The black dancers are Whitey's Lindy Hoppers from the Savoy Ballroom, Harlem. Their routines are from 1941 and before. Frankie Manning is doing most of the acrobatic routines and died 6 years ago at the age of 94. Many of us were fortunate to see him and take lessons from him during the last years of his life. Yes, he could still dance the Lindy Hop in his nineties!
I think this is Norma Miller. I'm watching a special on Norma Miller - "Queen of Swing" on Alabama Public Broadcasting about her life right now. Of course it includes Whitey's Lindy Hoppers and Frankie Manning and the gang.
John Fisher Thanks for sharing the information. This is a priceless piece of history; and I'm green with envy that you got to take lessons from Frankie Manning! :-)
Lol! Those words reminded me of when i did waltzing back when i was little. I use to be able to do that really well, but the partner i always got partnered up with someone who sucked and put little effort into it.
There are groups all over who dance like this. I have several friends who have been part of lindy dancing for decades, especially since the swing revival of the late 90s.
For those people who think that our grandparents couldn't do anything other than the waltz should look at this and realize what real high energy dancing was really like !
My boyfriend and I decided we were going to master the swing, boogie-woogie, lindy hop and such and we did and, trust me, it is much more difficult to flip a man over your back than a woman, but it is utterly doable. It took us some six months and we are quite decent.
One time me and an ex tried to do the end dance from dirty dancing. I weighed around 125 lbs 130 or so. He was a former football player and muscular. He couldnt do the part where he lifts her and balances her horizontally. It takes a TON of strength and energy to actually dance. Kids now have no idea. These cats in this clip could outdance anyone now. That stuff looked HARD!!! Wow
I've just been reading about people who wished they could dance like this and just to lazy to get off their butts and do some thing about it , Great to see you are doing it and you learned it well by the looks of it WELL DONE
This is just fabulous! I would love to see today's youth pull this off. Sure there are some out there that can do that hip-hop spin on the back of their neck thing, but to do this with class and a whole room full of people would be a first for this generation. it can be downright dangerous too, I once pulled my left shoulder swing dancing so so bad, it nearly tore up my rotator cuff, and I had to wear a sling for a few weeks. Then I was dancing to "In the Mood" by the Navy band down in Norfolk, VA, when my date flung out too far, and she fell back and broke her wrist! Her sister who was with us said, OK buddy, you broke her, now you have to keep her, you break it you buy it! So I did, and we were married about 8 months later!
+TheEldoradoKid Well you know swing dancing isn't exactly "in" like it was back in the forties and fifties, but people still do it. In the Twin Cities in Minneapolis there's this place called The Caves for East Coast Swing, a group of friends and I have been making plans to start going there every other week, and they teach ECS lessons for free for an hour, and after that they play an hour of music for people to dance to. Another friend and I do ballroom dance and WCS together, and our dance instructors said that there's a ton of young people there and they get pretty crazy with the dancing. Plus at my school they've started playing some Glenn Miller in the halls during passing period, and I know several people who are pretty interested in Swing, so thank god it's not completely dead. I like to think that because it'll be the 20's again in four years people will start to bring back Jazz and West Coast Swing.
look at the comment of legolasdbk four above you they wanted to do it like the old days so they have been having lessons any body can dance but it is having the will to go out and find some body to teach you, you are not going to find a teacher in dance sitting in an arm chair or playing the computer all day.
That was insane, those black dancers at the start were the best dancers I've ever seen. It looked less like dancing and more like a fight on fast-forward, it was violent, hard core, unreal. Oh My Lord...
Now people just jiggle their bits and call it dancing. Its not that hard to twerk a butt that weighs 20 lbs alone. Geez. I wish i would have lived back then instead. It just seemed more interesting
The fuck. Those black dancers as you call them. Created these moves and that was dancing. Now the white girls and blacks juggle the assess twerk and wanna be like the black girls. ...no you welcome I'll wait
Benny Goodman's orchestra with Gene Krupa on drums. These 2 had the rare privelege of this fabulous band to dance to, and in those times people went to huge Dance Halls to dance. It was a very special night !
These people enjoyed from the start of the song and must have wished it never ended….this is Jazz and music unmatched….. every instrument played with immense skill, talent and art…
The folks in these dance clips are fit from having to work hard at life, house work, yard work, kitchen work. Everything required a human effort. The result was that most of the "regular" folks were fit to begin with. Therefore the next step is to learn how to move yourself to the music. Then figure out how to do it with a partner who has also learned his part. Amazing. It is a real pleasure to listen to this and to watch them dance to the beat.!!! Wow.....
Just have to share this. When I was in my teens dancing I would lose four pounds dancing what we called jitter bug. Also in those days we danced with many partners. Couldn't have imagined a more boring evening than dancing with only one person the entire night
I thought they had strings attached to their clothing, oh my gosh foot works body movements and all wow , I'm a Filipina now I know where my old folks got this ideas or dancing mania. I fell in love with these music and always open to any genre.
