Lindy hop

Lindy hop

Lindy Hop is a partnered Jazz dance that erupted from the dance halls of the late 1920’s. Danced to Swinging Jazz, halls like Harlem’s monstrous, 4000 capacity Savoy Ballroom were the places that nurtured this amazing, energetic dance called Lindy hop by featuring the top bands and dancers of the time!

So what is Lindy Hop? It’s a blend of African solo dance movements and European social dancing, generally done to an 8-count. Along with the Jazz music that inspired it, Lindy Hop has diverse roots.

Lindy Hop incorporated many pre-swing moves, such as the Charleston, the Texas Tommy, and a variety of other movements that have come to be known as Jazz moves. Today’s Lindy hoppers give Charleston a great deal of credit for the inspiration behind the dance. Ironically, Charleston was banned for a time in many dance halls of the day, including the Savoy!

Lindy Hop today is known by a variety of names, including Jitterbug (which it was called in the 1930’s), Savoy, and Hollywood, with these last two now referring to particular styles. However, original Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers superstars Leon James and Frankie Manning weren’t very concerned about “correctness!”. Lindy hop is not all about styling, patterns or particular moves. It’s the continual evolution of their own personal styles that motivated these swing dance giants.

The dance was first referred to as Lindy or Lindy hop, but by the late 1930’s the dance was commonly known as Jitterbug all over the world. In New York City, however, many used Lindy hop to refer to all types of variations, many hardly recognizable from the original. Legend Frankie Manning forever changed the face of Lindy Hop when he performed the first aerial in a dance contest back at the old Savoy. Things have never been the same since! During the 1990s swing dance revival, dancers came to use the term Lindy hop for the high flying style of Savoy stars Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, of which Frankie was a member.

Today’s top Lindy hoppers continue to push themselves in terms of personal style. Always tweaking, practicing and playing, those on the top of the game today are doing as much to promote and pass the torch for this great dance. Because of them, Lindy hop will never die. It’ll just keep getting better.