Swing Dance Society

DANCING STYLES

The society meets every Wednesday in Brasov, from 20:30, under the fun and careful direction of our trainers, Horia and Mihaela Fulica, to learn how to groove it up and do the dances that were, and still are, well loved and full of historical charge.

In Bucharest, every Wednesday from 20:00 under the direction of Darren.

Join the Swing Dance Society and be a part of our activities, including:

weekly lessons in a variety of dance styles
social dances, film nights and parties
going out dancing in clubs
performances in events
workshops which aim to spread the love for these vintage dances
FUN!!!!

SWING

Swing is the predominant style of jazz music played from roughly the late 1920s to mid-1940s.

Swing is usually played by big band ensembles using a rhythm section including drums, bass, sometimes a guitar and almost always a piano; a brass section of trumpets and trombones; and a reed section of saxophones and clarinets.

Great musicians like Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday contributed to the birth and development of this style and inspired many more to carry out the swing rhythm beyond the American Swing Era.

LINDY HOP

This is the dance that started it all! It is the original swing dance, and it was named after Charles A. Lindbergh, the hero of the day.

Legend has it that the dance was spontaneously named by one of the Harlem’s best in the day, Shorty George Snowden, when he saw a newspaper headline, “Lindy Hops the Atlantic.” Today the Lindy Hop stands as America’s true folk dance. It was first created by African-American kids during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 30s and danced to the hot new popular music of the day: swing. Like the swinging jazz it is danced to, Lindy Hop is improvisational. The original forms of Lindy Hop borrowed from and intermixed with the Charleston and jazz steps.

The Lindy Hop has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years.The dance today is alive and well, and its practitioners are forging new paths with the timeless dance.

CHARLESTON & OTHERS

Besides Swing dancing (with its two styles: East Coast Swing and Hollywood Swing) and the infamous Lindy Hop, we also learn to dance Charleston, Country and Rock’n’Roll.

The Charleston became a popular dance craze in the wider international community during the 1920s. Like many of the other dances back in the day, the Charleston as a dance probably came from the "star" or challenge dances that were all part of the African-American dance called Juba. Today Charleston is an important dance in Lindy Hop dance culture, danced in many permutations: alone (solo), with a partner, or in groups of couples or solo dancers. The basic step allows for a vast range of variations and improvisation. Both the 1920s and Swinging Charleston styles are popular today, though swinging Charleston is more commonly integrated into Lindy Hop dancing.