Mayumi Saito
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The 1996 hit movie "Shall We Dance?" has helped the Japanese appreciate the charm of ballroom dancing. Yet despite the surging popularity of dance schools across the country, social dance continues to play a minor role in the local nightlife. Now, some devotees are promoting swing, a more casual version of pair dancing, as its revival in the United States trickles across the Pacific. Hiroyuki Yamada, a 10year veteran of competitive ballroom dancing, stood breathless before the dynamic gyrations at a Party in Washington, D.C., in December 1997. He immediately sought a reference video to study the unfamiliar dance called the Lindy Hop, the origin of Swing Dance. He got hooked on the jazzinspired dance. Three months later he founded the Tokyo Swing Dance Society(TSDS) with other Japanese instructors of various dance backgrounds. Aside from the weekly lessons at Yoga district's town hall, they have been having events and providing workshops with top level U.S. instructors ever since. Yu Kochiwa, 22, had never taken any dance lessons when he got an invitation to a Christmas swing night in Chattanooga, Tenn. in 1998. There he met a nice woman who volunteered to be his partner. "I genuinely wished I could dance more then," he recalls. Upon returning from his two-week vacation, Kochiwa searched for information on swing dance and came across the TSDS Web site. Now he is a regular member of Yamada's expanding class. Richard Morrow learned the Lindy Hop in San Francisco and is currently teaching his own class at Roppongi's club Viette. He explains that swing is a good way of communicating with the opposite sex, which would add another agenda. His biggest challenge, he says, is the Japanese students' shyness. "I have to get the two people close," he says. "You can't be shy if you want to ask someone to dance." TSDS instructor Ritsuko Kobayashi agrees on the prevailing atmosphere: "The Japanese tend to get intimidated in dance. I wish more men could lead women with confidence." Shyness seems to disappear quickly, though. Tetsuo Sasaki, 36, sometimes dressed up in a zoot suit and hat, thoroughly enjoys being a social butterfly at TSDS events. "It's fun to be with people who are really into it," he says. His classmates would agree. While most dance classes tend to be women-dominated, lessons at TSDS mysteriously keep a near-equal ratio between the sexes. The Lindy Hop flourished from the late '20s to the mid-'40s at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York. Featuring eccentric steps and acrobatic aerial moves, the Lindy Hop was named after Charles Lindbergh, who "hopped" over the Atlantic in 1927 in the first successful solo flight, according to dance historian Christian Batchelor. The Lindy diverged to jitterbug and boogie-woogie, then gave way to rockabilly and rock 'n' roll in the '50s and '60s. Swing was almost forgotten until 1984, when Savoy legend Frankie Manning was rediscovered by dance partners Erin Stevens and Steven Mitchell who asked him to teach them, writes Elizabeth Gilbert in GQ magazine. He gave the dance's revival a boost, and now leads the worldwide Lindy tour. Alongside neo-swing band hits, the retro dance returned in the '90s with the vintage fashion of the era. Many featured swing scenes, such as "Malcolm X," "The Swing Kids," "A League of Their Own," "The Mask" and "The Swingers." Then came 1998, the Lindy Boom year, as commercials for the GAP featured dancers in khakis, and a live performance of the Brian Setzer Orchestra was aired at the MTV Music Awards. Last year popular TV series "Ally McBeal" and Will Smith's music video "Will 2K" also presented the dance. Japan's first encounter with swing came with the Occupation Forces after World War II. Among the many swing forms introduced, however, the jitterbug, called jiruba in Japanese, with its six-count steps seemed relatively easier than the Lindy's eight-count. Jiruba spread nationwide before giving way to other dance trends, writes dance historian Takao Norikoshi. Now Tokyo's swing revival has gained momentum, as TSDS won the honor of hosting grand master Frankie Manning's upcoming 86th-birthday event in May. Visiting instructor Chad Fasca, who has taught and performed in New York, claims that students in Japan seem more passionate about the dance their counterparts in the Big Apple. "We just need more clubs in Tokyo. There aren't enough places to dance," he says. Indeed, another TSDS instructor, Hideyuki Kobayashi, envies Fasca's home turf which provides "enough clubs to support dancing every night." Clubs that allow period dancing are nonexistent in Tokyo except as special events. "Once a week or two is the maximum," Kobayashi laments, and "and even that chance may be on a weekday, so it's hard for many people to come out." Coordinating swing events is a constant headache for Yamada and Morrow. Many jazzs clubs can't provide a dance floor and some bands prefer heir audiences seated. Yet Morrow is convinced that more events on weekends will help open up the venues. Fasca is sure that Tokyoite' love of jazz music and clubs will eventually nurture the dance scene "as long as the bands respect the dancers and the dancers respect the bands," he says, reasoning that the music was his own incentive to dance. Swing is an eternal flame, Fasca believes, which burns the brightest in big cities -- including Tokyo. "One reason I'm confident that the swing will never die is that I've never heard anyone say: 'I tried it, but didn't like it.'" For more information about the Tokyo swing scene, see www.impetus.ne.jp or email to Hiro at swing@impetus.ne.jp. |