Boston Swing Central is now offering Swing Boot Camp, twice a month during the Fall/Winter months and once a month during the Summer.  See our lessons page for the next opportunity.  We also have our Kind of a Big Deal workshop weekend.

In addition to local studios such as Boston Lindy Hop and Hop to the Beat, there are many dance camps (that’s right, this one time, at dance camp….) and workshops available.  We recommend you check out: Beantown Dance Camp for a camp that is great experience and not too far from Boston.  Going to a camp or a workshop is a fun and intensified way to learn a lot of material in a very concentrated amount of time.

An Exchange is a dance weekend, that gives the host city a chance to show off as many of their best venues, bands, dj’s, and fun parts of what there is to do. The host city opens it’s doors for the Exchange weekend and invites dancers to come visit. Normally the visiting dancers are housed with other local dancers, so you have a friendly face to welcome you & ease your stay.   Boston has an exchange of our own called Dirty Water Lindy & Blues which is being run by Boston Swing Central (check out this awesome event by following the link).

In any partner dance, as in life, there are those who lead and those who follow.   The leader starts the conversation, the follower responds.  Anyone can learn to lead and anyone can learn to follow.   It’s fun to do both, eventually, we recommend starting with one role, learn that and when you feel like you’ve got a good solid command, then branch out.  There are varying theories on learning, so feel free to pursue whatever your heart and passions desire.

Nope!  Only if you want to.  Style of dress varies a lot.  We would discourage you from wearing sweats, if only because that projects a bit of a slovenly image.  Generally, though, going retro isn’t the approach most people take with their dance apparel.  You often see guys in nice t-shirts or dress shirts and either jeans or dress pants; women often wear a dressy blouse and pants, or even go for a nice dress! It’s fairly low key, though, unless it happens to be advertised as a more formal event. Pointy toed shoes or high heels are discouraged.  Wear what you feel comfortable in.  Enjoy the dance!

West Coast swing is a modern evolution of East Coast swing that is danced to more contemporary music.  The footwork is based on a 6-count basic, but has evolved in a stylized way to fit more modern music.  As it evolved, it became its own dance.  However, it is still a distant cousin, or perhaps a different dialect of the same language.  It’s similar to the differences between British English and American English.  The conversation can still be had between dancers from the various communities, but each side might think the other “talks funny”.

Lindy Hop is a dance based around an 8-count basic, and incorporates all of the elements of East Coast Swing 6-count basic), as well as some Charleston, Fox Trot and other authentic jazz movement.   It is a traditional African-American dance, and a wholly American invention; its vernacular is dictated by the dances and music of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.  And just as jazz music was a fusion of Western symphonic music and African rhythms.  And so too is the Lindy Hop: a synthesis of Western partnered ballroom and African-American pattin’ juba, tap, cakewalk, Charleston and other early dances.  We recommend further research for all dancers, starting with looking at the wikipedia page on Lindy Hop and perhaps checking out some videos on YouTube.  Especially the clip from the 1941 movie Hellzapoppin.

In general, we teach East Coast Swing (ECS) or otherwise known as 6-count swing beginning basics in our lesson.  Occasionally our teachers will teach the 8-count basic, or Charleston basics.

ECS, or 6-count swing, is a subset of the Lindy Hop codified and proliferated by Arthur Murray dance studios.  Think of Arthur Murray as the McDonald’s of dancing…and East Coast swing as its hamburger.  Lindy Hop, the predominant form of swing dancing back in the ballrooms of Harlem in the 1930s was too complicated to learn in a simple lesson.  Arthur Murray recognized that the 6-count steps were an easier subset that could be taught easily in a hour or two, so he separated those steps out of Lindy Hop and tadaa!  East Coast Swing was born.

East Coast Swing, or 6-count swing basics can be learned in a couple of hours.  But, like playing an instrument such as piano, the sky’s the limit!  Few people have sat down at a piano for the first time and started playing Mozart.  Same holds true for swing dancing.  Learning the Lindy Hop can take time and patience.  Don’t be discouraged; take as many lessons as you can from a wide variety of teachers.  Be patient with yourself, enjoy the journey, social dance alot and voila!

