When one of my best friends and I were undergraduate students, we would go to swing dance lessons and social dances held by the swing dance club on campus, which was a fun way for us to get some exercise and get to know other students on campus that we might not otherwise have met. While my friend didn’t have much experience with dance at all, I had taken dance classes for many years as a child but not much experience with swing dancing, so I was excited to learn more about swing dancing and dancing with low vision. Here are my tips and strategies for learning swing dancing with low vision, based on my experiences attending the swing dance club on a college campus.
First, what is swing dancing?
Swing dancing is a style of dance that was developed with the swing style of jazz music in the 1920s-1940s. There are hundreds of different types of swing dance techniques, with some common types including the Lindy Hop, Charleston, Balboa, and others. My friend and I both learned East Coast Swing as part of the swing dance club, but I use the umbrella term “swing dancing” throughout this post to refer to the dance style as a whole.
At my college, students don’t have to have any experience with swing dancing before joining the club or attending a social event, but it is strongly recommended that beginners arrive early to participate in a dance lesson before the event begins. Students also don’t have to bring their own partner, though I found it helpful to bring a familiar friend to practice with when I was first starting out (I talk more about this later in the post).
What to wear for swing dancing
Our college campus is a pretty casual place, and students would frequently show up to club meetings wearing whatever they had on for class that day— students weren’t necessarily wearing stretchy pants or form-fitting clothing that would traditionally be used in a dance studio, though some students did. For social dances, a dress code would be announced in advance that students were expected to follow.
Since I personally find it annoying to dance in jeans, I would typically show up to club meetings and informal lessons wearing an a-line dress or skirt and flat comfortable shoes, along with a top that does not restrict my arm movement— no necklaces or other dangling jewelry. My friend would wear jeans and a t-shirt with sneakers, and neither of us were out of place.
For social dances, I would wear an a-line or fit-and-flare dress with a pair of 1.5-inch heels with a strap that are specifically designed to be worn on a dance floor— these are known as character shoes, and I would change into them when we got to the dance venue. Most students attending the dances either wore flat shoes or the same shoes that I would wear. Other outfits that I commonly encountered were collared or button-down shirts with solid colored pants that don’t restrict movement or ties/suspenders added to an outfit. With the exception of a few polka dots on dresses and skirts, striped shirts/ties, and the occasional floral print item, most students dressed in solid colors.
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- Clothing Shopping Tips For Sensory Processing Issues
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- How I Use The Stylebook App With Low Vision
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Attending in-person swing dancing lessons
Attending in-person swing dancing lessons is a fun way to meet other students and learn a new style of dance. Many colleges and universities offer a swing dance club, and I’ve also encountered local swing dance clubs hosted through community organizations, libraries, and swing dance groups in the area. For middle and high school aged students, cotillion dance classes often incorporate swing dancing lessons into their etiquette and ballroom dance lessons as well, though these types of lessons are more prevalent in the southeastern United States— this is how I was first exposed to swing dancing.
When attending in-person swing dancing lessons, I find it helpful to stand near the front of the room where the instructor is located, or angle myself at a diagonal so I can see what they are doing. If I am learning new choreography, it is helpful to have someone model the movement in close proximity to where I am standing, or to guide me through the movements by modeling correct hand positioning and narrating their movements using specific terms. I share a more detailed list of tips for attending dance classes with low vision and teaching dance classes below.
Related links
Learning to swing dance online
Admittedly, I couldn’t see a lot of what was going on in the in-person swing dance lessons held before social dances because of the dim lighting and the fact some of the instructors would dress entirely in black, making it more challenging for me to follow along with their movement. I would watch tutorials for swing dancing online or practice with a friend using the following strategies:
- Searching for swing dancing tutorials or beginner lessons on YouTube, which I would pause/rewind and could also enlarge by either casting the video to a larger screen or using pinch-to-zoom to enlarge videos
- Listening to instructors describe their movements while dancing using specific location terms, instead of “like this” or “over there.”
- Finding audio described swing dancing videos on YouDescribe, or searching for audio described dance performances online that can provide context or clarification on what different dance moves look like
- This is a bit “nerdy”, but I used my college’s research database to search for demonstrations of dance choreography and information on the history of dance, which was a great way to find videos of people demonstrating what different choreography would look like.
