SWING DANCE ~ LINDY HOP ~ HUSTLE ~ Alaska

WELCOME TO ~ NELLEE’S LINDY HOP SHOP

SWING ARCHIVES

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Ok Swing People, here’s the bit o’ swing history I promised (adapted from “The Swing Book”):

More About Frankie Manning and Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers!!

With Frankie Manning leading the way, whitey’s Lindy Hoppers brought the dance and their wildly distinctive way of doing it to an ever growing and thoroughly wowed public. According to Norma Miller, Whitey “wanted to be the man to make the Lindy Hop a famous and accepted art form.”

Norma in action in 1952 at the Roxy Theator with her partner Billy Ricker

The first step on the road to the Lindy’s greatness began in 1935 when White entered his dancers in New York’s first annual Harvest Moon Championship, a city-wide competition that put the Lindy side by side with traditional dances such as the fox trot, rhumba, waltz, and tango. “It was the biggest dance contest ever held in America and of cours it was important to us,” Norma wrote in her memoir, Swingin’ At The Savoy.

Leon James and Edith Matthews winners of the first Harvest Moon Ball

“It was the first time the Lindy Hop was in a dance competition. It was the only black entry in the contest and we were very proud of that.” The savoy dancers took first, second, and third prizes in the Lindy section. “When we got up on the dance floor, we kicked as and it became such a popular dance it couldn’t be denied,” Norma recalled.

Harvest Moon Dancers from Way Back When…

From there, Whitey’s troupe traveled around the world, touring Europe and South America, performing at the New york World’s Fair and on Broadway, at the Cotton Club and the Moulin Rouge. They even met the queen of England. Most significantly, they were in movies, an important record of the dance that would live to inspire a new generation of dancers starting in the 1980’s -- and still inspiring an even newer generation of dancers right now!!

Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers!!

Even to this day, people say that the troupe’s performance in the film Hellzapoppin’ has never been topped. In 1943, the Lindy was honored with its own cover story in Life magazine, which called it “a true national folk dance.”

Frankie Manning and Ann Johnson in Hellzapoppin

But if Frankie Manning, Norma Miler, and the rest of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers had ever been given the full acknowledgement they deserve for helping make that happen, they’d be as famous today as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The Savoy Ballroom closed in 1958.

Unfortunately, at the spot where the Savoy once stood, there’s not even a plaque mentioning the dancing genius that was unleashed there.

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