East Coast Swing vs Nite Club Two Step

[Steve Pastor]

I used to do East Coast Swing a lot, and used a lot of moves that are seen in John Javna's "How to Jitterbug" which was published in 1984. Kelly Buckwalter is the featured female dancer. (Anyone know how I can send her a message, cause she wrote that it is fortunately a rare book and I'd like to ask her about WCS and such in the Bay area when she started?)

Somewhere along the way, I pretty much stopped doing East Coast. Up til recently my main dance with qq s s was CW two step. And I have been really working on my West Coast.
And, I've gotten lots of practice with Nite Club while most people dance Sweetheart Schottische.

Recently I've been getting requests to dance East Coast. Well, what I found out is that I keep falling into the qq s of Nite Club.
It's kind of made me (sort of) resolve to get my East Coast on.

Anyone else run into this getting stuck in one rhythm and finding it hard to break out?


BTW There's not much (pretty much zero) Lindy, shag or Balboa where I dance, although I do think (but only think) about taking classes for those dances.

 

[opendoor]

...gotten lots of practice with Nite Club while most people dance Sweetheart Schottische....

We dance Schottish over here to music in 2/4, whereas all swing variants are in 4/4.

 

[Steve Pastor]

I guess I'm the only who has this problem!
Meanwhile, the solution I came up with is:

step touch step touch instead of the
slow slow
that marks every beat (rock step, too of course in both).

OR
I could dance triples instead of the slows, alhough that's not the way I ws taught.
New Yorker, which is what they called Lindy in California in the late 30s, and 40s has the rock step, one triple, and a step touch or touch step. THAT might be a fun challenge.

Meanwhile, what makes music a schottische?
Surely there's more to it than the time signature.

I've looked at sheet music and some very old texts, but would appreciate more input.

 

[TwoRightFeet]

Kelly Buckwalter is the featured female dancer. (Anyone know how I can send her a message, cause she wrote that it is fortunately a rare book and I'd like to ask her about WCS and such in the Bay area when she started?)

[email protected]

or her Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/89415970752/

 

[opendoor]

We dance Schottish over here to music in 2/4, whereas....

...what makes music a schottische? Surely there's more to it than the time signature...

That´s actually a difficult question. There are hundreds of different versions of the Scottish, all over the world from Patagonia up to the outer Hebrides, danced as line, contra, square, couple, or round dances and each variant looks so totally different from the next one.... But nevertheless (and for me anyway) all may stem from the same ancestor. My two cents (without warranty): a Schottishe should contain one of these two elements: kicks and/or waltz turns danced on an even signature. Schottish is a dance form which is danced to Polka music, whereas Polka as well is a dancestyle and a music genre. And of course there is a third variant, the Galop. I believe that the words date back to a period when the steps were fixed and were only danced as invariable folkdances. When free improvising (and of course permanent partner dancing) became accepted within the aristocracy and in early liberal bourgeoisie (i.e. after the french revolution) the borders between the styles blurred. (But the 2/4 remains). In Argentina the Schottishe is called Chamamé, whereas in Germany Rhinelander. Each country got it´s own variants.