Here Is A Snippet From Miss Lancey Morris’s Thesis About The Swing Dancing Scene For Your Reading Pleasure….. 
Chapter four – The rules of the game: flow, swing and embodied nostalgia
Flowing and the motion
As my introduction tried to capture, the atmosphere at a swing social is at once energetic and welcoming as well as wild and thrilling, with just a hint of competition in the air. Although the expressed motivation for attending a social may be to dance, chat and engage with friends, meet new people, and have fun, what also motivates many participants is the danger of attempting a new jump, putting their trust in a stranger who could potentially drop or embarrass you, and the feeling of being totally connected with the song, your partner and the dance floor – dancing in perfect harmony. It is being able to feel a sense of what is broadly known as flow, or at least a ‘flow-like’ sensation, which I will explore in this chapter.
Anthropologist Victor Turner, drawing on the work of Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi and John MacAloon’s (1974) concept of flow, stated that:
Flow denotes the holistic sensation present when we act with total involvement… a state in which action follows action according to an internal logic which seems to need no conscious intervention on our part… we experience it as a unified flowing from one moment to the next, in which we feel in control of our actions, and in which there is little distinction between self and environment; between stimulus and response; or between past, present, and future (Turner, 1982: 55-56).
Turner goes on to outline six traits typical of an experience of flow, displaying how complex a notion it is.
- Combining ‘action and awareness’, (56) flow only works when those involved are not conscious of what they do, it requires complete immersion in task.
- Complete concentration on one particular action and erasing all other knowledge from awareness, with ‘intensification the name of the game, (56)’ which enables individuals to refine their focus.
- The self is no longer relevant in a flow experience, as the rules of the game define players and limit options for personal expression.
- There is no individuality: all players and parties work as one entity. Though not aware in the moment of flow, the individual is and must be in control, meeting the requirements of the action (in Turner’s case a sport) with their every move: ‘the flow “delights” outweigh the sense of dangers and problems inherent in the action’ (57).
- The rules of action need to be unambiguous and precise, and the individual must commit to them as if they are law. To cheat is futile as breaking connection with the rules and expectations of the activity breaks flow instantly.
- 6. Finally, flow is self-rewarding and does not require outside acknowledgement. ‘To flow is to be as happy as a human can be’ (58), states Turner, and individuals strive to establish situations that enable them to feel a sense of flow.
The above summary presents us with several characteristics of flow that resonate with my experience of swing dancing, but my involvement at social swing events has also been marked by experiences of contradiction. On the one hand, this is almost always a relaxed, fun environment to be in, one where I find myself among friends. We may come from different places but within this social space we value the same things, we appreciate the same processes that solidify the subcultural experience of being a social ‘swinger’, regardless of whether we take this on at a ‘full’ or ‘part time’ level. On the other hand, to take to the floor and dance, essentially to improvise around a theme (potentially with a stranger) in swing is to expose myself to judgment. I am keenly aware that to dance with someone who I cannot follow will influence who will dance with me in the future. I am also aware that dancing with an adequate or a good dancer makes me look good, and if I can keep up then it’s good for them too. But one of the complications of this is that it is rude to decline a dance with someone without sufficient excuse if they ask you, and though I am free to ask whoever I want to dance, it is standard practice in this environment that the men approach the women, and thus this choice is somewhat out of my control[1].
[1] In the contemporary world this equation jars against our understanding of a world affected by 100 years of women working against discrimination and the principles of feminism. The assumption is that leading contains the power and following a lack of power. But female dancers talk about the power that their position holds despite their apparent position of being the responder. In swing a resistant partner can make even the best partner look ‘bad’ if they choose to. Also, women talk about the feeling of ‘flow’ (some call it freedom) that emerges when the focus of your action is to respond, and the thrill of being responsible for doing the ‘showy’ stuff like the spins, dips, jumps and lifts. I do not have the time to investigate fully the implications of this idea in this thesis. I also did not conduct any rigorous, detailed ethnographic investigation into this phenomena, the knowledge of this experience came from my own, and my supervisor’s (Amanda Card’s) experience as well as the experience of taking PRFM3604 Embodied Histories in the 3rd year of my BA degree. Although this gendered relation could be called nostalgic, an anachronistic return to the gender roles of the past, if you think about it, in all couple dancing – swing or not – the man asks the woman to dance; it is an the exception to the rule, even when possible today. Unless there is no expectation of cooperation between dancers this seems to be the norm the men still ask women to dance.
Keep Swinging Katz ….!!
