West Coast Swing is a captivating social partner dance known for its fluid and elastic movements, allowing partners to engage in improvisation, humor, and fun.
Originating from Lindy Hop, WCS continuously evolves and embraces a wide array of musical styles. From its roots in classic Blues to the contemporary rhythms of Pop, R&B, EDM, and Acoustic music, WCS thrives across a tempo range of 60 to 140 BPM, inviting you to dance to your favorite tunes.
What does it look like?
Here are two of our favorite YouTube videos:
Why Learn WCS?
Engaging in WCS offers more than just dance skills. It's a gateway to new social connections in a welcoming international community, celebrating music and expressing creativity. Whether your goal is to master the basics, explore the nuances of musicality, delve into high-level technical details, or learn some cool moves and have fun, our course is designed to guide you through every step.
Ready to Dance? This is what you need to bring!
- Yourself: We rotate partners, so you can join alone or bring all your friends.
- Flat Shoes: Any pair of flat shoes will do.
Course Descriptions
The main language of all courses is English. International students are welcome!
(1) Basics Course:
In this course, you learn the basic patterns and get to know the most important foundational skills and concepts in WCS. This course prepares you from the ground up to comfortably participate in workshops offered at international WCS events and our continuous course.
(2) Continuous Course:
Here, we deepen and expand on your foundational skills and explore supplementary concepts related to connection, musicality, and movement, often introducing new styling or pattern ideas along the way. The course content changes every semester. There is always something new.
Requirements: We expect you to be able to dance common elements like Sugar Push/Tuck, Basic Passes, Inside and Outside Turns, Simple Whip Variations, and at least one version of a Slingshot, a Cut-Off, and a Rock and Go. You should be familiar with the concepts of delayed weight transfers, preps, and stretch and know where to apply them.
Are you missing just this one thing? Talk to us in the assisted practice so we can get you up to speed.
(3) Social Dance / Assisted Practice
We offer a social dance floor and a separate assisted practice room simultaneously. Please feel free to hop back and forth whenever you'd like.
Social Dance: A judgment-free zone where you are encouraged to dance with everyone. We keep the social dance free of all feedback so you can keep your flow going and enjoy the experience.
Assisted Practice: A collaborative space to exchange feedback, practice with peers, and seek teacher guidance. "Why did that thing from the course last week not quite click for me yet?" "But how does this work in detail, and how does it fit with that other concept?" "How does this thing from my favorite video work?" "What should I be focusing on to improve?" This is the place for all your questions.
