Street Jive (SJ for short) is a dance for those who like to have their cake and eat it. It’s a dynamic social partner dance of the jitterbug family; and is related to the lindy-hop, swing, jive and rock and roll. Those who take up Street Jive quickly find out that the style is very adaptable, and are able to partner dancers of other forms of French jive. We achieve this by portraying the jive as a dance that is extremely flexible, yet fun and very easy to learn.

Street Jive is fundamentally like no other style of jive, because we have adapted it to enable our students to dance with people ranging broadly in dance background and ability. Being able to dance well with anybody and under any circumstance is universal currency on the dance floor. It still remains the most important feature of French jive, in that it can be danced to a mind-boggling diversity of music. This gives our students access to the widest social settings in which to dance: from rock ‘n’ roll wedding receptions, to all-night clubbing sessions and hot Latin evenings.

How and where you dance it aside, things would not remain interesting if they weren’t challenging in the long term, and SJ is no exception. The ultimate aim of any Street Jiving partnership is to be able to JAM together (and I don’t mean soft and fruity); to be able to improvise freely and in harmony with your partner and the song. As one of our instructors puts it, “it’s what you create of it that makes the difference!”

We reckon that you are more likely to reach this state of dance bliss through our lessons, because of the way they reflect and emphasise the versatility of the jive.

SJ is a dance that provides a smooth introduction to the other jive dances e.g. swing, lindy-hop and hustle, and the Latin dances of merengue and salsa. Its benefits to our society members are two-fold: it provides a great alternative for those who like to dance to different music outside of Latin clubs; and is a natural complement to merengue and salsa. Now that’s what I call having your cake and eating it!