There really *isn't* a style of swing called "rock'n'roll". I'm not sure who told you there is, but it's just East Coast Swing done to rock or disco music. There is a performance dance called "rock 'n roll", which looks like swing dancing, but it's choreographed. It's not a social, improvised dance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_Roll_(dance)
The little differences you're noticing are not differences of dance style, they're personal style. Everyone looks just a little bit different from everyone else, depending on what their personal style is and what's comfortable for their body. Even my own style changes depending on the music and my lead. I tend to mimic the smooth motions of WCS when I'm dancing to a bluesy song and I get way more bouncy when I'm dancing to a classic rock song. If someone taught you to rock back on the other foot, you didn't learn any version of swing. You either learned something different, something someone made up, or you were taught wrong (or you were taught the role your gender traditionally doesn't learn). Also, remember what I said about every instructor thinking they know the One True Way of their particular dance.
I totally believe you that someone told you there was this dance called "rock n roll" and that this is the only way it can be danced and that it's different from any other version of swing. But they're wrong. In fact, this is a problem with studios that has gone back decades. Many of these dances, including swing, were developed "on the street", so to speak. But when they became popular, Arthur Murray in particular (but other studios too) tried to codify them and script them and set it in stone so that the same dance could be taught in every studio around the country.
But that's not how many of these dances really work. They're more organic. There are certain elements that are needed to "count" as a particular dance, but the exact length of the step or whether someone moves slightly more this way or that is not important. This is the problem I had with the guy in my rant above - he was taught a particular way to do Hustle, and any other way was "wrong" in his mind, so for me to dance it differently with another guy was to "mess me up" because, apparently, I can't learn to adjust my style to my different leads. Both versions they did were equally and validly Hustle. So what you think of as "rock n roll" is just ECS danced by someone with a slightly different style than the videos I linked to.
There also isn't a "traveling" step for cha cha, per se, nor is the triple for ECS done basically on the spot. Both of them move roughly the same amount, again, depending on personal style for each dancer and what the pattern is that the dancers are doing at the time. Most swing dancers actually move in a bit of a circle - they don't stand in one place and side-step, that's just for when you're teaching the step, not for actually dancing. I've had leads who take giant movements to the side and leads who you almost couldn't tell were even lifting their feet at all, let alone moving side to side. Also, in cha cha, the triple can be done side to side OR forwards & backwards, depending on the rest of the pattern. I tend to teach the side-to-side version because all the basic beginner steps use that motion, but once you start doing things like the Chase pattern, you need to know how to cha-cha-cha forward and back.
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Re: Hustle
Date: 8/25/13 02:42 am (UTC)From:The little differences you're noticing are not differences of dance style, they're personal style. Everyone looks just a little bit different from everyone else, depending on what their personal style is and what's comfortable for their body. Even my own style changes depending on the music and my lead. I tend to mimic the smooth motions of WCS when I'm dancing to a bluesy song and I get way more bouncy when I'm dancing to a classic rock song. If someone taught you to rock back on the other foot, you didn't learn any version of swing. You either learned something different, something someone made up, or you were taught wrong (or you were taught the role your gender traditionally doesn't learn). Also, remember what I said about every instructor thinking they know the One True Way of their particular dance.
I totally believe you that someone told you there was this dance called "rock n roll" and that this is the only way it can be danced and that it's different from any other version of swing. But they're wrong. In fact, this is a problem with studios that has gone back decades. Many of these dances, including swing, were developed "on the street", so to speak. But when they became popular, Arthur Murray in particular (but other studios too) tried to codify them and script them and set it in stone so that the same dance could be taught in every studio around the country.
But that's not how many of these dances really work. They're more organic. There are certain elements that are needed to "count" as a particular dance, but the exact length of the step or whether someone moves slightly more this way or that is not important. This is the problem I had with the guy in my rant above - he was taught a particular way to do Hustle, and any other way was "wrong" in his mind, so for me to dance it differently with another guy was to "mess me up" because, apparently, I can't learn to adjust my style to my different leads. Both versions they did were equally and validly Hustle. So what you think of as "rock n roll" is just ECS danced by someone with a slightly different style than the videos I linked to.
There also isn't a "traveling" step for cha cha, per se, nor is the triple for ECS done basically on the spot. Both of them move roughly the same amount, again, depending on personal style for each dancer and what the pattern is that the dancers are doing at the time. Most swing dancers actually move in a bit of a circle - they don't stand in one place and side-step, that's just for when you're teaching the step, not for actually dancing. I've had leads who take giant movements to the side and leads who you almost couldn't tell were even lifting their feet at all, let alone moving side to side. Also, in cha cha, the triple can be done side to side OR forwards & backwards, depending on the rest of the pattern. I tend to teach the side-to-side version because all the basic beginner steps use that motion, but once you start doing things like the Chase pattern, you need to know how to cha-cha-cha forward and back.
cont...