Lindy Hop is the original swing dance and is considered by many to be the most exciting dance ever. It’s the grand daddy of them all. Without Lindy Hop there would be no Rock and Roll or Modern Jive.

Lindy Hop was born in the late 1920’s. It evolved from earlier dances such as the Black Bottom, the Big Apple, the Grizzly Bear and grew directly out of the Charleston. It is a combination of formal European dance forms and the earthy rhythms and body posture from Africa.

The Savoy Ballroom (the Home of Happy Feet) in Harlem, was the birthplace of the Lindy Hop. It had a block-long dance floor and a raised double bandstand. It was a place where race was irrelevant. If you walked into the Savoy, the only thing that mattered was could you dance? Social dance played an important role in Harlem life, for many it was a reprieve from the harsh economic realities of the time. It was a way for people to celebrate, to escape and to express their identity. The Savoy attracted the best dancers in New York, put on cabarets and special evenings. Competitions, such as dance marathons were popular. At a time of total social segregation blacks and whites not only shared the same dance hall but also danced together to bands of mixed colour.

The music was vital to Lindy Hop, with Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman leading the way for Swing. Chick Webb led the resident Savoy Band with teenage Ella Fitzgerald as vocalist. Live bands helped the improvisation and musicality which are the life blood of Lindy Hop.

Some dancers stood out and took the dance to new heights. “Shorty George” Snowden (only 5ft tall) together with his partner “Big Bea” was an innovator, but soon had competition from Frankie Manning who invented the first aerial in 1935. Frankie became lead choreographer of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, the troupe of the Savoy, performing all over the world including for the British King and Queen in the 2^nd World War. Dean Collins took Lindy Hop to Hollywood and there is still the Hollywood style today.

Many stories exist as to the name of the dance - One evening in the Savoy ballroom in 1927, following Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic, a newspaper reporter asked “Shorty George” what the dancers were doing, on the bench where they were sitting was a newspaper article about Lindbergh’s flight. The title read “Lindy Hops the Atlantic”, George saw this and said “Lindy Hop” and the name stuck. Lindy was also a slang word for a young woman in the early 1900’s. “Jitterbug” began as a slight insult as someone who had wild , exaggerated rhythm. In the mid 1930’s, a bouncy six beat variant was named the “Jitterbug” by the band leader Cab Calloway when he introduced a tune in 1934 entitled “Jitterbug”.

During the war Lindy Hop was brought over to Europe by the American GI’s and helped to keep peoples’ spirits up. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Woody Herman and many more brought Big Band music to everyone which still lives on to this day.

Post-war, big bands became too expensive, dance floors became smaller and 3-5 players in Rock and Roll bands were popular. Jazz became more complex and meant to be listened to, Frankie Manning could not earn a living as a dancer and worked for the American Post Office for 30 years. Other dancers carried on but the memory of Lindy Hop faded.

The revival of Lindy Hop began in 3 countries in 1984 when Swedish troupe the Rhythm Hotshots, Warren Heyes in the UK (Jiving Lindy Hoppers) and Steven Mitchell and Erin Stenes, dancers from California separately started to seek out original Lindy Hoppers to show them how it was done. Frankie Manning and Norma Miller came out of retirement and toured all over the world teaching the Lindy Hop.

Lindy Hop has come back to life. The BBC’s ’Strictly Dance Fever’ and similar programmes have popularised the dance and Swing Music once again. Frankie Manning, born May 26 1914, still dances and teaches the Lindy Hop around the world!