Jive

Jive is a dance performed on Dancing with the Stars.

A fast and highly energetic Latin dance, the Jive was originated in the 1930's in the United Sates, taking elements from Swing dances such as the Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, and East Coast Swing. Jive is characterized by fast moving steps, leg flicks, kicks, and lifting of the knees throughout the dance.

It is one of the five Latin dances that is competed internationally, along with the Cha-Cha-Cha, Samba, Rumba, and Paso Doble.

Jive has been featured on Dancing with the Stars since season 1.

History
In competition it is danced at a speed of 176 beats per minute, although in some cases this is reduced to between 128 and 160 beats per minute.

Many of its basic patterns are similar to these of the East Coast Swing with the major difference of highly syncopated rhythm of the Triple Steps (Chasses), which use straight eighths in ECS and hard swing in Jive. To the players of swing music in the 1930's and 1940's "Jive" was an expression denoting glib or foolish talk. Or derived from the earlier generics for giouba of the African dance Juba dance verbal tradition.

American soldiers brought Lindy Hop/Jitterbug to Europe around 1942, where this dance swiftly found a following among the young. In the United States it was called swing. In the UK variations in technique led to styles such as boogie-woogie and swing boogie, with "jive" gradually emerging as the generic term.

After the war, the boogie became the dominant form for popular music. It was, however, never far from criticism as a foreign, vulgar dance. The famous ballroom dancing guru, Alex Moore, said that he had "never seen anything uglier". English instructors developed the elegant and lively ballroom jive, danced to slightly slower music. In 1968 it was adopted as the fifth Latin dance in International competitions. The modern form of ballroom jive in the 1990's–present, is a very happy and boppy dance, the lifting of knees and the bending or rocking of the hips often occurs.