If you haven’t made plans for the New Year, please join Midori and me for a weekend of traditional jazz dancing and workshops (December 29-January 1) in Toronto, Canada! Last year, we had an incredible time in Toronto teaching Peabody, Charleston, Blues, Lindy Hop, and more. This year, we’re expecting an even better time as we will have plenty of chances to dance to live music (not to mention that Midori was a few months pregnant during our last visit). For preliminary details, visit Odd-socks.org. In the coming weeks, we’ll be posting a class schedule, so check back here or at Odd-Socks.
Posted on October 18th, 2006 by chad
In September 1938, Warner Bros shot a Vitaphone short titled, “Two Shadows.” According to Rob Liebman’s exhaustive and invaluable reference book, Vitaphone Films: A Catalogue of Features and Shorts, the film centered around a young man whose father wants him to go to work. To help him get a job as a bouncer, he stages a fight with his friend. Liebman lists the cast as including Ken and Roy Paige, Bill and Beverly Bemis, Irene Beasley, Sharkey Bonano’s Swing Band, and Jean and her Big Apple Dancers.
While this film is only one of thousands of missing Vitaphone shorts, a vital part of our national history that disappears by the day, it has particular significant to us for two reasons. First, the film features a group of dancers from New York University dancing the Big Apple, a dance we care about. Second, one of the dancers turns out to be an important figure in social dance history and someone we care deeply about, John Lucchese. (Continue reading…)
Posted on October 14th, 2006 by chad
The New-York Historical Society is holding a panel discussion on the Savoy Ballroom, the crown jewel of Harlem nightlife and home of the Lindy Hop. Frankie Manning, Savoy historian Terry Monaghan, and boxing historian Burt Sugar, will reflect on the ballroom’s story from its great dancers and musicians to its most memorable and historic moments, including the 1935 celebration of boxer Joe Louis’s victory over Primo Carnera. Highlights of the program included a demonstrations of the Lindy Hop by Savoy dancers and a compilation of film clips presented by me.
Event Details
October 18, 2006 at 6:30pm
New York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
Non-Members: $15.00
Members: $8.00
Student/Senior/Educator Cost: $10.00
Presented in collaboration with the Society for Dance History Scholars
For More Info and Tickets
Posted on October 10th, 2006 by chad
We perform and teach popular and historical social dances of the Jazz Age and Swing Era and have appeared on stage, independent film, and local and national television. Known for our performance and our research of social dancing, we also consult and choreograph for period productions, particularly those set in the Roaring Twenties. Though we do not regularly compete, we have placed in a number of competitions, including 1st in the 2004 American Lindy Hop Championships Fast Dance division.