In the vernacular jazz community, a huge amount of influence is placed on knowing the history of these dances. For dancers of West Coast Swing, Lindy Hop, and all other styles of vernacular jazz, knowing your roots not only increases your knowledge and perspective as a dancer, it also makes you a better ambassador to introduce the dance to new people. Community means the world to these dance styles, and a healthy community holds dear the factors that made the dance what it is today.

When looking at the whole history of West Coast Swing, there are 12 dancers who stand out as pillars of the artform, who, without their art, West Coast Swing would be significantly different from the dance it is today. As a little side note, this list started with over 50 names, and I tried to get it down to 10, but each of the names on this list absolutely deserve to be here, and I could not whittle down any further. If you want to know how West Coast Swing became what it is today, these are the most “need to know” names:

Jack Carey

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Annie Hirsch

It cannot be stressed enough: without Jack Carey and Annie Hirsch, there is no West Coast Swing. Jack Carey won the 1949 Harvest Moon Ball, and in the 50’s moved to Southern California, where he innovated and popularized a random-pair-unknown-music contest format that came to bear his name: The Jack-and-Jill contest. Annie moved to Southern California and started learning jitterbug, and after a few years away from the scene, came back, met Jack, and fell in love.

Together, these two helped lead the transition of West Coast Swing from the late 40’s smooth style Lindy Hop into its own unique dance idiom. They helped establish West Coast Swing as a slotted dance, and together they helped carve out a niche in the dance world for West Coast Swing from the 1960’s and beyond. Annie Hirsch co-founded the World Swing Dance Council in 1993 with Skippy Blair. Jack and Annie were in the first class of inductees into the California Swing Dance Hall of Fame, the first inductees into the Open Swing Dance Championships Walk of Legends, and are both members of the World Swing Dance Hall of Fame. West Coast Swing would not, could not exist without their legacies and lifetime of work.

Skippy Blair

Skippy Blair, AKA “The Teacher of Teachers”, is one of the pivotal figures in the history of West Coast Swing. Skippy started dancing in 1938, in New Jersey, and was a regional Jitterbug Champion with her partner, Red Rex, in 1941, and after moving to California, became part of the wave of dancers who started teaching swing dance as it evolved from Lindy Hop into other styles. Skippy is credited as popularizing the name “west coast swing” for the variation on Lindy Hop and Sophisticated Swing that was becoming increasingly popular in the South Bay of California through the 50’s and 60’s. She was also involved in the effort to name West Coast Swing California’s State Dance, which was accomplished in 1988.

In 1993, Skippy co-founded the World Swing Dance Council alongside Annie Hirsch. She is the creator of the Universal Unit System, one of the most esteemed pedagogy tools among West Coast Swing teachers, coaches, and judges. Skippy Blair is a member of the California Swing Dance Hall of Fame, the National Swing Dance Hall of Fame, and is a member of the Open Swing Dance Championships’ Walk of Legends. She was adamant in the belief that West Coast Swing was unique in its connection style and what it offered dancers, and those ideas have carried through her teachings to this day.

Buddy, Laurie, &

Benji Schwimmer

What the Kennedy family is to politics, the Schwimmer family is to West Coast Swing. Amazingly esteemed on paper, and even more influential than that beyond the scenes. It is almost impossible to envision what this dance would look like without the Schwimmers. All three are members of the Open Swing Dance Championships’ Walk of Legends. All three, along with daughter and sister Lacey Schwimmer, are in the California Swing Dance Hall of Fame. All three have multiple major championship titles on their resume, as both competitors and choreographers, and beyond any shadow of a doubt, all three have left an indelible mark on West Coast Swing history.

Buddy Schwimmer alone has a RIDICULOUS resume: known colloquially as “the man with 1000 moves” Buddy Schwimmer is credited as the inventor of Nightclub 2 Step, which he created in 1965 at just 15 years old. While active competitively, he won over 2000 dance competitions. He choreographed for several movie and tv programs throughout the second half of the 20th century. He owned and operated both 5678 Dance Studio and The Schwimmer Dance Center, where he trained a whole legion of dancers in afterschool programs and young adult classes. This group, known as “The Schimmer Kids” included multiple current West Coast Swing Champions, such as Jordan Frisbee and Tatiana Mollman, Nicole Ramirez, Victoria Henk, Tara Trafzer, Christopher Dumond, and many more. He is a coach of champions, and many in the dance industry think of Buddy Schwimmer first when they are asked to name a great west coast swing coach.

Laurie Schwimmer started dancing West Coast swing in 1981, after being introduced to it by Buddy. Alongside Buddy, Laurie has poured mountains of energy into teaching young adults and junior level dancers how to swing, and has raised up some of the best of the best on the circuit today. Her focus on expending the dance among younger dancers has been instrumental in helping west Coast Swing become a continuously growing, evolving, and expanding dance scene. She has choreographed and coached a who’s who of today’s west coast swing champions, and continues to be a driving force in the artistry of West Coast Swing and the growth of its community.

