality, same musical interpretation, same shapes, same “successful” competitors being copied, same judges rewarding the same look... So the dance starts to look like many bodies, one voice, instead of many bodies, many voices.
Yeah, I'm getting it. I'm coming from Ballroom background, where diversity isn't really a goal, so it was a bit harder for me to understand. However, application of his idea is a bit limited - probably to an area where WCS actually belongs, which is certain parts of the States. In other parts of the world, people just move differently, are used to different music and different kind of grooving to the music - so their goal actually is to try changing that to be as close to "original" as possible. Sure they could try dancing WCS the way how they used to interpret music before starting WCS, but I'm not sure Benji would like that either ... so real goal is probably try to be slightly different than others, but again not too much ...
This is a valid critic. It can be applied to other popular social dances too.
I have to say I have seen more individuality in WCS than other dances. I also see the sameness that he might be referring to. Having diverse dance background does help with the individualization.
Out here WCS does have social dancers who are not interested in scoring points at J&J.
While we're waiting for Benji's next video you might want to take a look at
SUGARPUSH: A HISTORY OF WEST COAST SWING,
RACE, AND GENDER
by Kellie Marie Swier Lavin
I enjoyed her discussion of the Hijack period in particular.
There are a few places in the early history that could be corrected based on information found since her 2019 publication date, but overall I think it's a pretty good piece.
SUGARPUSH: A HISTORY OF WEST COAST SWING,
RACE, AND GENDER
by Kellie Marie Swier Lavin
I enjoyed her discussion of the Hijack period in particular.
There are a few places in the early history that could be corrected based on information found since her 2019 publication date, but overall I think it's a pretty good piece.
New episode just "dropped." Don't have 40 minutes right now so I'll just remark that this might be the first time I've seen the RIng Shout in a video about (what's it called now?) swing. I see some steps there from a dance I learned when I took African dance lessons. Did I miss the part where he got to the late 40s when WCs had a name that we can see in print?
More later probably.
More later probably.
Great demonstration of straight through heavily swung at 23:30.
I love that. It's so much better than the rote 2/3 1/3 division that gets trotted out as "swung".