West Coast Swing (still known as Western Swing at that time) is the basis for the dancing in the rehearsal scene in “Hot Rod Gang” (1958). Dancers danced "a 'swingier' - more smooth and subdued" form of Jitterbug to Western Swing music. Western swing, country boogie, and, with a smaller audience, jump blues were popular on the West Coast throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s when they were renamed and marketed as rock 'n' roll in 1954. Western Swing was also called "Sophisticated Swing" in the 1950s.ĭancing to musicians wearing cowboy hats and string ties playing fiddle, steel guitar, etc. Haile included Western Swing in Dance Notebooks she authored for Arthur Murray during the 1950s. Murray had used the same name, "Western Swing", in the late 1930s for a different dance. Lauré Haile, Arthur Murray National Dance Director, and an instructor of teachers documented swing dancing as done in the Los Angeles area and used the name "Western Swing". When his wife, Mary Collins, was asked if Dean was responsible for the emergence of the dance, however, she said that Dean insisted there were "only two kinds of swing dance - good and bad". Each section of the country seems to have a variation of its own."ĭean Collins, who arrived in the Los Angeles area around 1937, was influential in developing the style of swing danced on the West Coast of the United States, as both a performer and teacher. In a 1947 book, Arthur Murray recognized that, "There are hundreds of regional dances of the Jitterbug type. It is believed that the origins of the WCS are in Lindy Hop.
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