Jason Lancaster

Charm City Swing will be hosting an amazing event, the LINDY 500, June 19-21. This is actually our second year hosting the event — it was held under the name “Leap Year Lindy Weekend” last year.

Just like last year, we have an amazing lineup of guests dancing with us and teaching workshops:
Kevin St. Laurent, Jo Hoffberg, Nina Gilkenson, and Michael Seguin.

We’re now less than 2 weeks away. Registrations are starting to pour in from everywhere — DC, Philly, New York, Boston, Cali, Atlanta, and more! We’re going to have a ton of great dancers again this year.

Last but not least, the band lineup:

• Friday: Cangelosi Cards
• Saturday: Boilermaker Jazz Band
• Sunday: Sac Au Lait

Whether you’re a beginner or very experienced, there will be something for everyone. Hope to see you there!

Today is a perfect day to followup my last post where I had a few people ask me, “What is Lindy Hop?”

Lindy Hop formally began in 1927 using elements from jazz, tap, breakaway, and Charleston; and evolved with jazz music to become what we see in early videos like the infamous Hellzapoppin:
Continue Reading

My first and primary hobby is swing dancing — or more specifically, Lindy Hop. There are plenty forms of dance that end up encapsulating “swing dancing”; from West Coast to East Coast; to Jive or Jitterbug; or even things like Charleston, Peabody, Fox Trot, and Turkey Trot; finally, there’s even a style of Ballroom Swing.

I think it’s great that a term can be used so widely and encompass such a large group with love for dancing. But sometimes it really screws things up, like when corporate moguls get the idea to cover a specific form of dancing and get it completely wrong.

Dancing with the Stars just recently aired an episode where the dancers performed the “Lindy Hop.” Except that nothing anyone did even remotely resembled the Lindy Hop. The best metaphor I can give is that this episode was like eating yogurt and calling it ice cream. Yea it’s food but it ain’t even frozen!

The worst part about how wrong Dancing with the Stars portrayed the Lindy Hop is that everyone I meet who learns or knows I’m a dancer always asks me, “Oh! Do you watch Dancing with the Stars?”

Think about it. What do they think now? What do you think now?

Emily’s and my witty little line has always been, “No, we actually dance.” But from now on, I don’t think I’ll be able to restrain myself from going on a tirade about how much this show absolutely sucks. I imagine they’ve bastardized other forms of dance but until now it has never affected me. It’s downright embarrassing.

Go ahead, watch if you dare… and if you’re a “swing dancer” please know I warned you!