Blues Dancing: A Mississippi Misappropriation

Ask a Lindy hopper to describe blues dancing and most will evoke spacious ballrooms, the lights turned low in the wee small hours after most swing dancers have gone to bed. A dedicated few doggedly keep the party going, despite having arrived eight hours earlier. Tired from their athletic exertions, they have only the energy to hold on tight and sway. Otherwise, they might describe a little blues bar in the city, to which the same dancers have decamped when their ballroom closed. The bar is still open, but the floor too small for them to swing out. Thus they shuffle in close, chest to chest, and wiggle slowly to the Carolina Chocolate Drops. In short, many swing dancers know blues dancing only (or primarily) as a slow style performed only when quicker alternatives (Lindy hop, collegiate shag, balboa, etc.) seem too tiring or awkward. It’s danced to slower blues music and exclusively in the early morning. But this is a misappropriation of a distinct art form with a much longer history. And full-time blues dancers—dedicated ones who study it in the day time—are getting sick of this; so much so that one of Scotland’s biggest swing and blues dance festivals has ditched swing to focus solely on blues dance. Its organizers say the separation of swing from blues is historically accurate, artistically justified and long overdue. Taryn Crosbie and Jo Meyer are the driving (or danci