In the past few months, I have been an observant listener in a number of rather empassioned debates and conversations about the state or nature of blues dance in Vancouver. 

I have given a fair bit of thought to the subject of discussion and debate, which typically revolves around the question of what blues dance really is and whether many of us actually do blues dance in Vancouver.  I would like to throw in my two cents on the matter from travelling for blues at Emerald City, talking to friends who have attended other blues exchanges, read up online somewhat on blues dance, and thoroughly explored a distinct lineage of local instruction in blues dance.

Blues as a dance seems to have so many confusing substyles and ways of dancing, differing aesthetics, and interpretations that it has often been maligned by many a prejudiced Lindy Hopper as “a joke” or “not to be taken seriously”, or “merely dirty dancing” (mostly by those who do not actually know what they are looking at) or “unworthy of being called a style”.  There are dancers who dance ‘slow drag’ or ‘ballroomin’ blues, traditionalist Blues dancers for whom spinning or turning your follow is unheard of, dancers who only dance close or dancers who sometimes dance apart.  There’s even microblues.  Blues dance is also widely known to be a ‘sponge dance’, incoporating elements at will from other dance forms where it suits the dance, and in some subsets of the dance community dancers may even prefer to dance to music which is not actually blues.  There are all manners of interpretations as to what exactly constitutes a ‘basic’ in blues dance.  There are certainly clear elements for which all blues dancers hold sacred – the mastery of connection, of momentum, flow, the importance of ‘play’, and the virtue of mobility.  However, in geographic locales which are seldom visited by travelling instructors bringing traditional expertise, the sponge aspects of blues dance – that fundamental disunity from the cobbled origins of blues dance – will take on their own life, forming new and distinct ways of dancing to blues-like music.

While it is often considered bad form to quote wikipedia, I recently discovered that the end of its article on Blues Dance is both relevant and enlightening amidst the rather polarized debate over blues dance in Vancouver.  The wikipedia article I refer to ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues_dancing ) has many things to say about this issue at the heart of blues dance, and it starts with the origins of the functions we currently attend as ‘blues dances’:

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“The revival of Lindy Hop in the 1980s and 1990s has prompted complementary interests in other dances from Black vernacular dance traditions of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. In America Lindy Hop today, after the revival, Lindy exchanges, with their emphasis on late night programs of social dance events, saw the introduction of ‘blues rooms’ to these events in the late 1990s. While the amount of Blues music played at these events varied widely the name and what Blues music was being played led to dancers patronizing blues music clubs and holding house parties that played a varying amounts of blues and blues-rooted music. In the late 1980s the Herräng Dance Camp began featuring an all-night “Blues Night” dancing party on Wednesday nights (later Tuesdays), which exposed swing dancers from all over the world to the idea of slow dancing to blues, jazz, and early rhythm & blues.

There are now blues dancing communities throughout the international swing dancing community, though local communities vary, reflecting local social and cultural values and contexts. The spread of blues dancing has been largely a result of individual dancers traveling between local communities and establishing blues scenes, individual teachers holding blues dance workshops in different cities and countries, and through the on-line community of blues dancers facilitating the spread of knowledge and music and encouraging dancers to found local blues dancing communities.

Blues dancing in swing dance communities today may range from traditional blues dances to much less historically grounded forms. Traditional styles and steps have gradually been reintroduced by teachers and dancers with an interest in the history of the form, some of which have been expanded or adapted to suit the needs and interests of contemporary dancers, and new dances have also been created, echoing these historical styles and traditions. Additionally, a freestyle form of partnered dancing – usually at slower tempos – has slowly developed alongside this process of rediscovery and popularizing of blues dance traditions. Partially based on the principles of partner connection, aesthetics and approaches to rhythm and timing of Lindy hop, this burgeoning form often combines elements of West Coast Swing, Foxtrot, Argentine Tango, and general club dancing. Its growth has, arguably, been largely a result of the lack of established moves or basic steps. This style of free-form slow dancing has much in common with other dances such as Modern Jive, it does not bear most of the Africanist stylistic elements that define the historical family of blues dances, though its acquisitive ‘step stealing’ approach to borrowing from other dance traditions to suit the needs and interests of dancers is very much a feature of vernacular dance in general.

