1920–1930
THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE
AND THE BIRTH OF
SWING DANCING
Written by Patsy Holden
Jazz dancing is degrading. It lowers all the moral standards. Unlike liquor, a great deal of harm is direct and immediate. But it also leads to undesirable traits. The jazz too often followed by the joy-ride. The lower nature is stirred up as a prelude to un-chaperoned adventure. J.R. MacMahon 1921
By the time that America had emerged from World War I (1914-1918), Ragtime music (popular at the turn of the century) had evolved into new forms; jazz and blues. As a result, new kinds of dances evolved. Dance instructors Vernon and Irene Castle, who had been extremely popular in America and Europe during the 1910's, published their first dance manual, Modern Dancing, which became the standard for all future ballroom dancing and set the tone for elite mannerisms on the ballroom dance floor with instructions on how to dance the Foxtrot and Tango with civilized dignity. However, no matter how graceful and sophisticated the ballroom image was that the Castles had created, it was not powerful enough to stop the most wildly energetic dance created up until that time—the Lindy-hop. This dance, which later branched into many forms that make up the family of Swing dancing, emerged from the incredibly creative flow of artistic energy of the Harlem Renaissance. Many were convinced that jazz music and the Lindy-hop that developed as a result of it were the new downfalls of American society.
Black migrant workers that had come to New York in search of construction jobs brought with them the lively juke-joint dances and jazz music that they had created in the South. In the area known as Harlem, African-Americans populated neighborhoods and developed a new culture based on this jazz music and city life.
Here, in the heart of New York, between the Bronx and Central Park, wriggling black America disports itself nightly to the Lindy Hop, the Shim Sham, the Shimmy, or to Truckin', its latest dance creation. In a score of tiny nightclubs, in low-ceilinged cabarets, shot with amber and dull red lights, couples twist, wriggle and tap to Harlem's high-priestess; the dance. Campbell 1936
Arguably the most famous ballroom in American history, the Savoy Ballroom opened on March 12, 1926. Collins (2000) writes, “The Savoy ballroom was the most popular dance venue in Harlem. Many of the dance crazes of the 1920's and 1930's were perpetuated there.” The dance floor was the biggest in New York City, the size of an entire city block, and was nick-named the “Home of the Happy Feet.” It was considered to be the finest ballroom at the time, and possibly of all time.
“In 1927, two really important things happened—Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic, and a man named Shorty Snowden invented a dance called the Lindy Hop” (Manning 1998). At the Savoy ballroom, Shorty perfected his own unique version of a popular fast-paced dance that had given him the status of being the best dancer at the Savoy. It was Shorty who coined the word “Lindy-hop” when asked by a reporter what he was dancing. Shorty had seen the newspaper headings that read “Lindy Hops the Atlantic,” which referred to Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic (Manning 2007:79).
The Lindy-hop was highly energetic and extremely contagious, just like the music that inspired it. The Savoy Ballroom, located in the black district of New York City, welcomed whites who would frequently show up to watch the Lindy-hoppers. Langston Hughes, a poet during the Harlem Renaissance, wrote that Harlem nights at the Savoy became show nights for the Nordics (Collins 2000).
In 1935, Herbert “Whitey” White, the organizer of a group of Lindy-hop dancers at the Savoy, invited Frankie Manning, a new young dancer known for his own style of Lindy-hop dancing, as well as two other couples, to compete against Shorty at an un-official dance competition (Manning 2007:95). It was here that Frankie Manning “became a star in the informal jams in the Kat's Korner of the Savoy, frequently won Saturday night contests, and was invited to join the elite 400 Club, whose members could come to the Savoy Ballroom during daytime hours to practice alongside the bands that were booked at the Savoy” (Pritchett 2006). Frankie and his partner, Frieda, had been practicing a step he called the Airstep, the first Lindy-hop step in which the lady would be thrown into the air, and, in Frankie's own words:
And we were dancing, and then I say, ‘Hey Frieda. You ready for this
step?’ So she say, ‘Yeah, let's go for it,’ you know. So I swung Frieda out, man, and I jump over her head, you know. When I jumped over her head, Chick Webb say ‘Boom.’ And then when I turn, and she hit my back, and as she hit my back, and I flipped her over, and she hit the floor right on the music, and as she hit the floor, Chick Webb say, ‘Damn!’ and I say, ‘Yeah, man, we got them now’ ( Manning 1998).
