need swing dancer help

[HandofMystra]

I am DMing for a group of swing dancers. I want them to encounter two pixies with Otto's Irresistible Dance and have two PCs start swing dancing. I do not swing dance, so I thought that it would be fun (and surprising for the group) to have me describe two PCs suddenly doing East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing or the Lindy Hop (I have no idea what these are or the differences between them). It would be great to have a description of each (I could then roll a d3 for which dance they actually start doing), so that my players would be able to tell what their PCs were dancing without being told the name of the dance. Can any of you multi-talented ENWorlders give me a hand here?

 

[RangerWickett]

I can't help, but I must say that's a cool idea.

 

[Kunimatyu]

what.

 

[blargney the second]

That's a fun idea! With modern swing dancers, you'd probably get the most recognizability from Lindy Hop, Charleston, and Balboa.

Lindy Hop: both people are in an athletic, sporty stance. Heavy use of rhythm, particularly syncopated footwork. It looks like one person is orbiting the other, and lots of ground is covered. One side of their bodies is connected left hand to right hand, and the other alternates between right hand to shoulder blade and no contact at all.

Charleston: athletic stance with a steady pulse. Lots of kicks and sometimes wobbly knees. Contact is often in one of three positions: side by side with one person's right arm around the other's waist, facing roughly towards each other, or in tandem with both facing the same direction with one standing behind the other.

Balboa: upright posture and chest to chest contact. Intricate footwork right underneath their bodies that moves very quickly and sometimes a fun zippy spinny orbiting effect.

-blarg


ps - The best part is that I opened this thread while I was DJing our dance tonight.

 

[blargney the second]

Maybe some videos would help! These are some vids that turned up with a quick search on youtube. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that the Charleston clip is the guys I coach. )

Lindy Hop
Charleston
Balboa

-blarg

 

[Nerfwright]

I am DMing for a group of swing dancers. I want them to encounter two pixies with Otto's Irresistible Dance and have two PCs start swing dancing. I do not swing dance, so I thought that it would be fun (and surprising for the group) to have me describe two PCs suddenly doing East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing or the Lindy Hop (I have no idea what these are or the differences between them). It would be great to have a description of each (I could then roll a d3 for which dance they actually start doing), so that my players would be able to tell what their PCs were dancing without being told the name of the dance. Can any of you multi-talented ENWorlders give me a hand here?

Very cool idea! I love it when a real life interest crosses over into my RPGs. In the Shackled City group I'm playing in, all five players are friends from a country and Western dance troupe (Two-step, swing, Waltz and line). We confuse our poor DM with dance references all the time. Only two of us are aiming at dance-related PrCs, though.

It's very hard to do couples dancing justice in a few paragraphs of text. Video may be your best bet.

In East Coast Swing, a couple can easily turn about each other with a somewhat circular pattern, the couple possibly 'opening out' frequently on the rock steps. It's usually upbeat and energetic.

In a vastly oversimplified East Coast Swing/Lindy, the couple (lead and follow) step together in time with 'opposing feet'; the lead starts on the left and the follow starts on the right. The count starts with a pair of triple-steps side-to-side[1 & 2] [3 & 4], followed by a pronounced small rock step back and forward again over two counts for the distinctive [5, 6] rock step. Note the extra step on the half-beat between each of the first two pairs of beats; this is why I call them 'triples' here. The patterns can get much more complicated, but I'm aiming for brevity here.

Assuming each full-integer beat is of equal length, it might be described as:
[Triple-step], [Triple-step], [Rockback, Stepforward]
[1 & 2] [3 & 4] [5 6]
[L R L] [R L R] [L R] <-- Leader footwork
[R L R] [L R L] [R L] <-- Follower footwork

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_Swing>


West Coast Swing is a bit slower, and a good bit more advanced dance than ECS - I'd assume at least a +5 DC adjustment for a Perform(dance) Check to attempt a passable West Coast Swing over many other dance forms. It is also usually more sultry or funky than ECS is.

In WCS, the dance is also made up mainly of triples and twos, but this time the leader is passing the follower back and forth along a very narrow 'slot' - basically a straight line of variable length for each pass. Instead of rock steps, the follow usually ends each pass at one end of the slot or the other with a triple step, ready to go in the opposite direction again (this is called the 'anchor step'). The leader generally orbits somewhere in the middle of the slot, getting out of the way for the follower to pass.

The leader and follower are stepping the same beat pattern again with opposite feet, but their motion and direction can be very different from each other. Also the patterns of triples and double steps is much more variable and flexible at the leaders whim, hence the added difficulty.

6-beat pattern:
[Step, step], [Triple-step], [Anchor-step]
[1 2] [3 & 4] [5 & 6]

8-beat pattern:
[Step, step], [Triple-step], [Step, step], [Anchor-step]
[1 2] [3 & 4] [5 6] [7 & 8]

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_coast_swing>


I'd also suggest Waltz as appealing option. Waltzes are not hard find in the movies (the Fisher King has a gorgeous, brief scene in Grand Central Station), and I think it fits well with a mythic/historical motif, even if it's far from medieval.

Oh! Making characters line dance could be marvelously humiliating. There are especially awful ones like the Achey-Breaky or the Macarena. Step sheets for those are innumerable on the web, like little electronic abcesses. Handle with care.

Enjoy!

NW

Edited to remove my deeply flawed ascii WCS diagram.

 

[der_kluge]

Weirdest. Post. Ever.

 

[blargney the second]

Slight tangent.. a couple of weeks ago I led some epic pseudonatural hacksaws. I swear our legs turned into tentacles and it was terrifying.

 

[gleicher27]

I am DMing for a group of swing dancers. I want them to encounter two pixies with Otto's Irresistible Dance and have two PCs start swing dancing. I do not swing dance, so I thought that it would be fun (and surprising for the group) to have me describe two PCs suddenly doing East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing or the Lindy Hop (I have no idea what these are or the differences between them). It would be great to have a description of each (I could then roll a d3 for which dance they actually start doing), so that my players would be able to tell what their PCs were dancing without being told the name of the dance. Can any of you multi-talented ENWorlders give me a hand here?

One thing also to note, that music often drives the dance.
I know many people have MANY oppionions on this too. So I would say ROUGHLY

Charlston: early style jazz music, think 20's.

Lindy Hop, Charston and East Coast: 20, 30, 40 and 50' s style big band music. Depending on you bent, jump blues and boogie-woogie.

West Coast: more modern songs, and of course blues.

 

[Vargo]

Wow.

I recently started learning Lindy Hop and Charleston, and I gotta say I love your idea. Others have already covered it better than I could, but I want to hear how this goes down.