Later, many dancers started experimenting
and started to add steps and twist and kicks back into the dances
using the Shag as a model in and near
Balboa Island in Newport Beach, California (Balboa Pier),
namely the Balboa Pavilion with this new Balboa dance being
born out of it's predecessors of the Shag,
Jig Trot/Walks, Charleston
and Swing mixture. It was originally called the 'Bal-Hop' and 'Balboa
Shuffle'. The Balboa was used as well for very tight dance spaces
and a chance to catch your breath (Jockeying) while dancing
to fast Jitterbug music. It had finally come full circle and was
getting very popular with the swing dancers in Southern California.
The Newport Beach "island clubs"
in Southern California, such as the Rendezvous
Ballroom (1928-1966) which was directly across from
Balboa Island (the island was established in 1905,) and
the older Balboa
Pavilion started having 'swing dance night's' (meaning music
style rather than dance) in the early 1930's that continued
well into the mid 1980's, however originally, the older Pavilion
did not allow Jitterbug
dancing due to structural problems which indirectly lead to a popularity
of the Balboa. Over the years the dancers who did Collegiate
or the Murray
shag, Charleston,
Jig Walks, Foxtrot,
and Lindy
merged the dance into a more energetic style. Most of the Balboa
dancers were of today's older West
Coast Swing crowd, with a few newer Lindy dancers
finding the beauty of this dance as well today.
After a while the newer swing dancers coming
on to the scene, not aware of the Balboa, would refer to the Balboa
as "The Shag" since most of the
swing dancers that knew how to do the Shag also went to "Balboa
Island - Swing Nights," and these swing dancers would be called
uniformly "Balboa dancers." The Balboa became a dance
of the Swing dance family and was reported many times as a new dance.
Basically the dance evolved thru crowded dance floors and high tempos.
A dancer getting tired would pull his partner close and do Balboa
to catch their breath, then swing out again or it was just plain
to crowded to dance and they did or had to do the Balboa all night.
Balboa is mainly a closed position swing
form, that uses very little break-away's, only a few turns, and
usually fast footwork. Most written articles of the time report
that the Balboa was replacing the Fox-Trot
in swing circles. Most of the larger Ballrooms were so crowded that
they had signs posted "No Breakaways" which meant
No Jitterbug dancing (such as the Paramount
in L.A.) and the Balboa worked real well for overly crowded
dance floors such as the paramount.
There were a few different styles of Balboa
such as the:
1) "Swing-Bal." (Has some swing steps / Breakaways
thrown in, uses swing timing, to be clear... not shag timing, but
does have some converted shag patterns).
2) Slow Balboa (similar to Rhumba), that is very, very smooth!.
3) and "Fast Balboa" that is any style you happen to know,
done real fast ... LOL :).
4) Bal-Hop or the Balboa Hop was the original name, which originally
was more similar to Collegiate Shag.
5) Plus there is Single Bal, Double Bal and Thriple Bal (Swing
Rhythm) to mix.
The origin of the Balboa (not the Shag)
can be said to be The "Rendezvous
Ballroom" across from Balboa Island in
Newport Beach, CA. around 1934/5 to about 1941. The basic rhythm
for the dance is a Double Shuffle Swing Rhythm. Some original music
was Dorsey's "Melancholy Baby" or Artie Shaw's
"Begine The Beguine" (as reported by an early Photo
Play magazine article.) Celebrities like Jackie Cooper and Bonita
Granville were also avid Balboa dancers.
There is an interesting
article in the Oakland Tribune (Women in the News Section)
that says of a new dance introduced by the "International Association
of the Masters of Dancing" called ... you guessed it ... "The
Balboa," which is suggested to replace the Bunny Hug, Grizzly
Bear and Turkey Trot dances. It says it is a mixture of the One
Step, Two-Step and Waltz and was done to the song "Too Much
Mustard"... Interesting to say the least as the year was June
6th, 1915 (yes, i'm sure it was not the same dance ... couldn't
be ... maybe ... dunno?.) |
Ballrooms