Another one of my friends who was a part of a different dance club on-campus mentioned that they would attend online dance lessons held at another college or watch prerecorded dance lessons or workouts on YouTube, watching the videos multiple times while holding their face close to the screen.
Related links
- How To Describe Dance Choreography Videos For Visually Impaired
- Online College Library Resources For Digital Access
- Audio Workouts and Low Vision
- Streaming Audio Description For Performing Arts Videos
Should I bring a partner when swing dancing?
A major component of the swing dance club on my college campus is that students regularly rotate partners so they can meet new people, and it’s common to rotate partners during dance lessons every 10-15 minutes or so. When I first attended a swing dance lesson, I was nervous about rotating partners since I was feeling self-conscious about my low vision, so I asked one of my male friends to come to the dance lesson with me and be my partner the whole time. When it came time to rotate partners, we would tell the other students that we were sticking together and didn’t dance with other people. I am grateful for my friend’s support as I tried something new, and I felt more comfortable dancing with other partners when I attended my second lesson and subsequent lessons/events.
When it came to choosing dance partners at social dances, I would typically use one of my best friends as a human guide when we weren’t dancing with other people, and we would walk up to people and ask if they would like to dance or wait for them to approach us. I personally avoided walking into dimly lit areas if I thought I saw someone sitting alone after I approached several “people” that turned out to be trash cans or other inanimate objects, so I would stick to well-lit areas.
While it isn’t super common for two girls to dance together, some of my friends and I would dance together at social dances if no one else asked us to dance and we wanted to dance anyways!
Related links
- Disability Accommodations For Fluctuating Eyesight
- Two of Everything: Living With Double Vision
- Ten “Odd” Things I Do With Double Vision
Disclosing visual impairment to dance partners
When I first started swing dancing with low vision, I was tempted to mask my visual impairment and not tell anyone I had trouble seeing, especially since my blindness cane was nowhere near the dance floor. After a few awkward encounters where I ran into people or had trouble recognizing others, I realized that self-disclosing my low vision was a good idea from a safety perspective. Some examples of what this would look like include:
- ”I’m having trouble seeing you, can we go where there’s more light?”
- ”What does that sign say?”
- ”Where is ‘over there’?”
- ”What do you mean by ‘like this’?”
- If someone asks why I am wearing sunglasses: “they’re tinted glasses, my eyes are sensitive to light.”
- ”I can’t read that, can you read it to me?”
- If someone noticed I have a blindness cane and asks why it isn’t with me: “I don’t think my cane makes a very good dance partner, I’d rather have a person help me navigate the dance floor!”
- ”Thank you for dancing with me! Can you help me find my friend? It’s hard to find them in crowds.” My friend would come look for me after they finished dancing as well.
Sometimes, I would have dance partners become frustrated that I didn’t recognize them at other events or later in the evening. I would typically explain this by saying “it’s hard for me to see faces, plus I have low vision/am legally blind. It helps if you identify yourself when saying hi instead of just waving and not saying anything!”
Related links
- How I Talk About Disability With New Friends
- How I Respond To Questions/Comments About My Eyes
- How I Respond To Questions/Comments About My Glasses
- How To Approach Someone with Low Vision Without Scaring Them
- How To Be An Effective Human Guide For People With Vision Loss
More tips for swing dancing and low vision accessibility
- Before the social dance, my friend and I would sometimes go check out the empty or mostly-empty space before the dance starts so I could get an idea of how to navigate and what it would look like. This strategy is great for temporary events, which I mention in my post Disability Accommodations For Graduation
- Listening to a swing dance music playlist can help with spotting familiar songs and gaining confidence when dancing, instead of trying to learn unfamiliar choreography and unfamiliar music simultaneously. Check out Mainstream Technology and Low Vision: Smart Speakers
- I always wear my glasses when dancing because I am sensitive to light and don’t move around enough to worry about them falling off. Learn more about my glasses in Veronica’s Four Eyes: All About My Glasses For Low Vision
- Want more posts on visual and performing arts accessibility for low vision? Browse Arts and Music Archives
Published July 19, 2019. Updated January 2025