•
Acrobatic Rock'n'Roll – Popular in Europe, acrobatic rock'n'roll is popularly associated with Russian gymnasts who took up the dance, though it is popular throughout Europe today. It is a performance dance and sport rather than a social dance, though there are people who remove the acrobatic stunts to dance it on a social level. •
Boogie-woogie developed originally in the 1940s, with the rise of
boogie woogie music. It is popular today in Europe, and was considered by some to be the European counterpart to East Coast Swing, a six-count dance standardized for the American ballroom industry. It is danced to rock music of various kinds, blues or boogie woogie music but usually not to jazz. As the dance has developed, it has also taken to eight-count variations and swing outs similar to Lindy Hop, while keeping the original boogie woogie footwork. •
East Coast Swing is a simpler six-count variation that spawned from the six-count variations of the Lindy Hop. It evolved with swing-band music of the 1940s and the work of the
Arthur Murray dance studios in the 1940s. It is also known as Six-count Swing, Triple-Step Swing, or Single-Step Swing. East Coast Swing has very simple structure and footwork along with basic moves and styling. It is popular for its simple nature and is often danced to slow, medium, or fast tempo
jazz, blues, or rock and roll. Occasionally, Rockabilly, aka Rock-a-billy, is mistaken for East Coast Swing, but Rockabilly is more closely related to Western Swing. •
Carolina Shag was danced along the strands between Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina, during the 1940s but, during the 1990s and later, has expanded to many other places. It is most often associated with
beach music, which refers to songs that are rhythm-and-blues-based and, according to
Bo Bryan, a noted shag historian and resident of Beaufort County, is a term that was coined at
Carolina Beach, North Carolina. •
Imperial Swing is a cross between East Coast and West Coast Swing. Imperial Swing uses the triple step footwork from East Coast Swing, but is a
slotted dance with smooth (not bouncy) foot styling from West Coast Swing. Slotted dancing was introduced to Imperial Swing in the late 1970s and has completely replaced the original dancing in the round. Imperial Swing shares the same core moves with West Coast Swing: the starter (or basic) step, the crossover or side pass, the sugar push (or patty-cake) and the whip. It started at the
Club Imperial in St Louis. George Edick, who owned the club, let teenagers dance on the lower level and the swing dancers of the time taught them what was learned from their trips to the east coast. As people traveled around, they added parts of west coast, bop and Carolina shag to complement the dance and make it distinctive. "The Imperial" has elements of "East Coast", "West Coast", "Carolina Shag" and "Bop". •
Jive is a dance of International Style Ballroom dancing. It is a very upbeat dance in which the performers look to be hopping off the ground. It initially was based on Eastern swing taken to England by American Troops in World War II and evolved before becoming the now standardized form of today. •
Modern Jive (also known as
LeRoc and
Ceroc) developed in the 1980s, reputedly from a French form of Jive. Modern Jive is not technically of the Jive family, which typically use a six-count pattern of various combinations of walking and triple steps (Ballroom Jive – back/replace triple-triple; Swing Jive – triple-triple back/replace), etc. It is pared down to a simple box step and concentrates on the simpler forms of couple dance styling, gauged to provide a social atmosphere rather than technical aptitude. There are debates about whether it is a form of swing dancing due to lack of syncopations, rhythmic footwork variations, a static partner dynamic, and lack of swinging music, amongst the swing community at large, but they do consider themselves a style of swing. •
Push and
Whip are
Texas forms of swing dance developed in the 1940s and 1950s. They are slotted swing dances, danced to a wide variety of music including blues, pop, jazz, and rock and roll. Similar to West Coast Swing, they emphasize the closed position, double resistance/rock step, and lead-follow and also incorporate intricate arm work. Slow Whip is a variation on Whip/Push that is danced to slow blues music, typically 60 BPM or slower. •
Rock and Roll – Developing in the 1950s in response to
rock and roll music, rock-and-roll is very popular in Australia and danced socially as well as competitively and in performances. The style has a long association with Lindy Hop in that country, as many of the earliest Lindy Hoppers in the early 1990s moved to Lindy Hop from a rock-and-roll tradition. There are ongoing debates about whether rock-and-roll constitutes swing dancing, particularly in reference to the music to which it is danced: there is some debate as to whether or not it
swings. •
Skip Jive is a British variant of the Jive, popular in the 1950s and 1960s, danced to
trad jazz. •
Washington Hand Dancing originated around Washington, DC in the mid-1950s, and a new generation of dancers started innovating and dancing to Motown music. From its very beginning, DC Hand-dance was referred to and called "DC Hand-Dance/Hand-Dancing", "DC Swing", "DC Style" (swing) and "fast dance" (meaning DC Hand-Dance). This is the first time a version of "swing" dance was termed "hand-dance/hand-dancing". DC Hand-Dance is characterized by very smooth footwork and movements, and close-in and intricate hand-turns, danced to a six-beat, six-count dance rhythm. The more modern footwork consists of smooth and continuous floor contact, sliding and gliding-type steps versus hopping and jumping-type steps of the older style which stylistically still held elements of its Jitterbug/Lindy Hop roots, and there are no aerials. •
West Coast Swing was developed in the 1940s, as a stylistic variation on the Los Angeles style of the Lindy Hop. It is a slotted dance and is done to a wide variety of music including:
blues,
rock and roll,
country western,
pop,
hip hop,
smooth,
cool jazz, R&B, and funk music. •
Western Swing has long been the name for jazz-influenced western music of the 1940s and, by extension, two-step, line dancing or swing dance done to such music. Contemporary 21st century
Country Swing or dancing or "Country Western Swing Dancing" (C/W Swing) has a distinct culture, with classes and instructional videos on YouTube and DVD teaching dips, lifts, aerials and flips. It adds variations from other country dances, swing styles, salsa and more. As the name suggests, it is most often danced to
country and western music. ==Swing dancing today==