|
While swing dancing enjoyed a revival in the 1990s, its roots go back much further. The Lindy Hop is perhaps the original and most famous type of swing dance. The sites in Yahoo!'s Lindy Hop category swung us straight to the answers to your questions. The Lindy Hop is part of a long tradition of dances and music that evolved from African art forms slaves brought to the U.S. The Lindy is set to jazzy Big Band music in fast duple meter. Much of popular music is in a standard 4/4 time, meaning it has four quarter notes per bar. Duple meter means that the music is speeded up by putting eight eighth notes per
bar. To get an idea of the rhythm, say this aloud: "step, step, triple step, step, step, triple step." The Lindy Hop grew out of earlier jazz dances and popular steps like the Charleston, and it includes patterns of basic floor steps, fancy footwork called "shine steps," and air steps that take an acrobatic turn. If you want to try it for yourself, Jitterbuzz has a detailed Lindy curriculum that describes the essential steps. Lindy dancing began in the late 1920s at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York. The top big bands of the day played there, and dancers worked to improve their steps and invent new
ones. One of the best, "Shorty George" Snowden, is widely credited with naming the dance. In 1928, shortly after Charles Lindbergh's first "hop" across the Atlantic, a reporter saw Snowden performing at a charity dance marathon. The reporter asked Snowden what he called his dance steps, and Snowden coined the term "Lindy Hop" on the spot. The Lindy remained popular through the 1930s and 1940s. It was also called Jitterbug, sometimes derisively, and inspired many off-shoots such as West Coast Swing, East Coast Swing, and Boogie Woogie. Lindy hopping fell from favor in the late 1950s when the eight-beat-per-measure music lost popularity in the face of rock and roll. Curiously enough, the rock that killed the Lindy also had a
hand it its resurgence. Swing dancing was revived by bands like Royal Crown Revue, who infused the original sound with a pop-rock vibe, and by the fans who loved dancing to both the old and new tunes. The Lindy and related dances also got a lift from movies like 1996's Swingers (featuring the neo-swing band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy) and even commercials for the Gap, which featured people swing dancing in khakis. Purists decried the newfound trendiness, but the music and dance forms (both original and revived) have persisted even after the
scene lost media attention. Swing on, daddio!
|
