Swing Dancing

by Tamara Stevens, Erin Stevens (Contributor)

Telling a riveting true story of the emergence and development of an American icon, this book traces swing dancing from its origins to its status as a modern-day art form.

From its unlikely origins in the African slave trade, one of the saddest chapters of American history, swing dance emerged as a celebration of the soul. Swing is now recognized around the globe as a joyous partnered dance, uniquely Afro-American in origin and an American treasure.

This book examines how the original swing style of the 1920s, the Lindy Hop, branched out and evolved with the changing dynamics of popular culture, paralleling the development of the nation. Swing Dancing covers the dance through the years of minstrelsy, the jazz age, the big band era, bebop, and the decline of partnered dancing in the 1960s. Swing experts and instructors Tamara and Erin Stevens have combined a compelling historic examination of swing dance with an assortment of riveting personal interviews and photographic documentation to create a comprehensive reference book on this important art form.

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Kyriaki Gkourgkouli · Rating 5 out of 5]

*tears of joy*

[Marjorie Jensen]

I read this book in preparation for my West Coast Swing class--so I could share some historical tidbits with my students as well as have a fuller understanding of the dance I'm teaching. Because I was a teenager who started learning Lindy during the heart of the swing resurgence in the 90s, I especially enjoyed Tamara Stevens' look at this era and how it spawned the East Coast-West Coast Swing rivalry. I also was fascinated by her history of the Lindy Hoppers at the Savoy in Harlem.