26 August 2012

Week 35: 'Wooooooooooahh!'

Wonder spawned in: 1930s and 2000s
Wondered into being by: Skye, Naomi, Ginger, Fred, Nicholas Brothers, and Finland
Wonderspan: Less than 10 minutes. 
To experience this wonder at its best: Make sure you can hear the sound and click 'full screen'.

In 1920s and 1930s New York, an African American family struggling to pay the bills would organise a party for their neighbourhood.  Everyone from the street would drop a small entrance fee into a pot to help with the rent.  They would crowd into the apartment, enjoy a big meal and dance for the rest of the night.  In the morning the world outside still regarded African Americans as subhuman – nothing on that level had changed – but for one night the community created its own freedom.

Their dance developed into the lindy hop, an exuberant, earthy partnered dance that Europeans like me are learning today to the same Harlem jazz.  London’s smart-shirted office workers pitch up at the dance class, at first stiff-limbed and clumsy.  Those who get that this is a dance about freedom rather than getting the steps right become more fluid and creative, progressively released from the invisible straitjacket that sitting in front of a screen all day has put their bodies into.  Once the social dancing kicks in after the class the room becomes a pulsing mass of bodies improvising to the music.  In a small way the dance returns us to what matters most: those joys and passions that are real.

Here are some of the best lindy hoppers in the world, along with some of the old-timers who still inspire them.  The holy grail of lindy hop - well, maybe of everything - is to experience, with another, something effortlessly joyful. Just pick any one at random for your Monday morning way of loving...
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxPgplMujzQ  Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire dance themselves happy in one of those films where the dancing is so good and the dialogue is so bad that you're just waiting for everyone to stop talking and start dancing again.
If there are any lindy hoppers out there who think I've missed a better clip, leave a comment and share the love.
Extra…

Before lindy hop swept across Europe in the 1980s and 1990s, we did it like this:
or sometimes even like this:
(sorry, Finland)

____________________
www.waysofloving.com

1 comment:

Please leave a message here. Like the blog? Let your friends know.