I’ve now been dancing swing for a little over two years. The people I’ve met through it have been overwhelmingly some of the nicest, most generous-spirited people anywhere… and also, a lot of the guys are pretty geeky.

Why?

The least charitable answer is “the geeks are there because there are women there,” but that’s not the whole story. Certainly lots of guys get into dancing because they followed (or were dragged by) a woman into it, but those who stay seem to do so for reasons apart from that. Indeed, the scenes I’ve participated in (Toronto, New York, Sydney) seem almost completely free of the creepy behaviour you would expect given that assertion. And that is despite being totally welcoming to guys and gals who might not be as accepted in other circles.

So what is it about the niceness of the swing community? What makes it so appealing to geeky guys? I think it’s the nature of the dance itself that attracts them, and once there, their presence and personality is reflected in the culture that develops around the dance.

Structure

Geeks live in worlds bound by rules. Whether these are the rules of a board game or the syntax of a programming language, rules give us a framework from which to work out the parameters of a scenario and make decisions about how to proceed. This is an explanation for awkwardness: many rules of social conduct are unwritten and non-obvious, leaving us confused in an unfamiliar situation. Dancing in a club, for example, is extremely free-form, lacking guidelines about who leads, what the moves are, and what kind of physical contact is expected or appropriate. It’s great for expressing yourself, unless your form of expression sucks, and then you fail.

Lindy hop is a dance built on a few bits of footwork and about a dozen basic moves. But the presence of these guidelines is actually liberating to the analytical mind. Just as Shakespeare and others have created beautiful sonnets, having lindy as a base gives dancers (all dancers, but especially us geeky guys) a safe point from which to venture out and be creative.

As we improve, it becomes clear that some of the early barriers were not barriers, but training wheels: Not all moves are in 8- or 6-count; no, you don’t always have to triple-step; no, you don’t necessarily have to lead in from outside all the time. Each new freedom brings new vocabulary with it into the dance. But with that new vocabulary is a new challenge: stop picking moves at random, and start being musical. Change style with the phrase, build energy on the crescendos, and hit the breaks with stalls and other tricks. Jazz is built on patterns, and it’s those that we use to feel where the song is taking us, and allow our dance to follow it.

Geeks thrive on identifying and manipulating these kinds of patterns. In blues, there are often movements in the gaps between beats, as if the dance is its own silent instrument, in response to the sounding ones. The fact that lindy is an unstandardized vernacular dance means you really are free to improvise and try whatever you like, as long as it’s safe and leadable. But then there’s still the structure to fall back on… no pressure to improvise the whole way.

Obsession

Geeks obsess easily. It doesn’t happen all the time, but we have a tendency to latch onto our favourite challenges and then passionately pursue them.

Lindy hop is hard. Balboa is (in my opinion) even harder. Learning these dances is tough. You can’t be taught to lindy in an hour; it takes three or four hours of instruction and lots of practice to nail even the basic moves and transitions, and then the landscape is limitless. The only people who eventually make it through and become regulars in their city’s scene are the ones who are committed enough to really tackle it and dig in. The geek personality is favoured here.

I think this may also be part of an explanation for the lack of creepiness in swing. It’s difficult enough that someone just looking to hit on people probably won’t find it worth their trouble to learn. I’m told that Salsa scenes tend to have this problem more, which may be reflective of the fact that Salsa is a more sensual dance with an easier-to-learn basic step. (And yes, the blues is a trusting, intimate dance, but in my observation both guys and girls are more choosy about dancing the blues with people they know, or at least know by reputation.)

Physicality

Lindy hop is a joyful, enthusiastic dance. I wouldn’t claim it counts as exercise, but it’s at least cardio, so you’re going to sweat. Going out social dancing is a chance to move about without having to resort to something mundane like regular jogging. For myself, I find that the majority of my days are spent sitting in a borderline coma, either staring at a computer screen (work) or staring at a lecturer (school). Whether I’m working on a software design or struggling to understand a lecture, I’m exhausting myself mentally without any corresponding physical exertion.

But an evening of dancing quickly corrects that imbalance and leaves me fully drained, in both body and mind. As Edward Norton said in Fight Club, “babies don’t sleep this well.”

As a phenomenon, this is perhaps less unique to swing, and applies equally to dancing salsa, going to a club, or even just cycling in the park. But geeks as a whole tend to come up short on physical activity, so we’re grateful to discover a source of it that doesn’t feel like a chore.

Environment

So those are my reasons why geeks dig dances like lindy and Balboa. We like the structure, we like the complexity, and we like that it’s a chance to get off the couch. And, of course, there are the women. But stepping back from the dance itself, there are plenty of geek-appeal things about the scenes and events that surround it:

• Swing events are not socially complex. No one comes to a dance to not dance—if you ask nicely, pretty much anyone will dance with you, as long as they’re not explicitly sitting out for the song in order to rest. There are only a few rules, and if you never hear them explicitly, they’re not hard to figure out by observation.
• The presence of lots of other obsessive people mean that there are plenty of events that cater to the crazy. Dancers love to travel around, for competitions, workshops with celebrity teachers, or even just to dance all night with new people in a different city. Staying in other places is great when you know you can crash at a dancer’s house and then cook them breakfast or something.
• A lot of my favourite teachers have a very geeky approach as well. Guys like Joel and Mickey have an understanding of how a particular movement breaks down, and how to explain the components that make it up. This is more than just a teaching tool—by seeing the pieces of a complex step, it’s possible to swap them in and out, creating tons of new variations.
• Along with general friendliness, there’s lots of willingness to experiment and compare notes. If I see a guy execute a neat variation, and I can’t quite figure out how he led it, I’ll often just ask him afterward what the trick was. You don’t want to be teaching on the floor, or imposing on someone at a social, but if it’s just a quick thing and you’ve got it mostly figured out, ask! (Exception: If the person is an actual teacher who offers paid lessons, don’t ask them stuff outside class.)
• Dancing is an excuse to occasionally put on a shirt with a collar, which we do secretly enjoy, so long as it’s not an everyday requirement. Looking decent can be a bit of a foreign concept if you work at a place where sandals are the expected summer footwear.
• Dancing to live music is tons of fun, and there are some super-talented musicians out there who love to play for dancers. Lots of geeks are into music too, but I know I’d rather pay $15 and dance for a band than pay $100 and stand still at a concert.

So there we are. I’m a swing geek, a music geek, and a computer geek. There’s obsession, there’s creativity, and there’s structure. There’s a box, and then outside the box is a bigger box.

The landscape is fun.

Mike

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