NYC's hottest Lindy Hop classes – and their celebrated instructors – find a new home at 92Y.
Our adult dance offerings just got an extra jolt of joy with new Lindy Hop classes led by three of the dance style’s most brilliant practitioners. Bessie Award-winning dancer and choreographer Caleb Teicher and swing dance masters Nathan Bugh and Gaby Cook have been leading New York City’s hottest and most in-demand Lindy Hop classes in pop-ups around the city. Now Harkness School of Dance Director Alison Manning has provided a home for them, giving an entire community of swing dance enthusiasts and premier instructors a regular space to Jig Walk, Charleston, Swing Out and more! Classes started this week, with Buttenwieser Hall now buzzing with energy and the sheer joy of dance every Tuesday, from 8 to 9 pm. We talked with Caleb, Nathan and Gaby (as they wrapped up a sensational two-week performance run at the Joyce Theater!) about the hundred-year-old dance style and its continued resonance and vitality in the 21st Century.
Swing dance emerged in the 1920s alongside jazz, dominated social dance through the 1930s, and evolved over the decades, never losing its irresistible allure. Can you talk a bit about the continued enchantment and relevance of swing dance today?
CALEB: To me, swing dance is an incredibly young and progressive dance form, despite its association with an aesthetic that was at peak popularity nearly a century ago. The values within the dance – of improvisation, communication, musicality – all feel as modern and radical as any dance that has evolved in recent decades.
This dance has relevance now because it's incredibly well-equipped to address some of society's greatest concerns and questions: How do I relate to my own body? How do I relate to someone else's body? When I want to dance with someone, what do I do? How do I connect to the music, my partner, and myself in a way that can feel comfortable, expressive, and freeing? Lindy Hop, more than other things I've experienced, creates a conduit for self-healing, self-actualization, and self-expression.
What excites you so much about social dance, and about teaching others to dance for the sheer joy of it? Who should take these classes, and what can they expect to experience?
GABY: I find Lindy Hop – or social dance of any kind – to be a great antidote to the social challenges we face in our current digital culture. People experience social isolation, lack of community, and scarce opportunity to be physical in a social way. Lindy Hop is therapeutic, creative, and a great way to make new friends. It welcomes anyone who likes swing-jazz, and offers participants a community based not only in dance, but in music and in joy.
After many years of pop-up classes around NYC, how does it feel to have a new regular home for them at 92Y, an institution with such an influential history in dance?
GABY: It's an honor to have our classes find a home at the 92nd Street Y. Over the decades, I've seen the erosion of social dance studios – in New York, and across the country – in the face of new development and rising rents. Welcoming this robust educational program at 92Y guarantees that Lindy Hop will be shared with new audiences in New York City. And it’s significant to us that this program is now part of an institution that has played such a pivotal role in the evolution of dance.
Lindy Hop’s exuberance and its foundation of partnering and trust feel as needed right now as when the style was first created during the Great Depression. What does it mean to you to be teaching these classes as we emerge from the pandemic, and to be connecting new students to the rich history and pure joy of swing-era dances?
NATHAN: It’s been impossible to envision the step-by-step journey out of this pandemic era. Would the world open up again in one grand announcement, or through countless, small, personal decisions? So far, it has been the latter. These classes let people practice that post-pandemic decision-making – protected by good safety policies – while simultaneously offering a structured way to reengage with other humans in experiences of plurality and physicality. Social dance is a uniquely positive activity as we reintroduce ourselves to life.
Get a glimpse of the Lindy Hop talents of Caleb Teicher, Nathan Bugh and Gaby Cook in this exhilarating one-minute video:
92Y’s Lindy Hop classes take place every Tuesday at 8 pm in 92Y’s Buttenwieser Hall.