Classes start again February 2025
Open level - no experience and all the experience welcome each week.
Find out moreWe teach different styles of dance...
At Swing Riot Dunedin we most regularly offer classes in the Lindy Hop and Blues dance. We also run one-off classes, events and workshops throughout the year for Balboa, Collegiate Shag, Solo Charleston and 20s Partnered Charleston.
What is Swing dancing?
Swing dance is more than just a dance – it’s an era. The term “swing dance” is a ctach all for dances that developed during the 1920s to the 1940s. Some of the swing dance styles you may find around the place are the Lindy Hop, Charleston, Balboa, Shag, East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, and the Jive. These dances grew alongside the big band jazz era of music and improvisation.
If you would like to find out more information, the Wikipedia entries on swing dance and lindy hop are great places to start.
The Lindy hop
The Lindy hop (often called Swing Dancing) is an African American partner dance which started in the integrated ballrooms of 1930s Harlem, New York. It developed from the 1920s Charleston and had its peak during the 1930s and 40s. It was somewhat sanitised by Hollywood and widely danced until the late 1950s (often called the jitterbug). The Lindy Hop had a resurgence in the late 90s, spread across the world and has been going strong since then! It is a social partner dance that is playful and full of the innovative and rebellious spirit of the African American culture that created this dance. It's all about having fun, improvisation and enjoying the incredible music of the big band era. Some basic steps, and you'll be dancing.
Blues dance
Blues is a solo and partnered dance that developed alongside the music and is as varied in its style and tempo as the music itself is. It has its roots in African-American dance, which itself is rooted in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the historical dances brought to the United States by European immigrants. It is steeped in improvisation between dancers and on their own movements, pushing and pulling creating a sense of tension both in the body and the body moving through space, while remaining loose and relaxed. It developed over much the same time period as swing dancing and is generally thought to have been born in the African-American juke joints of Mississippi.
