Jitterbug and Swing Dancing Their Ways Back Into Style
Swing, jitterbug and ballroom-style dancing, so popular in the 1940s and early 1950s, are coming back strong in the 1990s.
People in their early thirtysomething years are dancing to the same Frankie Valli and Bill Haley tunes their parents danced to, says Kyle Webb, owner and instructor of North County Jitterbug and Swing.
“Back in the ‘40s and ‘50s when swing came about, the people doing it were like our parents, and they were considered radical. The older generation was shocked by that,” Webb said. “Then the hard rock ‘n’ roll in the ‘60s came in and the whole thing about touch dancing went away. Now people in their late 20s and early 30s are sick of going to bars and the mentality of the disco scene. They see a new value of what was lost in jitterbug and swing.”
Webb said that people like jitterbug and swing because it’s challenging and offers social interaction.
There is a system to these dances that can be frustrating if dancers don’t know the steps, but the method is intriguing and pulls them in, he said.
“Most people work all day and this gives them something to do that is completely, totally different than what they do during the day,” Webb said. “What happens is, people come to these classes, and they discover a place to meet other people in a nonsmoking environment. They are socially oriented, and there is an active goal with the whole crowd. After four weeks, people who never danced before can do eight to 10 different moves and just change their life.”
Swing is a spectrum of dances, each with its own type of music and mastery, Webb said.
“Jitterbug is the really fast dancing to tunes like Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around the Clock,’ ” Webb explained. “If you slow that tempo down to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons’ ‘Sherry,’ you have time to add a step and that’s called Triple Swing, or East Coast Swing. If you slow that rhythm down to a rhythmic blues tempo, something like Earl Thomas and the Blues Ambassadors or Joe Turner’s ‘Hush Honey Hush,’ you have a tempo that allows you to do West Coast Swing.”
“You can’t compare West Coast Swing to the others,” Webb added. “It’s a very complex dance, more of a dancer’s dance.”
Webb teaches at the Encinitas Dance Center, in Rancho Penasquitos and in La Jolla. His classes range in size from 20 to 50 people, and he teaches six levels of jitterbug, five levels of West Coast Swing and three levels of ballroom dance, which includes waltz, rumba, cha-cha and fox-trot.
In his classes, Webb uses cassette tapes to provide the music.
However, once a month he books a local band for jitterbug club dances. The club, which Webb established to give the dancers an additional outlet, meets every Sunday and is open to the public.