Hepfidelity: Digital Technology and Music in Contemporary Australian Swing Dance Culture

Abstract

Since its revival in the 1980s, Lindy hop along with other swing dances has become increasingly popular with middle class youth throughout the developed world. Social dancing plays a central part in local swing dance communities, and DJing recorded music has become an essential part of social dancing. Marked by class and gender, DJing in swing dance communities is also shaped by digital technology, from the CDs, computers and portable media devices which DJs use to play digital musical files to the discussion boards and websites where they research and discuss DJing and the online music stores where they buy CDs and download music. This brief discussion of the preponderance of digital technology in swing dance DJing is part of a larger project considering the mediation of embodied practice in swing dance culture, and it pays particular attention to the ways in which mediated discourse in swing culture reflects wider social forces, yet is also subordinated by the embodied discourse of the dance floor.