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absolute beginners

Company Background...

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The Swing Dance Company organises jive and swing classes & dances in Hampshire, Surrey and West Sussex. Our popular 10 week courses offer an easy introduction and structure to learning jive & swing with fun and friendly teachers...

How TSDC Began...

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When Brooke moved to Chichester to take up his new post as Commercial Manager at Fontwell Park Racecourse it seemed impossible to find swing dancing lessons. With the south coast dance scene dominated by Modern Jive, a salsa infused jive variant, it necessitated travelling to London or Bristol to continue his passion...

Meet the Teachers

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	Brooke Brooke began teaching jive and swing in Chichester in 2001, and has ...
	Claire Having enjoyed the local modern jive scene for several years, Claire...
	Debbie With a lifetime in dance, which she took to degree level, Debbie is ...
	Jon Jon is another success story, developing as a student from our own c...

See All Teachers

Jive is a broad term, which is used to describe a variety of partner dances evolving from the 1920s to the present day. An exciting evolution in jazz music broke out of New Yorks Harlem district in the late 1920s, known as Big Band Swing. With this new sound, a new dance was created, called the lindy hop. Lindy hop developed from dancers mimicking other dance crazes of the time, including the Charleston the foxtrot.

Lindy hop was fast and intricate, to match the music being produced by the big bands. But over time the bands got smaller and the dancing evolved with the music. Over the following 30 years, the dance was re-branded (amongst other names) jitterbug, boogie-woogie and rock n roll. The term "jive" was originally used as a derogatory term by afro-american dancers, referring to less talented white contempories who were dancing lindy hop very badly! The term stuck when GIs brought jitterbug to Europe during WW2.

With the new dance crazes of the 60s, partner dancing went out of fashion, until the 1980s when it re-emerged in French discotheques, and was labelled French jive or modern jive. This dance was brought to the UK in the early 90s. There is still a strong following.

Also in the 1980s, several groups of dancers from across the globe decided to revive lindy hop, learning from the stars of the original era, such as Frankie Mannings. They have recreated a fashion for dancing to swing music. This led to an increase in exposure for lindy hop worldwide; most notably there was a huge revival in the USA during the 1990s, spawning breakthrough neo-swing pop acts such as Indigo Swing, Swingerhead and The Brian Setzer Orchestra (Brian first came to prominence as front man of the Stray Cats!).

A beginners jive course may take many different formats around the world, but we hope to provide an easily accessible introduction to partner dancing, which will enable you to boogie to some great music. We can also offer plenty of challenging moves for those with the desire!