SIMPLE DEFINITION
West Coast Swing is a form of swing dancing that is canded on Blues, and on contemporary music like R&B, Dance, Electro, le rap, la pop, etc... Basic patterns are both 6 and 8 beats, but those patterns can be varied by +/- 2 beats increment. It is characteristically highly musical and can adopt many nuances from other forms of dance. This makes West Coast Swing a highly versatile dance form.
You can find West Coast Swing dancer's videos from all levels in our video section.
WHY PEOPLE LOVE WEST COAST SWING ?
West coast swing is highly engaging. The basic form of the dance is moderatly challenging. Because of it's variety of tempi, it can be a slow, medium or fast dance. It's variety of genres, makes it danceable to many different type of music. This allows people to pick and choose an "infinite" amount of music to wich to dance and makes it attainable for a lage spectrum of age ranges and abilities.
Its smooth and sometimes sexy quality allows for a large range of freedom of expression and lyricism. This allows couples to choose whether to have a "fun" or "intimate" style of dance.
Best of all, West Coast Swing can adopt many movements and styles from other dances.
WHY PEOPLE MIGHT STRUGGLE WITH WEST COAST SWING ?
Although, the basic patterns of West Coast Swing can be learned very quickly, the nuances of technique, musicality and style is a never-ending educational quest.
We learn the "codes of WCS" (steps, leading, following, etc...) wich is going to let us dance with any WCS dancer in the world !
It takes approximately 90 days dancing to develop social, functional usage of West Coast Swing. It takes a lifetime of fun to master one of the most useful and rewarding partner dances.
Source of inspiration : http://swingshoes.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=250&Itemid=141