These 4-week lesson series are held on WEDNESDAYS March 2 – 23, 2016.
Even better, the pricing will include admission to Swingin’ Wednesdays at NYOH’s and include the basic swing lesson from 7:30-8:00pm! This means you will be able to practice your dance moves with expert and beginner swing dancers all night!
You must attend the first class to join the entire series.
Balboa Basics Lesson Series: 6:30 – 7:20 PM
Balboa is the vintage swing dance of the 1940’s, and now is your chance to learn it from scratch. Stanley Steers and Lisa Macharoni will start with the fundamentals and teach you everything you need to know to start doing this dancer’s dance! No experience necessary and no partner necessary!
It’s our first Live Band Night of 2016! Jessy Carolina & The Hot Mess is a 6-piece, traditional jazz band from New York City. They were featured in the Simpson’s 20th Anniversary Special, and most recently in Bioshock Infinite. Their repertoire includes Django Reinhardt, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, and much more – definitely not a night to miss!
Haven’t danced before? No Problem! There’s a beginner lesson that will get you started to dance the rest of the night. No partner necessary!
7:30 – 8:00pm: Beginner Swing Dance Lesson
8:00 – 11:00pm: Dancing to live band Jessy Carolina & the Hot Mess Band
Pricing: $8 cash or check only
Location: Nyoh’s Buckeye Bar (2871 Olentangy River Rd Columbus, OH 43202)
Now up on the blog: The History of the Shim Sham, and a brief biography of the man who created the version we dance every week at Nyoh's - Frankie Manning himself!
from SwingColumbus http://ift.tt/20iZmPS
If you’ve been to a Swingin’ Wednesday you’ve seen the Shim Sham. Every week, without fail, one of our DJs for the evening will play one of several iconic songs and dancers will flock to the floor to participate in the line dance anthem of the swing community – the Shim Sham. Here’s a group of swing dancers in Germany doing the Shim Sham at Rock That Swing Festival (RTSF) 2015:
So swing dancers all over the world know it, but where did it start?
The Shim Sham began in the 1920s as a tap dance, and by the 1930s it was starting to catch on – even some dancers at the Savoy Ballroom (more on that location in a future post!) would jump up and dance the Shim Sham in the corner while others danced on. The version of the Shim Sham danced today, though, we owe to Frankie Manning. Here’s a video of Frankie himself hamming up the Shim Sham with Chazz Young, whom you’ll recognize from the previous video:
But who IS Frankie Manning? Only the most celebrated Lindy Hopper in history. Frankie danced at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem in the 1930s, where he and his partner Frieda Washington danced the first aerial during a swing dance competition in 1935. Frankie was also a member of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, a group of professional, performing Savoy Ballroom dancers, whom you might actually have seen in this video, which tends to pop up from time to time on social media:
(Please remember that aerials, tricks, and dips are for competitions and performances, not the social dance floor!)
Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers disbanded at the onset of WWII when Frankie and many of the other male dancers joined the military. When he was released from the Army in 1946, Frankie continued to dance and perform until entertainers such as himself were pushed out with the arrival of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s.
In 1989, though, swing dancing was revived and with it, Frankie’s career as an instructor and performer. During this time Frankie choreographed all over the world for dance companies, movies, and even won a Tony Award for his choreography on Broadway – it’s no wonder that it was during this era that he brought us the version of the Shim Sham we know and love.
Frankie left us in 2009, but his legacy lives on in many, many ways, one of which is a group of people smiling and dancing out his choreography every Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, USA. If you’d like to be a part of this awesome dance each week, you’re always welcome to jump on the dance floor and follow along! If you’d like a solid lesson on the Shim Sham – check out this YouTube playlist where professional lindy hoppers Patrick and Natasha break the Shim Sham down into 7 manageable steps that you can pause, repeat, and go over at your own speed!