Frankie Manning became the new “King of Swing” and began a tradition of dancing the Lindy-hop with airsteps that lasts to this day. Manning, who passed away in April 2009, spent the past two decades teaching Lindy-hop workshops around the world and recently published his autobiography, Frankie Manning: The Ambassador of Lindy-hop, which describes these glorious days of Lindy-hop at the Savoy.
The Savoy enjoyed great success with both whites and blacks dancing in the same ballroom to the many famous big bands that played each weekend. However, this was not the case outside of the ballroom. Although slavery had been abolished decades earlier, the remnants of white domination still held over black American citizens. White America had yet to give credit to its black America citizens for the contribution of Swing dancing to the American culture. John Martin, in his book America Dancing, published in 1936, discussed how America had yet to tap into the art of African-American culture…almost an entire decade after the birth of the Lindy-hop:
There is also a potentially great art to be developed out of the ingredients of the Negro dance. But as yet these manifestations have not gone beyond the folk stage; they are still waiting for the creative artist to use them consciously for their expressional values. When he arises, it will be against heavy odds, for in spite of the formalities of emancipation, Negro art is still expected to be humorous or erotic.
Despite what art critics said, America's youth, both black and white, loved the Lindy-hop. However, not everyone in the audience at the Savoy was able to dance the extremely physically demanding and acrobatic Lindy-hop from Harlem. As the Lindy swept the country, dance studios simplified and created standardized dance steps.” At the same time, young Lindy-hoppers continued to push the boundaries, creating more and more elaborate aerials and tricks. They gave the watered down versions of the Lindy-hop names like East Coast Swing and Jitterbug. In a general sense though, all of these versions were, and still are, called Swing dancing.
Swing dancing has experienced two revivals since the 1920's, once in the early 1950's with a calmer version of the Lindy-hop called East Coast Swing, and again during the 1980's when both the Lindy-hop and Frankie Manning were rediscovered. Both revivals swept the entire country's youth by creating venues for Swing music and new Swing clubs. Today, both the Swing enjoys a prominent positions in the regular curriculum of ballroom dancing. It is taught to virtually all ballroom dancers across the globe and is promoted as a standard to become a well-rounded ballroom dancer, despite the fact once considered to be a nuisance and the downfall of American society.
Bibliography
1936 Campbell, E.S.
Esquire Magazine, February.
2000 Collins, Willie
St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture: Savoy Ballroom. St. James Press.
2000 Driver, Ian.
A Century of Dance. London: Octopus Publishing Group Limited.
1921 J.R. Macmahon.
“Unspeakable Jazz Must Go!” The Ladies Home Journal, December.
1998 Manning, Frankie.
“Lindy Hopping at the Savoy: The Man Who Invented the Aerial.Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore 19(1-2). Electronic document, http://www.nyfolklore.org/pubs/news/newsltrs/1998-vol19-no1-2.pdf
2007 Manning, Frankie, and Cynthia R. Millman.
Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy-hop. Chicago: Temple University Press.
1936 Martin, John.
America Dancing: The Background and Personalities of the Modern Dance. New York: Dodge Publishing Company.
2006 Pritchett, Judy.
“Frankie Manning: The Ambassador of Lindy-hop.” Archives of Early Lindy-hop: Biographies of the Original Lindy-hoppers. Electronic document, http://www.savoystyle.com/frankie_manning, accessed November 30, 2006.
