Lindy and The Blues: An Introduction
In the past two and a half years I have become very involved in swing dancing, particularly lindy hop, charleston and blues dancing. I love blues and jazz music and I find the 1920s to be a very fascinating time period. I am Vice President of the Swing Dance Club at RIT and go out dancing several times a week. I don’t even know where to start with this as there are so many things I could say on the topic, but considering how big a part of my life its become I’m excited to be starting this blog.
Frankie Manning choreographed and danced in this scene from 1941 film Hellzapoppin’. Its considered the greatest lindy hop scene of all time.
I suppose I’ll start with a short summary to be elaborated on later. The dance was invented in the 1920s in the Savoy Ballroom of Harlem, where dancers invented moves and competed with each other to big band legends such as Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and the like. It was one of the only integrated places in the country at that point and once the Great Depression hit, one of the only places they could still just let loose and have fun. By World War II the dance faded in popularity and became all but a memory. In the 1980s, two intrigued and stubborn dance students convincing Frankie Manning, the only original Savoy dancer still alive in New York at that point, to come out of retirement to teach them the lindy hop. They then traveled the country teaching the dance to others and causing a mass revival of it.
Kevin and Carla in Barcelona, Spain.
Today, ever major city in the United States has a lindy hop scene, and many other countries such as Canada, England, Sweden, Japan and Russia have prevalent lindy hop communities. Even Iceland just had their first Lindy Hop Exchange this past summer. These dance exchanges and workshop weekends have dance classes during the day and dancing to live music and well-known DJs all night long. Most just last a weekend but some last an entire week. When these happen, dancers in the area host other dancers, and as many are willing to travel, lindy hoppers tend to meet and befriend people all over the country and outside of it.
It is truly an amazing community and culture. The dancing itself is so personal and connected; its a wonderfully improvisational partner dance that doesn’t take itself too seriously and is grounded in a rich history. The music is incredible and the musicians who play for dancers really embrace it and are so passionate about it. Its interesting to meet such a variety of individuals from all over the world and I’ve met a lot of my closest friends as well as my boyfriend through dancing.
Joe and Nelle’s performance at a blues exchange in Chicago I attended last year.
Lindy hop is that athletic mid-tempo to fast-paced dancing they did on the dance floor and then in performances. Its what most people think of when they think of swing dancing, although its a lot more than just throwing people up in the air at 300 bpm. Blues dancing is more of what they did at house parties, after midnight. Its slower and more sensual and much more improvisational. It has become a very popular dance in its own right, with Blues Dance Exchanges and weekly dances coming into being all over the country, mostly consisting of lindy hoppers. There are places, particularly along the west coast such as Portland, OR where the blues dancing scene has become even more vibrant than the lindy. Many find the music and dance easier to connect/relate to, and it can be so fulfilling and emotional in a way that lindy isn’t. (Don’t get me wrong, lindy can be fulfilling and a lot of fun, just in a very different way. It just depends on the person and what suits their personality and style best.) Its done as well to a lot of current music, such as Ratatat for example, and is influenced not just by lindy but tango, modern and other dance forms. Its a dance with a very different feeling than lindy.
Blues dancing finals I competed in during a blues exchange in Philadelphia.
Theres a big difference between social dancing and competitions/performances. For competitions and performances, there are more showy moves and its more about how it looks to the audience. In social dancing, its more about your connection to your partner as you feel and interpret the music together. That may sound rather cheesy, but a social dance is more of a conversation than a performance. There is something really incredible about conversing in that way, without words. I only just recently entered into a competition for the first time a few months ago and I made it to finals. It was a Jack and Jill competition, meaning you don’t know who you’re going to dance with until the the competition itself. I had never danced with Topher before, but it was so much fun. For a shy girl who if told before college I’d be entering dance competitions I would have laughed at the idea, it was a scary but great experience.
So I doubt anyone actually read through all of that and watched all those videos, but either way its important to me to write it out. I came to college with a passion for photography and certain expectations, none of which came true. I’ve learned a lot about photography as well as about life. I know when I look back this will be something I’m most grateful for having learned. I’ve met the most amazing people through it, had opportunities to travel to all sorts of new places and changed so much as a person because of it. I’m glad to now be starting some sort of documentation of this.