There are ongoing debates within blues dancing and swing dancing culture today about what constitutes ‘authentic’ or ‘true’ blues dancing. Some hold the position that a blues dance that does not possess the stylistic, aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of Africanist dance cannot qualify as blues dance. Others argue that a blues dance which has had very little creative contribution from black dancers or draw from the base of movement they created, does not qualify either. Yet a third position might hold that a blues dance is simply dancing to blues music, regardless of the steps performed or whether they involved partnered or solo steps, or whether the steps and movement are aesthetically tied. There are non-black dancers, moving to music which is not blues, performing steps which have no Africanist features or historical tradition call what they do ‘blues dancing’.”

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The rise of ‘Fusion’ dance – the blending of dances including Blues, Lindy Hop, West Coast Swing, Argentinian Tango, and any other form of dance – has accelerated and informed this “burgeoning form” of blues dance, as I believe it has in Vancouver.  Here, we have a distinct lack of travelling blues dance instruction – few people know what a ‘slow drag’ or ‘ballroomin’ blues dance looks like because no one who specializes in this way of dancing has taught it. 

On the other hand, the way in which people in Vancouver’s blues dance rightfully deserves the title of blues dance in as much as West Coast Swing and Lindy Hop are both called ‘swing dances’.  Although it has been adapted to other genres of slow music, dance in Vancouver descends from dancers dancing to traditional twelve-bar blues music and yet with broader-reaching interests.  As with elsewhere, it shares an utmost reverence for partner connection, a connection that is also informed through its proliferation by lindy hoppers. 

It does not look like a ‘slow drag’ or other form of traditional blues but that is because this blues dance form has evolved in parallel with the rediscovery and instruction of blues traditions.  We are a relatively young but also a very isolated blues community.  Communities in isolation evolve independently and rapidly when in contact with distinct influences.  In its isolation the sponge elements of blues dance in Vancouver have rapidly absorbed inspiration from Lindy Hop, West Coast Swing, Contact Improvisation, Ballroom dance, Salsa, Tango, Hip Hop, Night Club Two-step, and Clubbing dance while being noticeably distinct from each of these influences.  This has occurrred in part because of relentlessly innovating instructors who encourage their students to push the limits of what is possible from partner connection and in part due to the influx of dancers from other styles attracted by the music and the fluidity of this increasingly freeform blues dance.  Throughout all of this, these dancers still aspire to the same blues and lindy hop connection principles from which this evolution began.  It owes its origins to traditional blues and to those whowere inspired by both traditional blues dance and blues music.  As with microblues, it is also aesthetically different from traditional blues and yet all are constrained in form by structural commonalities amongst ‘bluesy’ music.  Just as West Coast Swing dancers need not have ever learned a Charleston or Lindy Hop move, new dancers in this tradition may never have experienced traditional blues.  This is ‘fusiony blues’ – which I will hereafter refer to as ‘Free Blues’ – something I believe has developed into a distinct substyle of blues dancing and ought to be recognized as such.

Like Lindy Hop, it can be danced well and danced badly.  A dancer may dance free blues with no groove or pulse where these would fit the music – as is often the case for most music preferred by our blues dance community (music with groove).  A free blues dancer may consciously choose to dance ‘smooth’ to traditional blues music that wants pulse in order to add a periodic contrast in their blues dance.  A free blues dancer may decide to take a time out of the music and explore different manners of walking with nonstandard connections, or they may introduce blues ochos and similar movements into a dance (which may be poorly imitated by others as “follow steering”).  These are intentional and part of good form.  A dancer may also groove loudly to a more fluid fusion-based piece of music where a calmer aesthetic would be preferable.  In any dance, musicality is key to appropriate movement.  A leader may dance with bad posture or alignment, or execute a technique without consciousness of their surroundings or refinement of the technique’s aesthetic form.  A follow may overextend their arms, have bad frame, or break that frame often.  A leader may manhandle his follow and over-lead where a smooth and subtle suggestion all that is required.  These are all tones and dynamics to the conversation that is connection.

Calling this form of blues dance a distinct substyle does not mean there is no room for traditional blues to be taught here, as long as there is expertise willing and capable of teaching it.  How great would it be if we were privy to travelling instructors to enrich our blues dancing with traditional elements!  This simply does not happen in Vancouver.  However, it does mean that a free blues dance ought not be judged by the exact same aesthetic as, say, a slow drag.  There is plenty of room for the former to be informed by the latter, but there have become distinct standards for each substyle of blues dancing whether traditional or free blues.  The moment we recognize this, begin to talk, discuss, move away from suspicious criticism toward construction, exchange ideas and views across a friendly table, present viable and distinct options for dance – that is the moment we will be enabled to start to build an even more diverse and rich community of blues dancing in this city. 

What do you think?  As I have stated, I’d like to encourage positive discussion and communication across channels.