East Coast Swing (ECS) is a form of social partner dance. It belongs to the group of swing dances. It is danced under fast swing music, including lindy hop, rock and roll and boogie-woogie.
Jazz dance is a performance dance and style that arose in the United States in the mid 20th century. Jazz dance may allude to vernacular jazz, Broadway or dramatic jazz. The two types expand on African American vernacular styles of dance that arose with jazz music. Vernacular jazz dance incorporates ragtime moves, Charleston, Lindy hop and mambo. Popular vernacular jazz dance performers include The Whitman Sisters, Florence Mills, Ethel Waters, Al Minns and Leon James, Frankie Manning, Norma Miller, Dawn Hampton, and Katherine Dunham. Dramatic jazz dance performed on the show stage was promoted by Jack Cole, Bob Fosse, Eugene Louis Faccuito, and Gus Giordano.
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely performed in musical theater. Rhythm tap focuses on musicality, and practitioners consider themselves to be a part of the jazz tradition.
The Charleston is a dance named after the harbor city of Charleston, South Carolina. The rhythm was popularized in mainstream dance music in the United States by a 1923 tune called "The Charleston" by composer/pianist James P. Johnson, which originated in the Broadway show Runnin' Wild and became one of the most popular hits of the decade. Runnin' Wild ran from 28 October 1923, through 28 June 1924. The peak year for the Charleston as a dance by the public was mid-1926 to 1927.
An Aerial is a dance move in Lindy Hop or Boogie Woogie where one's feet leave the floor. As opposed to a lift, aerial is a step where a partner needs to be thrown into the air and then landed in time with the music. Each aerial consists of a preparation ('prep'), jump or trick itself and the landing.
Swing dance is a group of social dances that developed with the swing style of jazz music in the 1920s–1940s, with the origins of each dance predating the popular "swing era". Hundreds of styles of swing dancing were developed; those that have survived beyond that era include Lindy Hop, Balboa, Collegiate Shag, and Charleston. Today, the best-known of these dances is the Lindy Hop, which originated in Harlem in the early 1930s. While the majority of swing dances began in African-American communities as vernacular African-American dances, some influenced swing-era dances, like Balboa, developed outside of these communities.
Partner dances are dances whose basic choreography involves coordinated dancing of two partners, as opposed to individuals dancing alone or individually in a non-coordinated manner, and as opposed to groups of people dancing simultaneously in a coordinated manner.
The Big Apple is both a partner dance and a circle dance that originated in the Afro-American community of the United States in the beginning of the 20th century.
Frank Manning was an American dancer, instructor, and choreographer. Manning is considered one of the founders of Lindy Hop, an energetic form of the jazz dance style known as swing.
The Hot Shots is a collective name for two closely related Swedish dance companies based in Stockholm, Sweden: The Rhythm Hot Shots and the Harlem Hot Shots. The Hot Shots specialize in faithful reproductions of African-American dance scenes in American films from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Dances that they perform include Lindy Hop, Tap dance, Cakewalk, Charleston, and Black Bottom. The members of the Hot Shots are also respected dance instructors and accomplished social dancers. The goals of The Rhythm Hot Shots and the Harlem Hot Shots are the same.
The Jitterbug Stroll is a swing line dance choreographed in 1992 by Ryan Francois, a Lindy Hop dancer and teacher. It is danced to swing music with 12 bar blues structure such as Woody Herman's "Woodchopper's Ball" or Count Basie's "One O'Clock Jump".
Dean Collins was an American dancer, instructor, choreographer, and innovator of swing dance. He is often credited with bringing the Lindy Hop from New York to southern California. Collins worked in over thirty films and performed live and on television.
The Tranky Doo is a jazz dance choreography.
Al Minns, was a prominent American Lindy Hop and jazz dancer. Most famous for his film and stage performances in the 1930s and 1940s with the Harlem-based Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, Minns worked throughout his life to promote the dances that he and his cohorts helped to pioneer at New York's Savoy Ballroom. In 1938, Al Minns and Sandra Gibson won the Harvest Moon Ball.
The history of Lindy Hop begins in the African American communities of Harlem, New York during the late 1920s in conjunction with swing jazz. Lindy Hop is closely related to earlier African American vernacular dances but quickly gained its own fame through dancers in films, performances, competitions, and professional dance troupes. It became especially popular in the 1930s with the upsurge of aerials. The popularity of Lindy Hop declined after World War II, and it converted to other forms of dancing, but it never disappeared during the decades between the 1940s and the 1980s until European and American dancers revived it starting from the beginning of the 1980s.
Norma Adele Miller was an American Lindy hop dancer, choreographer, actress, author, and comedian known as the "Queen of Swing".
Herräng Dance Camp is the largest annual dance camp that focuses on Lindy Hop, boogie woogie, Tap dance, jazz dance, and balboa. It is held for 5 weeks annually from late June through July in Herräng, Sweden and focuses both on instruction and dancing.
In music, the term swing has two main uses. Colloquially, it is used to describe the propulsive quality or "feel" of a rhythm, especially when the music prompts a visceral response such as foot-tapping or head-nodding. This sense can also be called "groove". It is also known as shuffle.
Leonard Reed was an American tap dancer, co-creator with his partner, Willie Bryant, of the famous Shim Sham Shimmy (Goofus) tap dance routine.
The Lindy Hop is an American dance which was born in the African-American communities of Harlem, New York City, in 1928 and has evolved since then. It was very popular during the swing era of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Lindy is a fusion of many dances that preceded it or were popular during its development but is mainly based on jazz, tap, breakaway, and Charleston. It is frequently described as a jazz dance and is a member of the swing dance family.
