Swing Dancing: Put on Your Dancing Shoes and Get With Hip-Swinging, Toe-Tapping Swing Dancing

Rating:
Summary: An excellent reference, with a few flaws
Review: This book gives more usable detail on steps for Savoy- and Hollywood-style lindy hop, as well as for East Coast (6-count) swing, than any other I've seen, and it's a nice reference for intermediate-level dancers. It covers a good range of the steps frequently encountered in social dancing (examples: tuck turn, back Charleston, sugar push, catapult, Texas Tommy), plus a couple of basic air steps *not* suitable for a crowded floor. You'll never learn to dance from this or any book, but you might use it as a supplement to instruction or experience.

The layout is unique. (Amazon, how about putting up a couple of sample pages?) Each step gets a two-page spread of photos like those on the cover, with the kind of "stro-motion" series of photographs of its progress that TV sportscasts sometimes use to detail figure-skating moves or football plays. There are text explanations below each part of the step, and a running count of the musical beat at the bottom of the page. Some complicated but crucial steps -- notably whips and swing-outs -- get three two-page spreads, with leaders (= men, usually), followers (= women), and both-together each shown separately.

So what's not to like? Several things, all of which spring from the lack of space on the two-page layouts:

* The overlapping photos are presented so densely in places that it's hard to see crucial details, and the text often isn't quite below the appropriate photo. If you've never seen the step before, you'll have a hard time understanding what's going on.

* The follower's footwork gets short shrift in too many of the descriptions -- particularly annoying on moves in which she's turning. (In this regard the book is no better and no worse than many dance instructors.)

* The descriptions pretty much always tell the leader what to do with his hands during the step, but frequently don't explain what the actual *lead* is that signals the start of the step. That's the kind of information somebody who's learned the step in a class needs to be able to dance it afterwards.

These beefs aside, I like the book, I'd recommend it for dancers trying to remember which foot you start the kick-around on, and paging through it makes me want to grab my dancing shoes and head for the floor.