What is Lindy hop?
Lindy Hop is a lively dance that originated in the African American communities in Harlem, New York in the United States from about 1927 into the early 1930's. (Please watch the example at the bottom of this page)
An influential predecessor of the lindy was the Charleston swing. Barbara Engelbrecht explains that "this swing infused the Lindy Hop’s basic step - the syncopated two step, with the accent on the off beat-with a relaxed and ebullient quality. And this relaxed and ebullient style of execution gives the impression, like the music, of the beat moving 'inexorably ahead'. The dancers feet appear to 'fly' in syncopated rhythms, while the body appears to 'hold' the fine line of balance in calm contrast to the headlong rush of the feet."
At the Savoy, black musicians and dancers, armed with the musical innovations of Louis Armstrong, helped develop the formula for what was eventually called swing music, which swept the country during the Great Depression.
The first generation of Lindy Hop is popularly associated with dancers such as "Shorty" George Snowden, his partner Big Bea, and Leroy Stretch Jones and Little Bea. "Shorty" George and Big Bea regularly won contests at the Savoy Ballroom. Their dancing accentuated the difference in size with Big Bea towering over Shorty.
The stage was set for movement innovations with the appearance of a group of Kansas City musicians in 1932. The power and drive of the Bennie Moten Band "generated a more flowing, lifting momentum. The effect on the dancers was to increase the energy and speed of execution.
As white people began going to Harlem to watch black dancers, according to Langston Hughes: "The lindy-hoppers at the Savoy even began to practice acrobatic routines, and to do absurd things for the entertainment of the whites, that probably never would have entered their heads to attempt for their own effortless amusement. Some of the lindy-hoppers had cards printed with their names on them and became dance professors teaching the tourists.
In 1935, "Shorty" George Snowden was unseated by a twenty year old dancer named Frankie Manning. Manning was part of a new generation of Lindy Hoppers, and is the most celebrated Lindy Hopper in history. Al Minns and Pepsi Bethel, Leon James, and Norma Miller also feature prominently in contemporary histories of Lindy Hop. Some sources credit Frankie Manning, working with his partner Freida Washington, invented the ground-breaking 'Air Step' or 'aerial' in 1935. An Air Step is a dance move in which at least one of the partners' two feet leave the ground in a dramatic, acrobatic style and most importantly it is done in time with the music. This type of move is now widely associated with the characterisation of lindy hop, however, air steps have historically been reserved primarily for competition or performance dancing, and are generally not executed on any social dance floor.
The Lindy Hop is popularly thought to get its name from famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, nicknamed "Lucky Lindy" in 1926. After Lindberg's solo non-stop flight from New York to Paris in which he "hopped" the Atlantic, Shorty George Snowden was dancing in a marathon contest at the Manhattan Casino in Harlem when a reporter asked him what dance he was doing. The headlines in the newspapers had stated "Lindy hops the Atlantic", so he told the reporter, "I'm doing the Lindy Hop".
Lindy Hop entered mainstream American culture in the 1930s, popularised by touring dance troupes (including the Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, which were also known as the Harlem Congaroos, Hot Chocolates and Big Apple Dancers), dance sequences in films (such as Hellzapoppin' and A Day at the Races) and dance studios (such as those of Arthur Murray and Irene and Vernon Castle). Lindy Hop's movement to the west coast of the United States is popularly associated with Dean Collins, who brought Lindy Hop to Los Angeles.
Lindy Hop moved off-shore in the 1930s and 40s, again in films and news reels, but also with American troops stationed overseas, particularly in the United Kingdom,Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other allied nations. Despite their banned status in countries such as Germany, Lindy Hop and jazz were also popular in other European countries during this period.
In 1944, with the United States' continuing involvement in World War II, a 30 percent federal excise tax was levied against "dancing" nightclubs. Although the tax was later reduced to 20 percent, "No Dancing Allowed" signs went up all over the country. Jazz drummer Max Roach argued that, "This tax is the real story why dancing ... public dancing per se ... were just out. Club owners, promoters, couldn't afford to pay the city tax, state tax, government tax."
Lindy Hop disappeared from popular culture in the 1950s as rock and roll music and dancing replaced jazz, and jazz itself moved towards hard bop and cool.
For more details please visit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Hop
How to dance the Lindy Hop, Watch these!
Was Lindy the predecessor of Dive or Jive!!!
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