Frankie Manning's dancing skills made him famous twice (2016)
vox.com
vox.com
Can't wait to get back to Swing 46 someday!
:wave:
(Herrang is a small village (pop 400) in Sweden which becomes an international swing dancing festival / camp for 5 weeks each summer)
Frankie Manning has a good autobiography published - https://frankiemanning.com/book.php well worth reading for an idea of what his days looked like. He was at some historic events like battle of the bands with Count Basie and Duke Ellington.
Re. missing the dancing: I know it's not the same as the real thing, but have you tried joining some "local" zoom classes? I found it really fun to drop in to a random one across the world.
My scene seems to be dominated by teachers (the older participants) and social sciences/pedagogy/psychology people (the students): the local university is strong in those fields.
Dawn was a short woman whose talents spanned dance, music, songwriting, and anything Cabaret. Her favourite song was Count Basie's Splanky.
I had arrived at Herräng during setup week, and got to know some of the crew who run the show, plus a few secrets---password for free Internet, less-frequented shower areas, and to avoid laundry duty at all costs.
Between the DJ booth and Dawn were countless dancers sitting, mostly cross-legged, eating up her every single word.
So on that afternoon while Dawn was holding the crowd's attention, I was up in the DJ booth, gazing over everyone, a clear view of Dawn at the other end. When she asked, "Who wants to do Splanky with me?" nobody budged. It took me a half-second later to shout, "I do!" I launched myself off the platform, leap-frogged over people's heads, and managed to score a dance with Dawn Hampton to her favourite song.
See when Dawn danced with you, she danced _with_ you. She held your gaze, recognized you as a person, played with you, back-led with you, showed you how to embody the music with your movements. She adapted to your level and made you look like a pro. She and Frankie Manning were Lindy Hop.
This snapshot video to me is nicely capturing the spirit of "what's lindy hop?"
I've lurked for ages, never seen partner dance on HN
"What they often found was discriminatory high rents. Rent was exorbitant for black New Yorkers in the 1920s: A study by the New York Urban League in 1927 found that rent for black New Yorkers had doubled since 1919 while increasing only 10 percent for white residents. Black residents had to pay far more than white residents for virtually identical apartments."
New York passed rent control in April 1920, as a result of skyrocketing rents due to a housing shortage caused by WW 1. It had provisions for control for renters with tenure.
Meanwhile, this period saw an enormous influx of black people to specifically Harlem.
Additionally, there was significant inflation beginning on 1920 on the heels of monetary policy used to address the War (resulting, ultimately in the Depression of 1920-21).
So, supply is low, demand is high, including inflationary pressures. The legislatures pass laws to curtail rents on existing tenants, leaving only new tenants to suffer the burdens of rent increases.
So, while it may be easy to say "black people paid higher rent, must be discrimination" - and some of that might be true - it is probably more fair to say that a poorly-considered rent-control scheme coupled with the results of monetary policy during WW1 and an accident of demographic change, resulted in a coincidence.
New renters paid significantly more rent that tenured renters. New renters happened to be black, because that demographic was shifting.
It is notable that the principal region - Harlem - had been a traditionally Jewish area, and whatever discrimination looks like today, it's not like Jewish New Yorkers were getting a free pass on discrimination in the 1920s. It is much more likely that delta in demographics was largely coincidental.
Or should there be dance watchers at every venue, and present you with a bill at the end of the evening?
Should there be an app for that? Could the Apple watch detect if you do a Lindy Hop, and advise an automatic donation to BLM?
The article gives recognition to someone whose contributions to arts and culture may not be known by many, and explains why they went underappreciated.