Essie taught the West Coast Swing Flash Mob choreography last night. Below are the exact steps.
Flash Mob is an Internet fad where a bunch of people show up at a place all at once. West Coast Swing Flash Mob is a dance that West Coast Swing dancers do when they get together at a Flash Mob.
This is a fun thing and possibly a good way to get people interested in social dancing.
I have a couple of concerns, which I have written a lot about over the last several years. My book Partnership Dancing (tm) was originally developed to address these concerns with how people dance to choreographed partner dances.
The big concerns are:
- The woman should follow the man and not do the choreography on her own.
- The man should let the woman do the steps on her own and not try to wrestle her through the steps to keep up.
- The woman needs to maintain her own balance and not pull with her arms.
- The choreography needs to be leadable.
1. The Woman Should Follow the Man
If the woman does not follow the man, then the couple cannot dance together. They will just be two people dancing in close proximity. Every step will be a test of wills as they struggle with each other to coordinate when and how to do each step. This destroys the physical and emotional beauty of the dance.
If the man forgets the steps, they will not be doing the dance anyway, so the woman trying to lead herself through the choreography is not going to accomplish anything. In my experience, it hurts, because it confuses the man. I believe is easier for the man to follow another man, if his woman is following him and he will catch on quicker.
2. The Man Should Let the Woman Do the Steps on Her Own
By this I mean the man should signal the woman, but not physically push and pull her through her steps to see that she keeps up. If he tries to force her through the choreography, she could get hurt. Again, in my experience, applying force slows her down.
If the woman cannot keep up, the man should alter the choreography to the woman, not the woman to the choreography.
3. The Woman Needs to Maintain Her Own Balance
In choreographed dances there is a sense of urgency to do the steps. One of the problems I see is a woman, in her haste, may get too far away from her partner and then use her arms to pull herself forward. This puts her behind the music.
What the woman needs to do is maintain her balance on her own over her own feet, particularly when she changes direction.
4. The Choreography Must Be Leadable
There are many benefits to leadable choreography. For one, it feels better, since you are doing your steps together with your partner. Another is a woman can do the dance without learning the choreography, if she knows how to follow.
If the choreography is not leabable, then the choreography is performance, not social dancing.
When Essie was teaching, she said this was a performance piece, but to me, this is social dancing in a public setting, not a performance. There are dangers and expectations inherent in performance dancing that are not in social dancing. The people there were social dancers, not performers and came out for social dancing.
If this was social dancing, it was great, but if it was a performance, it was not well done. So I vote for social dancing.
The problem with the presentation of this choreography is the woman has to know her steps because there are unleadable elements. In a good choreographed partner dance every step can be lead. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of wonderful partner dances in Israeli, Casino Salsa, Contra, English, International, Square, Swing Rueda and other types of dancing that can be lead. To show off West Coast Swing certainly it must be possible to come up with choreography that is leadable. In my explanation of the steps, I have offered ideas on making the sequences leadable.
West Coast Swing Flash Mob Choreography Steps
Am using the video linked below for clarification. While the teachers broke the steps down in 8 counts to the music, I broke them down by the element combinations so you can see every step. The steps described are the woman's footwork. The man does whatever he needs to, to get the woman to do her steps.
1. Right Side Pass with Under Arm Turn - 6 counts - 1, 2, triple step, triple step
2. Lunges - 10 counts - Forward 1, forward 2, quarter turn left step forward and lean on right 3, return left 4, finish turning stepping towards start on right 5, forward as in 2 on 6, turn and lean as in 3 on 7, return as in 4 on 8, return as in 5 on 9, return to start 10. Basically, the woman does a basketball type turn twice around her left leg.
3. Whip Turn with a Rock and Forward at End - 8 counts - 1, 2 triple step, 5, 6, back on 7, forward 8. This is a normal whip turn through step 7. Instead of taking two steps in place with and 8, you take one step forward. She did this other ways as well, including forward and hold 8, forward and 8 hold 1 of the next figure. The key thing here is to come forward after 7.
4. Leans - 4 counts - lean left behind man 1, recover stay on left 2, lean right on right 3, recover stay on right 4. Not really leadable as done, maybe sort of the first lean, but not the second. However, if the man put his left hand a little around back on his hip requesting the woman's left hand, this and the next figure are leadable.
5. Walk Around - 4 counts - left in place 1, step over the man's left left leg with right 2, finish stepping around with left and face man on 3, touch right leave right free on 4.
6. Boogies - 4 counts - in place step side to side, for woman right, left, right, left.
7. Send Out - 4 counts - forward 1, forward 2, send out to open break and turn back to back on 3 and 4.
8. Bugaloos - 4 counts - starting back to back, man with right, woman with left, three touch and pivot followed by a step on 4 to face each other, so man finishers with left free and woman with right free.
9. Reverse Whip with Woman Left Under Arm Turn - 8 counts - forward 1, forward 2, man steps to his right out of her way, woman turns left under arm one and a little more on 3, finishing turn on 4, man goes under arm while woman circles back 5, 6, returns to starting position 7, 8.
10. Forward, Turn Left, Slap Belly, Turn Left Again - 12 counts - see break down in 10a, 10b and 10c. Think of this as an 8 count figure with 4 pauses in the middle.
10a. Forward and Turn Left - 4 counts - forward 1, forward 2, turn left 3 and 4.
10b. Slap Belly - 4 counts - step left slap belly with right 5, step right slap left 6, step left slap right 7, step right slap left 8. The belly slaps are not leadable, but that is alright, the woman is supposed to stay there anyway.
10c. Turn Left and Anchor - 4 counts - turn left stepping back away 9, 10, anchor 11 and 12. The man can lead this last turn if the woman does not know.
Here is a video of the West Coast Swing Flash Mob being taught choreography being taught. Summarized at 4:18 in the video.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcoqBWxlG_Q