Dancing With Carri Fox
You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart!
Swing Started In The 1920's
The
term "swing dance" is commonly used to refer either to a
group of dances developing in response to swing music in
the 1920s, 30s and 40s, or to lindy hop, a popular
partner dance today. While the majority of swing dances
began in African American communities as vernacular
African American dances, there were a number of forms
which developed within Anglo-American or other ethnic
group communities. Balboa is one of the most commonly
cited examples.
Origins Were In Dixieland Jazz
Though they technically preceded the rise of swing music, and are commonly associated with Dixieland jazz which developed in New Orleans in the south of the United States, dances such as the black bottom (dance), charleston (dance) and tap dance are still considered members of the swing dance family. These sorts of dances travelled north with jazz to cities like New York, Kansas City, and Chicago in the Great Migration (African American) of the 1920s, where rural blacks travelled north to escape persecution, Jim Crow laws, lynching and unemployment in the South during the Great Depression.
Dress The Part...
Swinging jazz music features the syncopated timing
associated with African American and West African
music
and dance - a combination of crotchets and quavers which
many swing dancers interpret as 'triple steps' and
'steps' - yet also introduces changes in the way these
rhythms were played - a distinct delay or 'relaxed'
approach to timing. Swinging jazz developed from
Dixieland jazz, and travelled north with black dancers
during the Great Migration.
Today there are swing dance scenes in many developed
Western and Asian countries throughout the world, and
though each city and country varies in their preferences
for particular dances, lindy hop is often the most
popular. It is important to note, though, that each
local swing dance community has a distinct local culture
and defines "swing dance" and "appropriate" dance music
in different ways.
Lindy
Lindy yukked it up with ReichsmarshallHerman Goering in Berlin, 1938.
Goering decorated Lindbergh at a state dinner with the Verdienstkreuz
der Deutscher Alder(Service Cross Of The German Eagle), one of the
highest Nazi civilian medals, by order of Adolph Hitler. This event
signaled the beginning of the end of Lindbergh's huge international
popularity.
Lindbergh (at Goering's invitation) visited Nazi Germany four times
since 1936. He openly admired the discipline, intellect, organization,
and strength of the Nazis, and their views on the traditional role of
women. Lindbergh despised the degeneracy of swing era America; he had
nothing good to say about "African Jazz", or even of dancing. In a
Reader's Digestarticle, he warned against "the infiltration of inferior
blood" into the American racial makeup. He criticized the American ideal
of "universal equality." Hitler gave his architect Albert Speer carte
blanch to build a permanent residence for the Lindbergh family in
Berlin. (Decades later, Speer laughed,"The American must have been very
naive!")
Friends and admirers quickly began to desert Lindy when he advised
Europe of the futility of resisting Hitler's superior military power.
The Russian government, having previously welcomed him as a hero, was
insulted by his public devaluation of their air force. They angrily
announced that Lindy would be arrested if he ever again set foot on
Russian soil. Going against President Roosevelt, Lindy urged America to
shun aid to Europe. He suggested that America ally with the stronger
power! He was "convinced that Adolph Hitler... held the future of Europe
in his hands, and maybe of civilization, too." The final straw for
Americans was Lindy's 1941 speech in Des Moines, accusing Jewish media
ownership and Jewish influence in government of pushing America towards
war.
Cries of "Anti-Semitism!" and a tidal wave of rebuke immediately
followed. The Lafayette Restaurant in NYC removed their large "Lindbergh
Flag" from its wall. TWA's "Lindbergh Line" of commercial aircraft
(which Lindy helped create) had his name painted out on all the planes.
Little Falls, Minnesota (his birthplace) took down its proud "Home Of
Charles Lindbergh" billboard. Pamphlets and articles appeared: "Is
Lindbergh a Nazi?" and "Lindbergh And The Jews." Amidst the vitriolic
anti-Lindbergh fervor from virtually every previous supporter, Lindbergh
resigned his Air Force commission. Not much named in honor of Lindy
remained. Hello JITTERBUG.
Even one of Whitey's Savoy Lindy Hop troupes was named Jitterin'
Jitterbugs. However, a small group of Savoy performers clung tenaciously
to the name LINDY HOP. It was their creation, their identity, and their
life. After all, it was named for Lindy the hero, not Lindy the racist.
They privately applied JITTERBUG as an epithet for any "inferior,"
mass-consumption, "white" distortion of their baby, the LINDY HOP. '90s
Lindy Hop revivalist circles often echo this perspective: WE do Lindy
Hop, the superior 8-count dance, YOU do Jitterbug, the inferior 6-count
dance. (Interestingly, the black Lindy Hoppers of the '30s weren't
referring to # of counts! They would most likely call these proud '90s
white Lindy fanatics, even the self-styled "good dancers,"
......JITTERBUGS!)
Lindbergh, after a lot of doing, was allowed by Roosevelt to serve in
WWII in the Pacific against the Japanese. He flew with exceptional
bravery, making many valuable contributions to the American war effort.
Following the Allied Victory, Lindbergh visited occupied Germany. He
discovered how he had been lied to, and used as a propaganda dupe by the
German high command. He saw the death camps, the slave labor
incinerators, the technical specs and launching platforms for
intercontinental rockets targeting New York City. Temporarily recanting
his unpopular pre-war views, he went into seclusion, working for the
U.S. government on defense projects and the space program.
Even later, he became quite anti-technology. He enthusiastically
participated in ecological and humanist causes: endangered tribal
minorities, whales, eagles, rainforests. Lindbergh flew to the jungles
of Africa, South America, Philippines, etc. to work personally on these
projects.
However, in his introductory chapter to the 1970-published "Wartime
Journals," Lindbergh asserted that he still held the same pre-war
beliefs, with no word of criticism for the Nazi government. He insisted
that the war was wrong, and that the wrong government had been fought:
Communist Russia was the real enemy. He even denied that the cause of
the Allies had triumphed.
Lindbergh continued his work on humanist projects. He never learned to
dance. The bold, gifted, outspoken pioneer died of cancer in Maui in
1974, facing crashing sea, vast sky, and brilliant sun.
LINDBERGH, Leonard Mosley (Doubleday, 1976)
CHARLES A. LINDBERGH: A BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHY, Perry Luckett (Greenwood
Press, 1986)
Remember???