Back when couples actually danced together; you couldn't do these dances by yourself. Today, everyone just twerks and flosses by themselves and have no idea what they're missing.
thank you so much for this awesome video.when I first introduced my old man to you tube his first request was sing,sing,sing. He would have loved this video..Still love ya and miss ya pop's.
I thought about my parents dancing like this during WWII. My mother told me that my father and she could cut a rug back then. I wish that they could be here today to watch this. I would have to say that they would take a stroll down memory lane.
I love this video. These people were in Olympic shape; their dancing is awesome. They make the dancers on Dancing with the Stars look like they're dancing in slow motion. So many remarkable things about the video and music. The women's costumes are way before their time. I can't imagine anyone showing that much leg in 1937. It was unheard of back then. This was made when my dad was 8 and my mom was about 5 or 6. You never saw a woman's legs like this even into the 50's. There's 2 couples with maids. The second one is with the guy in overalls and he is just so rough with her; it looks like he could pull her arms right out of their sockets. But then she gets revenge. Ha ha. The music is so exciting. The beat is just so fabulous. Benny Goodman must have been very popular. This is one of those songs that just stays in your head. It does have a lot of history in it including Judy Garland dancing as a child. It's an awesome compilation of videos with great music. Makes me want to see the movie Hellzapoppin and hear more of Benny Goodman and his orchestra. Awesome. One of my all time favorite videos.
That is the ABSOLUTE truth, thanks for your post, I appreciate it. The internet is not a bad thing, but these smart phones are ridiculous, even though I know how to use them inside out. They cause vehicle accidents all the time, mainly by the younger generation who feel that they MUST be texting all the time. People my age ARE strictly dedicated to driving while on the roads.
My nan and pop used to dance to this tune every year at their wedding anniversary….they did it for 65 years..now its our turn to keep up with their legacy. Miss them so much.
Imagine trying to do The Swing, The Jitterbug, The Lindy Hop etc to today's music. It would literally make you ill. The big bands of yesteryear were the thing and that was music. I grew up with this music, along with other genres of music and the music of yesteryear cannot be matched. I was a child of the 60's,a teenage boy of the 70's, and just got longer in the tooth by the 80's and so forth. I love all the yesteryear music and the bitter sweet memories it brings to me. Am a bit buggered up by Osteoarthritis, but I can still get down on it. I remember learning how to do the Lindy Hop at school and still can burn it up on the dance floor. You're never too old to dance, you get old because you stop dancing. 💃🕺💃🕺💯💯🎼🎵🎶🎼🎵🎶
Tereas Downes Oh, geeze, no comparison!! Can't believe you even gave us a choice!! Justin Bieber should slink out of the room with Swing dancers and musicians being there!!
Damn!!!!!! Is so freaking awesome, funny, and dynamic!!!! I just took 2 lessons of this and I realized how much I love not just jazz, cinema and so on from 20's but also DANCING! So happy to see also pure Judo also here haha since I practise it for my entire life!!! 0:31 Ura Nage 0:39 Tomoe Nage 1:56 Ippon Seoi Nage 2:36 Absolutelly perfect Uki Goshi, better than average practisers hahaha
Great video.I saw that first couple in another old dance video before.I never had that level of energy when I was 16.LOL.I wonder why WW2 sailors always seemed good at jitterbugging.
This was the music of my parents and thankfully I grew up listening to the music of the big band era, my mother could jitterbug on roller skates. Geez. I wish she had some pictures or video of this. Micheline Kribs,Rolla,MO
I cannot stop watching this video. Frankie Manning (the guy in the white jacket in the second couple) was phenomenal. I love that little girl's face when she's dancing with the sailor. I also enjoyed that woman who flipped over her partner at the end(ha-ha, revenge is so sweet!). I dream of accidentally walking into a building and realizing that it was secretly a tardis (for all of you whovians out there) and it transported me back in time to a swing dancehall. Please don't tell me that I'm the only one who thinks about this multiple times a day?! What happened to these days?
Thanks for sharing. This was real music and real dancing. You got to move to the rhythm and not just tap your foot in place. throwing girl in the air, jumping is all part of the dance this music inspired. I still try to move like this at 72.
To all those who say, "What has society came to?" It is not dance's fault, its music's fault. The beat of jazz inspires swing dancing, and the beat of today's music, well that inspires the conduct of today... You couldn't even call it dancing, you don't even move your feet! Why does society like music with the booming bass? I don't know, but that is what we are stuck with in the 21st Century, and all I have to say is the United States culture is shooting itself in the foot by forgetting how to dance. It creates a vicious cycle of devolution, and it pains me to be a part of it, that's why I am here on this video. I want to learn to swing, and revive this lost culture! Plus it looks fun!
+Lynn Bates Actually In Yakima, WA I know a lot of people that are really dedicated to Swing dancing and can in fact do most if not all these moves haha.
