Modern dance - foxtrot, jive, lindy hop, boogie woogie

When I started to visit public dances and especially the GDV dance events, I came early in contact with foxtrot and other modern dances. If you want to learn just one dance, I believe foxtrot is the best choice. I feel that foxtrot should be included in the all-round education, and that consequently the dance should be taught at the intermediate stage of the compulsory school.

The description below refers to the common foxtrot, and should not be mistaken for the slow foxtrot. Slow foxtrot is one of the most demanding competition dances, and has a style and steps that, despite the name, is more agile than the common foxtrot.

The music in foxtrot uses a 4/4 tempo. The steps are in the rhythm slow, slow, quick, quick, where the slow steps use two beats and the quick steps one. This means that one step sequence use one and a half bar. For this reason it does not matter if the dance is started when the bar begins or in the middle of it.

The basic step is directed in a 45 degrees angle towards the dancing direction. At the quick steps the couple turns 90 degrees and take the next steps in the other direction (backwards if starting forwards).

If the leader starts forwards and the follower backwards, the couple then moves aslant forwards and outwards. The leader starts forwards on his left foot with a slow step, the follower starts backwards on her right. At the quick steps the couple turns roughly 90 degrees clockwise, and then the leader starts the slow step backwards on his left foot, the follower steps forwards on her right foot. The couple then dance diagonally inwards until the next quick steps, when the couple turns about 90 degrees counter-clockwise and starts to dance diagonally outwards again.

The couple will thus move in a small zigzag pattern counter-clockwise along the dancing floor.

The basic dance usually also includes turns clockwise and counter-clockwise, as illustrated in the video below.

Foxtrot is a dance that is easy to vary. Although the basic step is slow, slow, quick, quick, it works just as well to take steps on each beat.

It is also easy to go back to the basic steps as it can be done both at the beginning of and the middle of each bar.

This can be used to express the music in the dance.

Many variations are transferable between gammaldans as schottische and polka, foxtrot and bugg, and also in some cases tango. Thus some variations described for other dances also are used in this dance.

The attached video shows how we use to dance foxtrot.

When I began to dance, I did so by first go thorugh a dance course, and then once a week visiting GDV dances - At these dances. besides gammaldans, also foxtrot and a limited lot of tango, modern waltz and latin were played.

When foxtrot was played, same as today also bugg was danced. But I had at that time not visited any dance course for bugg, but rather just imitated other dancers.

At that time the bugg dancing was not always well seen, because the dance floor was almost always crowded, which required dancers to follow the flow on the dance floor and use as little space as possible. So bugg dancers were advised to stay in the middle of the dance floor, and also for some time were only allowed to dance bugg in every other modern dance.

So the bugg dance I met then was mainly danced without much movement around the dance floor. The steps I imitated were based on that, and - as I remember it now - may be that was also the case in the first bugg dance courses I later visisted. That was changed when I again took a few bugg courses, the basic steps were then changed so bugg dancers moved around the dance floor.

Despite these later courses, I am not sure if I still mix my initial bug dance with the bug dance I later learned. For that reason, I refrain from describe the bug dance here, and recommend instead those interested to participate in a dance course.

Swing is not just one dance, in this context it is used as a joint expression for jive, Lindy Hop (jitterbug) and Boogie Woogie.

The first of these three dances we came in touch with was jive. We participated in a series of courses at Mälarsalen, ending in 1992.

We feel that rock'n roll music from the 50's at a high pace does the jive dance most justice - the fitness might be stretched.

Later we participated in a succession of Lindy Hop courses at Swedish Swing Society. When we joined those in the spring 1998, the dance was often called jitterbug. It was at that time we started to use the term swing. The reason was that although Lindy has a slightly different style compared with jive, we felt that it is more that unites than differentiates these dances.

As an example, the most common basic step - chasse step left (left quick, right quick, left slow) with some syncopation chasse step right with syncopation, followed by backwards/forwards (slow/slow) - is used similarly in both the dances.

Also some of the variants we had earlier learned in jive were directly transferable and commonly used in Lindy Hop. But there were differences as well - in Lindy swing outs using eight beats are frequently used, while turns using six beats are perhaps slightly less frequent.

With our previous experiences, we thought that it was the other way around from what we had met in jive. Variants using six beats were common in jive while variants using eight beats (e.g. whip) were slightly less frequent.

The typical dance music also distinguished the dances - in Lindy mostly jazz music was used, with a widely spread tempo - both slow and rather rapid music was used. But again, the difference was not bigger than that we without problems could practise both the dances with the same music.

At SSS we also learned to vary the basic steps - the three chasse steps can e.g. be replaced by using just one or two steps. In the SSS Lindy courses we were encouraged to vary steps, sequences and variants.

Boogie Woogie was the swing dance we last came in touch with. We joined a sequence of courses at Ebba Dansklubb, starting in the spring 2002. In these courses we had to reconsider most of what we earlier had learnt. Although the basic step also is used in Boogie Woogie, it is not executed in the same way.

Among what is left in our minds after these courses is to work on getting a proper "bounce", that backwards step instead mostly is headed forwards, that the leader makes way for the follower, that the couple should keep it's line all the time (e.g. after a swing out the couple should be headed in the same direction as before throughout the dance).

It is fascinating to watch good Boogie Woogie dancers, the masters of the basic steps are perhaps found in this dance. But for us, what we learned from Boogie Woogie has not made any heavy footprints in our dance.

Íf the reason for this is that we last came in touch with the dance, we can't say.

Despite that we felt that there are many differences between Boogie Woogie and the other swing dances, we still think that it is a lot that unites this dance with jive and Lindy. Many steps and variants are found in Boogie Woogie as well, although often exercised differently.

When we dance swing we often differentiate which of the dances we dance, but in practise we mostly mix them. For this reason we feel that swing is the best term for our way to dance.

The video below shows how it might look when we dance to swing music. In this case the dance mainly contains jive variants. The reason the length of the music. The music just contains a Boogie Woogie chord I put together to avoid using non free music, and ends when we are in the process of changing to Lindy Hop.