You can park anywhere that is blue or green marked by the colored images on this map.
If it’s yellow, you can park there if it’s not snowing. If it’s red, don’t park there ever, you might be towed or parked in.
(Don’t park along the building, where it says Enterprise-Only)
Best: park near the movie theater and walk over. It’s a 3-4 minute walk.
You can zoom in on this map for more detailed info.

Nope, just show up.  New dancers get a warm welcome by the dance community!  There will be plenty of helpful folks who are ready and willing to dance with new people.  And most dances have a lesson at the beginning too- a great way to meet newer dancers.

For most of our dances you do not need Advance Tickets or reservations.  If you’d like to take the lesson, then please show up by 8:00pm as jumping in the lesson after it’s started can be challenging to catch up.  A few times during the year we will have a special event where we sell advance tickets.  We’ll have Paypal links, or registration pages for these events and we’ll probably have some text like, “Get your tickets today, as this is going to SELL OUT!” accompanying the event.  But other than those few nights a year, most Fridays, all you have to do is show up and enjoy the dance…

A Valentine’s Day Party with the Beantown Swing Orchestra!  (featuring a little help from Cupid)

We at Boston Swing Central are really excited for this night.  Why?  Because we have a special Valentine’s Day party planned!  Not only will the Beantown Swing Orchestra provide the soundtrack, including debuting a new singer (!), we are supplying you with custom-designed Boston Swing Central Valentines so you can share the love with your swing buddies, your favorite lead/follow, or even that secret crush.  Pick up some valentines when you enter, fill them out, and drop them in one of the mailboxes scattered around the dance. Our very own “Cupids” will deliver them throughout the night. (If you don’t know their full name, it’s OK!  Just address them as “To: Dave from Maine” or “To: Danielle with the short brown hair” – the more descriptive, the better. Cupid will figure it out and deliver your message!)

So tell all your friends and come early, as we’re expecting a very fun filled and packed evening.  Beantown Swing Orchestra will debut a new singer and provide a soundtrack for a very memorable night!  (Shoot that poison arrow…)

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
$13 / $10 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

The Standard Bearers: Our DJs play the Standards

You’ve heard these songs before: you know the tune, the words, and maybe even where the breaks are.  You may not know who wrote them, or who sings your favorite version, but these iconic tunes are the classics- the standards!

Take “Honeysuckle Rose” written by Fats Waller, with lyrics by the legendary Andy Razaf.  Or how about “Summertime”: written by George and Ira Gershwin, it debuted in 1935 in the opera Porgy & Bess and has been covered by artists as varied as Sam Cooke, Gordon Webster, Nina Simone, Gene Harris, Louis Armstrong, and dozens more.  These standards and more like them are what’s on tap this week, and our DJs will spice them up with some unfamiliar versions that will delight you in a familiar way.

Camille Fontanella from Northampton, MA and Boston’s own Alex Abdoulaev will DJ for us and carry the banner of Standard Bearers for the evening.

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-1am
$10 / $8 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

Carsie Blanton is an amazing dancer, singer, songwriter from Philadelphia and now she has a hit song that we wanted to share with everyone…and you might not know a lot of these dancers, but they, too are awesome Chance Bushman of New Orleans dancing with Giselle Anquizola of Los Angeles and Peter Loggins of Los Angeles dancing with Amy Johnson of New Orleans…

Carsie will be singing with Gordon Webster at the Dirty Water Lindy & Blues Exchange in September 2012, make sure you get your weekend pass here.

Check out more from Carsie here.

It’s the 4th Friday of the month and you know what that means… BOSTON SWING CENTRAL is hosting Swingology!  Swingology is a concept we at Boston Swing Central have been developing to explore some details of the music we all love to dance to!  The question, “What swings?” has been the source of considerable debate and discussion, so we want Swingology to be the place where DJs can showcase their own diverse interpretations of “What swings?”.

