Scott Cupit - Swing Dance: Fashion, music, culture and key moves

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Dancers Kaye Popp and Stanley Catron demonstrating the Lindy Hop, as featured in LIFE magazine on 23 August 1943.

Dancing as a contestant on the BBC show Strictly Come Dancing gave me a real love and appreciation of dance. It was a fabulous experience and soon after my Strictly days ended, Scott and a team of swing dancers appeared in front of me on Dragons Den. The dancing was great and the pitch was impressive. I was one of three Dragons keen to invest and was pleased when Scott chose me to be part of the Swing Patrol journey. Since then I have marvelled at the sense of community across the wider Lindy Hop scene and witnessed at first hand the vibrancy and joy that this dance brings to people. I have attended many events at both Wiltons Music Hall and the Camden Centre in London and have always been absolutely inspired by the inclusive, fun crowd I met and danced with. I have been fascinated to learn from Scott about the legacy of Frankie Manning, the wider scene and the revival that is happening all over the globe. I love the combination of fashion, music, history and dance, which creates a powerful collective energy that draws people to this great community. Scotts enthusiasm for dance is infectious and his approachable teaching style is evident throughout the practical Learn to Dance sections of the book, which I hope will inspire you to try these great, uplifting vintage dances.

I am proud to write the foreword to this book, which is beautiful, informative and, for a new swing dancer like me, very accessible. It really captures the great energy and vibe that I have observed at the swing dances Scott has hosted. If you are reading my foreword, I wish you well with your swing-dancing journey and hope it brings you the joy it has brought me.

Deborah Meaden, Businesswoman and Investor

THE RENAISSANCE of the SWING ERA

Annie Trudeau and JB Mino in Paris, 2014.

I grew up in Australia, in a typical sports-obsessed household. By the end of every Saturday I would be covered in mud from football or sunburnt from a day on the cricket pitch. If there was a competitive sport to play, I was playing it. No one could have anticipated that I would end up living in London, wearing vintage suits most days and running one of the largest swing-dance communities in the world. Its been an invigorating journey that has included a feast of music, fashion, dance styles and history, while spending time with all kinds of people who, like me, are passionate about the swing era.

As a jazz lover, I played the saxophone and spent much of my time at school rehearsing with the woodwind ensemble. I owned an alto saxophone but the school let me borrow their amazing Selmer baritone. Later I played in a gospel big band, nondescript soul bands and a pub band called Finland Station. I was that slightly odd guy who enjoyed big band swing when most of my peers at school didnt have a clue what I was talking about. I loved all the old tunes and, thanks to my saxophone teacher Ron Trigg, I had great insight into swing music and that wonderful delay and emphasis on the back of the beat. Despite my passion for this music, I didnt realize a dance existed that fitted it so perfectly.

Scott Cupit at a Swing Patrol free summer dance in front of Battersea Power Station in London.

That changed in late 1997 when I saw Lindy Hop for the first time. I visited Disneyland, California, en route to see my parents who lived in McLean, Virginia. I was enjoying the live band playing swing in the bandstand when a gathering of vintage-dressed people started dancing in front of them. I was completely captivated by their movement to the music. I had seen lots of dancing before but had never been so drawn to anything as I was at that moment. After the dancing ended, I asked one of the guys I had been watching what they were doing and he told me it was called the Lindy Hop. I left really buzzing at this unexpected joy of seeing a dance that fitted the music I loved so much.

A week later, in Virginia with my family, my sister said that she was off to a Lindy Ball on New Years Eve. I didnt make the connection and my brother and I begrudgingly tagged along. To my astonishment, the Glen Echo Ballroom in Maryland was full of Lindy Hoppers and live swing music. I stood at the side all evening, mesmerized by the joy of this dance. It was a sign, and naturally my New Years resolution was to learn the Lindy Hop. Id been obsessed with sport until that moment and suddenly all I wanted was to learn this dance that seemed to just flow with joy around my favourite music genre: swing.

Back in Melbourne, I phoned all the dance schools but was massively disappointed when every person either said they had never heard of the Lindy Hop or that it wasnt taught in Melbourne. I had seen this phenomenal art form being danced by hundreds of young people how could my cool and hip city be so out of the loop? I persisted and eventually I found Claudia Funder, who taught a small group of enthusiasts. I soon became a class addict and it wasnt long before Claudia took me aside to ask if I would like some extra training to be her dance partner. It wasnt that I was unusually gifted but more that it was obvious how much I loved this dance, and Claudia was low on options for a Lindy Hop dance partner. I jumped at the chance to work with her. I vividly remember the day she handed me a VHS video of Lindy Hop legend Frankie Manning teaching with Erin Stevens. I watched it a hundred times and felt as though a secret world had been opened up to me.

Claudia and I used to scour the local press and listings magazines for jazz or swing gigs, but there was no such scene in Melbourne in 1998. We longed for a band that played danceable swing music in a location that had room to dance. Its hard to imagine when you think of the scene today in London alone there are 57 Swing Patrol classes every week, as well as a plethora of swing and jazz nights put on by a range of schools, all with a different flavour and feel. Whenever possible, I want to be dancing in front of a big band with bass trombones. I love everything swing, but its still the full and magical sound of an 18-piece big band that fills me with such energy and joy, and reminds me why I walked away from my corporate career for this swing thing.

I had seen how amazing the dance was in the USA, so why were fewer than a dozen people dabbling in it in Melbourne? I persuaded Claudia to focus her teaching on the Lindy Hop, and thus Swing Patrol was born out of the fervent desire to share the dance and have other people enjoy it with us. On our first night, 5 August 1998, we had 23 students its hard to believe that we now teach a couple of thousand dancers a week across the globe.