Posts Tagged ‘ballroom dance lessons’

What did you do last night?

When someone refers to the good time they had out on the dance floor, typically a story about swing dancing will follow.  The term “swing dance” can refer to any of 40 or more dances currently seen out on the dance floor today.  For those who do not dance, the term “swing dancing” may bring to mind images of Lindy Hop, Charleston, Jitterbug and the Boogie Woogie dancing they watched their parents or grandparents dance at weddings and family reunions. 

I went Swing Dancing!

Once exposed to the Swing Dance World, dancers learn that swing also includes, Carolina, Collegiate and St. Louis Shag, East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, Hand Dancing, Jive, Bop and Balboa just to name a few.  Your local “Swing Scene” may have wide variety of dances offered or have more of a specialized community that focuses on only one or two swing dances.  The focus of this blog is that of East Coast Swing dancing and dancers. 

Granddaddy of Swing Dancing

In order to understand the current form of East Coast Swing, as it is danced today, you must understand its rich history and growth through time.  Lindy Hop came from Partnered Charleston.  Lindy Hop was developed and enjoyed in the late 1920s and early 1930s.  Traditionally, Lindy Hop had and an 8 count circular basic known as a “swing out”.  In time, Lindy Hop dancers were allowed to improvise dance moves and adapted dance steps and moves that included 8 count and 6 count patterns.  Through improvisation, variations in the dance were created and independently became quite popular. 

East Coast Swing gets its start

One of the popular and simple 6 count variations developed into its own dance, East Coast Swing.  In the 1940s, the East Coast Swing evolved with current swing band music and the help of Arthur Murray dance studios.  Arthur Murray dance studios helped to make ballroom dance lessons assessable to the masses.  Arthur Murray studios took East Coast Swing and standardized it to make it teachable and marketable to American dancers.  This paved they way for East Coast Swing to become a competitive ballroom dance and recognized by the National Dance Council of America.  Walk in to any ballroom dance studio today, and in an hour or two, you will dance out the door with single swing or single time swing, (a simplified version of East Coast Swing) and a little East Coast Swing (sometimes called triple swing or triple time swing).

ZeDiamond Dance Method helps new Swing Kids get started

 ZeDiamond Dance Method was developed by two dancers, Deborah-Marie Diamond and Zeki Maviyildiz from Asheville, NC, who were both originally taught to dance East Coast Swing  the way Arthur Murray dance studios have taught swing dancing for years. 

When she first started taking ballroom dance lessons, Deborah-Marie noticed that many of the beginner dancers were dancing off time or off rhythm to the music.  At first, Deborah-Marie dismissed her observation and thought that dancing off time to the music was just the result of being a beginner dancer.  After awhile, Deborah-Marie noticed that dancers who had danced three, four five years were still dancing off time and off rhythm.  This got Deborah-Marie thinking that there must be a better way to teach dance steps and rhythm to dance students.

The rest is history… or at least the history of ZeDiamond Dance Method.

See you out on the dance floor,

Amy Barnes

ZeDiamond Dance Method