Depending on the DJ, you may get a blend of classic swing (Bix Beiderbeck, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey) with favorite soul artists (Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone), or maybe the best of Neo-swing (Indigo Swing, Lavay Smith) and great swing-era divas (Ella, Carmen McRae, Ernestine Anderson), and there’s sure to be some fantastic jump blues and hot jazz in the mix too! The idea of Swingology is to explore some of these boundaries while keeping the mix strongly rooted in familiar artists and songs we love to hear.

We know that a lot of our DJs like to play some pretty funky stuff on occasion, but since the idea of Swingology is specifically to keep things swingin’, you can expect a night full of good, solid, swing dance music from every corner of the kingdom of Swing! It is quite a challenge for the DJs, but one thing’s for sure, the music will be like the weather in New England: if you don’t like it, just wait 5 minutes.  Come see where Swingology will take you!

Kellian Adams and Brian Pletcher are back for their monthly lesson with BSC, and we’re sure they will have some great stuff for you this week!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
$10 / $8 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

Come to BOSTON SWING CENTRAL this week for Rocco and the Stompers! They’re a little big band with a big heart in the spirit of Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges. We asked Frank from Beantown Swing Orchestra if he could make a smaller version of his great band to showcase the different character that smaller swing bands offer. He told us he already had one and they were called Rocco & the Stompers! We talked to leader Danny Fratina and he was very receptive to doing some of our favorite songs, he even worked out new charts for songs we gave him by Duke Ellington and Roy Eldridge! Wow, what more could we ask for? This will be their 3rd time playing Boston Swing Central and we’re excited to be able to bring them back for you again!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
$13 / $10 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

Newsflash!

We are excited to update you with news that the Boston Phoenix is going to check out Boston Swing Central this Friday for Neo-Swing night.  They’re sending someone over to take the lesson and experience the dance, and we hope you will come out to help us show them that swing dancing is alive and swingin’ in Boston!

This week, we want to take you back in time; but instead of the usual jump to the 40s and 50s, we’ll revisit the years that were our own swingin’ beginnings: the 90s! So put on your best “Zoot Suit Riot” and come “Jump, Jive, and Wail” all night long as our DJs spice up their rockin’ sets with an extra serving of your favorite contemporary swing bands, including Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Indigo Swing, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and all the rest. Our DJs for the night will be Khrysti Smyth, James “TopCAT” McClurkin, and Jason Provost.

Not sure what we’re talking about? Watch the 1998 Gap Khakis commercial that helped set off the Neo-Swing explosion and let this little slice of contemporary history spark your memory!

And, as if that wasn’t enough to get you excited about this week at BSC, Amanda and Shawn of It’s All Swing are back again to teach for us this week!  Can you imagine two weeks in a row of this awesome pair?  Maybe they’ll pull out some retro “Neo-Swing” moves to teach us!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
$10 / $8 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

This week, BOSTON SWING CENTRAL is Swinging with King Louie!  Not Louis XIV, but rather Louis Armstrong, Louis Jordan and Louis Prima!  We’ll have the superlative Louis Armstrong catalog, the jump blues of Louis Jordan, and that Vegas kitsch of Louis Prima to delight your ears all night long.  Sounds like a winning combination to us!

Our instructors tonight will be the phenomenal Amanda Gruhl and Shawn Hershey of It’s All Swing studios!  This is a dynamic duo that we absolutely adore for many reasons, not the least of which is the amount of thought and care they put into the development of their revolutionary teaching style.  Come see what they have to offer you this week!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
$10 / $8 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

Did you know…?

• Louis Armstrong was nicknamed Satchmo.
• Louis Jordan hailed from Arkansas and he is often credited with penning the first rock and roll song, called “Saturday Night Fish Fry”.
• Louis Prima is the voice of everybody’s favorite swingin’ orangutan and inspiration for this night: King Louie from Disney’s animated classic, “The Jungle Book”!

