Savoy Style Lindy Hop and African American Identity
Perhaps the most useful employment of the term 'Savoy-style Lindy Hop' lies in the association of the Savoy Ballroom (and dancers who were associated with it, particularly those of the Whitey's Lindy Hoppers) and ethnicity. Despite the differences noted above, there are marked tropes in African American and African dances which are present in the Lindy Hop of these dancers in this period. These may include:
- clear angles at the ankle - between leg and foot - and often at the wrist and/or elbow
- wide-legged stances for both women and men, particularly in the follower's swivel
- Frankie Manning's characteristically 'athletic' stance - like a runner spread out in motion, parallel to the ground - echoes African dance
- particular 'variations' or jazz steps associated with Savoy-style date back to the African communities from which African American slaves were taken (and are discussed in the History of slavery in the United States article), including the move "the itch" which then moved on to white communities and across to the west coast of America with dancers like Dean Collins.
These associations between African American Lindy Hoppers and a particular dance style are important as Lindy Hop developed in a close relationship with jazz, in particular swing. Both are African American vernacular art forms.
Read more about this topic: Savoy-style Lindy Hop
Famous quotes containing the words style, hop, african, american and/or identity:
“Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech.”
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)
“I have tried being surreal, but my frogs hop right back into their realistic ponds.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.”
—Policy statement, 1944, of the Youth League of the African National Congress. pt. 2, ch. 4, Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope (1988)
“I will put in my poems, that with you is heroism, upon land and sea—And
I will report all heroism from an American point of view.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“The modern world needs people with a complex identity who are intellectually autonomous and prepared to cope with uncertainty; who are able to tolerate ambiguity and not be driven by fear into a rigid, single-solution approach to problems, who are rational, foresightful and who look for facts; who can draw inferences and can control their behavior in the light of foreseen consequences, who are altruistic and enjoy doing for others, and who understand social forces and trends.”
—Robert Havighurst (20th century)