Collegiate Shag

Collegiate Shag is a 1930s swing dance, but is much closer to 1930s Charleston and St Louis Shag than modern swing dancing. And to the Cake Walks before that. It has their exuberance, hops and kicks.

VERY different than dancing Post Arthur Murray,

where the kicks and skips and hops all disappeared.

Ironically, here is Arthur Murray teaching Collegiate Shag

to NYC society people in the late 1930s.

It is so NOT Arthur Murray!

It makes me wonder, though!

Arthur Murray simplified both traditional Foxtrot (variable count) and

Swing (8-count), to the 6-count pattern of Collegiate Shag.

There was little 6-count dancing before Arthur Murray

MOST social dance post Arthur Murray is 6-count (outside Latin)

Did Arthur Murray like the "teachability" of Collegiate Shag so much

That he forever changed MOST future dancing to 6-count?

Few dance styles are so COMPLETELY defined by a

SINGLE performance, as this one by Stephen and Chandraee.