Really interesting video about a couple who teaches lindy hop in India. I met these people at the Frankie 95 Festival in NY last year. You might think it's odd to teach poor children in India a dance from New York, but dance, like music, is a language that can transcend culture and expand horizons. Besides, contributing to the world's supply of ( Read more... )

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See, there's this dance that lindy hoppers do, called the Shim Sham. And Frankie Manning used to teach it at his workshops. So for his birthday, dancers all over the world video-taped themselves doing the Shim Sham. The best clips were edited together into the following video. Frankie never got to see it ( Read more... )

Great Half-Hour Documentary on Frankie Mannning's Life

This has already been posted to Youtube:

Click to view

Look for me a bit left of center, about one row back from the guy in the hat, directly behind a blond guy with a beard, and later on behind a girl in a red dress with spaghetti straps. I'm wearing a dark bare-back halter dress, and have a big pale blue flower in my hair, and I'm dancing with a guy in a ( Read more... )

Remember when I said skin color didn't matter to a swing dancer? I was both more and less right than I imagined...it seems we had a real dearth of black swing dancers good enough to play the role of young Frankie Manning in Saturday night's show: in the scene with the famous dance-off at the Savoy, Frankie was played by a blond Swedish guy, with ( Read more... )

The Savoy Ballroom, once a mecca for lindy hoppers, and formerly about six miles north of where I now sit, used to be known as "the home of happy feet." Sugar Sullivan says it didn't matter if you were black or white at the Savoy. Once you climbed those stairs, only one thing mattered: can you dance ( Read more... )

Say the words "Frankie Manning" to any swing dancer, and their faces will immediately light with recognition. Say those words to any swing dancer who has met him, the Barishnikov of lindy hop, and their faces light with love. Thousands and thousands of words have been written about how this man changed the face of American dance, and thousands ( Read more... )

If you're at all interested in swing dancing--even if you've never done it and just want to learn--go to this event:

Frankie Manning 2009 Workshop Weekend

This man is a national treasure, and he won't last forever. (Though he's gotten damn close!) Just to say you've seen him in person is worth the price of admission.

Look what I just registered for!My little dancer heart goes pit-a-pat in syncopated time ( Read more... )