It’s the 4th Friday of the month and you know what that means… BOSTON SWING CENTRAL is hosting Swingology! For those of you who didn’t hear about it last month, Swingology is a concept we at Boston Swing Central have been developing to explore some details of the music we all love to dance to! The question, “What swings?” has been the source of considerable debate and discussion, so we want Swingology to be the place where DJs can showcase their own diverse interpretations of “What swings?”.

Depending on the DJ, you may get a blend of classic swing (Bix Beiderbeck, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey) with favorite soul artists (Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone), or maybe the best of Neo-swing (Indigo Swing, Lavay Smith) and great swing-era divas (Ella, Carmen McRae, Ernestine Anderson), and there’s sure to be some fantastic jump blues and hot jazz in the mix too! The idea of Swingology is to explore some of these boundaries while keeping the mix strongly rooted in familiar artists and songs we love to hear.

We know that a lot of our DJs like to play some pretty funky stuff on occasion, but since the idea of Swingology! is specifically to keep things swingin’, you can expect a night full of good, solid, swing dance music from every corner of the kingdom of Swing! It is quite a challenge for the DJs, but one thing’s for sure, the music will be like the weather in New England, if you don’t like it, wait 5 minutes and it will change. We are able to go until 1am tonight, so come see where Swingology will take you!

Camille Fontanella will be our guest DJ this week and she will also be teaching a lindy hop lesson before the dance!  Camille hails from Western Mass and has taught and DJed all over the Northeast so come early to get the full experience!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-1am
$10 / $8 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

Come to BOSTON SWING CENTRAL this week for another AMAZING band, the Gordon Webster Quartet!  Gordon Webster played for us a month or two ago and it was one of the most fantastic nights of dancing we’ve had yet!  This time we’ve asked him to come back with his singer, Brianna Thomas to change things up a bit.  We’re sure this night is going to be fantastic so get your dancing shoes on and come on down to Central Square to dance the night away!

And we have another special treat for you tonight: our instructors are going to be Aurelie and Tony Tye of Hop to the Beat dance studio!  Aurelie and Tony have been swing dancing in Boston for nearly 20 years and sharing their love of swing dance through teaching since 1994.  They have done so much to help grow the swing scene in Boston, including creating and running the week-long Beantown lindy hop dance camp every year since 1997.  If you’ve heard of them and wondered what they’re about, here’s your chance, so come out early!

Keep in mind that we do have a capacity and we will be holding to it for safety reasons, so another reason to come early is to ensure you get a spot on the floor!  If you come later and we have the door held, try again in about 30 minutes and we’ll likely be able to let a few more in.  There are a lot of great bars, clubs, and a fantastic coffee shop right around the corner that can keep you entertained in the meantime!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
SPECIAL EVENT! $15 / $12 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

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This week, BOSTON SWING CENTRAL is proud to present the Beantown Swing Orchestra!  This is certainly a not-to-be-missed event: first of all, Beantown has been working on a whole new set of music specifically resulting from dancers’ requests, secondly they have a fabulous new vocalist that we can’t wait to hear, and finally, Beantown is featured in a movie that’s coming out on the 19th called My Best Friend’s Girl (starring Kate Hudson, Dane Cook, and Jason Biggs)!  All of these things add up to AWESOMENESS!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
$13 / $10 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

Come to BOSTON SWING CENTRAL this week for the Back Bay Rhythm Makers, the 6-8 piece band that stems from the White Heat Swing Orchestra!  They played for us back in May and rocked the house, so we’re bringing them back again!  Help us welcome back all of our students and kick off the Fall with a big BBRM bang!

Lesson 8-9pm / Dancing 9pm-12am
$13 / $10 for students (with valid ID) and seniors

Featuring the Best Swing, Soul, and Blues with some of our Favorite DJs until 1 am!
Lesson: 8:00-9:00pm
General Dancing: 9:00pm-midnight
$10, $8 (Students/Seniors with valid ID)