Benji is indisputably one of the most famous names in the West Coast Swing World, and stands as a titan of both the partner and solo dance world. The Season 2 winner of “So You Think You Can Dance”, Benji is a FOURTEEN time US Open Swing Dance Champion. He is an innovator of movement, including a lot of crossover technique and styling from the ballroom, ballet, and contemporary worlds. He continues to teach in ballrooms and at swing events across the world, and has collaborated with movie and tv projects, including Dancing with the Stars and the recent movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. If you have the chance to attend a weekend where he is teaching or performing, there there’s very little question about it: you should do your absolute best to be there.

Robert Royston

Robert teaches a weekly beginner group class in New York City, and every week he says the same very particular sentence as he explains dance to new folks: “It is not the steps that make a dancer, it is what they do between the steps.” This simple idea is present in everything Robert teaches, and it runs through the core of West Coast Swing as a dance, as does Robert’s influence. He is known for blending simple ideas with incredible execution, and some of the best of the best are constantly looking to him for advice and inspiration. Recently, he has been collaborating with renowned dance educator Eric Franklin to develop a universal method of movement training specialized for West Coast Swing.

Robert is a master of movement and has helped develop a whole school of west coast swing patterns and movement styles. A multi-time US Open Champion (8x across 5 divisions), he won both the classic and showcase divisions with different partners. He is the only dancer in history to be inducted into California Swing Dance Hall of Fame, UCWDC Hall of Fame, National Boppers Hall of Fame, the World Swing Dance Hall of Fame, and the Living Legends of Dance Society. A little known fun fact, Robert is also the choreographer of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story”, as well as her 2009 FEARLESS Tour. It is these accomplishments and many more that make Robert not only a living legend of West Coast Swing, but a fantastic contributor to the art of dance as a whole.

Kyle Redd

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Sarah Vann Drake

Kyle and Sarah are an integral part of the bridge between what West Coast Swing was and what West Coast Swing is now. From the beginning of their partnership, they focused on innovating and expanding what was possible in the world of West Coast Swing while still being true to the roots and values that created the dance in the first place. They won their first of multiple US Open Showcase Championships in 2000, each at the age of 20. They are members of the California Swing Dance Hall of Fame, both individually and as a couple. They are one of very few couples with a WSDC “Routine of the Decade” award. As of January 2024, Kyle and Sarah are ranked #1 and #4 in all-time WSDC points, making them two of the top dancers in West Coast Swing history, from both an impact and longevity perspective. Among current competitors, Kyle and Sarah are two of the most sought after coaches in the world.

Kyle and Sarah at their peak were working 48 weekends a year at events both national and international, taking their skill and knowledge to tens of thousands of dancers every single year. Their experience helped lay the foundation of what a full time professional West Coast Swing instructor’s career looks like. They have poured their lives and their hearts into making West Coast Swing a dance that extends beyond the borders of the United States, and founded SwingCouver, one of the largest non-US WSDC workshop events in the world. A huge amount of what the modern scene looks like and feels like for both amateur dancers and professionals is due to their invaluable influence.

Jordan Frisbee

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Tatiana Mollman

What we think of as “modern” west coast swing was perhaps more heavily influenced by the winningest US Open Classic Champions than perhaps anyone else in the world. Jordan and Tatiana met at the age of 12 and have been virtually unstoppable ever since. They are pattern and movement innovators, role redefiners, and world West Coast swing ambassadors. They made their Classic Division debut at the 2001 US Open Swing Dance Championships at 18 years old - and walked away with their first of 11 US Open titles together. They are still the youngest to ever win an Open Swing Dance Championship title in either Classic or Showcase division. By the time they retired as a partnership from the competitive routine divisions in 2015, they had also racked up 7 NASDE titles, several Grand Nationals Championships, and countless other contest wins. They are both members of the California Swing Dance Hall of Fame and the Open Swing Dance Championships Walk of Legends. Jordan and Tatiana are also ranked #3 and #2 in all time WSDC points, respectively.

Along with Kyle and Sarah, Jordan and Tatiana have been instrumental in making West Coast Swing a world wide dance. They played major roles in introducing West Coast Swing to Australia, Russia, and many regions in Europe. Jordan is in the most viewed West Coast Swing video on youtube, from BudaFest 2020 in Hungary.

They are the pioneers of JT Swing Teams, which creates choreography for local and regional teams to learn with the goal of improving their dance by learning routines created by two of the best to ever do it. There is probably one near your region, and if not, Jordan and Tatiana would love to help you establish one. (learn more at http://jtswing.com/teams.html)

John Lindo

John Lindo is one of the most significant rennaisance men in West Coast Swing history. Since starting in the Country dance world and transitioning to West Coast Swing, he has become a tour de force who wears just about every leadership hat possible in the West Coast Swing world. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the World Swing Dance Council as well as the Board of Directors for the Open Swing Dance Championships. He also directs four other events on the WSDC yearly circuit: Freedom Swing Challenge, Rose City Swing, Liberty Swing Dance Championships, and Philly Swing Classic.

In addition to his organizational prowess, he is an incredible teacher, performer, judge, and DJ. He is a longstanding member of West Coast Swing’s Professional Swing DJ’s organization, and helps shape the direction in which West Coast Swing music moves as it continues to evolve. He is active in emphasizing what is important for competition judges to focus on, and ensuring that West Coast Swing continues to find the balance between its vernacular, community driven roots and its competitive and performance potential. As West Coast Swing continues to move into the future, expect John to be at the forefront of its momentum.

The 12 Most Influential Dancers in West Coast Swing History