Lindy Hop in Harlem: The Role of Social Dancing
During the 1920s, Harlem was filled with African
Americans who migrated from the rural south to the
industrial north in search of a better life. Instead, they
found that housing and jobs were scarce. Landlords
charged high rents to people who earned low wages,
and overcrowding was rampant. Racial discrimination
was a fact of life. Social dance played an important
role in Harlem life. For some, dance was a reprieve
from the harsh economic realities and the drudgery of
earning a living doing monotonous tasks. People often
held "rent parties" filled with music and dance, where
guests were charged an entry fee that was used to
pay the monthly rent.
The Savoy Ballroom defined the essence of dance in Harlem. It was a place where race
was irrelevant, "...whether you were black, green, yellow, or what. If you walked in the
Savoy, the only thing we wanted to know is can you dance?" It was a place of elegant
beauty, with a burnished maple dance floor, colored spotlights, and crystal cut
chandeliers. It was a place where round tables were packed with people, root-de-toot
root beer, and ginger ale sold for a nickel. The crescendo of the best big-band jazz in the
world drove dancers to their feet as the sounds of Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Duke
Ellington, Fess Williams, King Oliver, and Chick Webb filled the air. Saturday night dance
contests at the Savoy featured such Lindy Hop dance greats as Herbert "Whitey" White,
Leroy "Stretch" Jones, Frank "Musclehead Manning, and "Shorty" George Snowden.
The Lindy Hop, an authentic Afro-Euro-American Swing dance that drew on African and
European dance traditions, emerged as one of many popular dances during this time. It
was influenced by the Charleston, jazz and tap steps, ballet, and complex movements
from the Vienese Waltz. Dance partners separated in a breakaway move as they
improvised, adding their own tempos, signature moves, and individualized acrobatics to
the six- and eight-count step sequences. As the Lindy Hop grew in popularity, it evolved
into many forms, such as West Coast Swing, Rock'n'Roll, Boogie Woogie, the Jitterbug,
Jive, Bop, Shag, Balboa, and the Imperial. Lindy Hop dancers created new steps as the
music inspired them, much as jazz musicians improvise. Some of the Lindy Hop steps are
synchronized with the musical phrases, and other steps cross the rhythm of the music in
the same fashion as polyrhythms found in jazz.
The Lindy Hop, and social dance in general, formed bridges between different art forms.
Dancers practiced the Lindy Hop alongside bands booked at the Savoy Ballroom. Jazz
great Duke Ellington wrote a song as a tribute to Florence Mills, a dancer, jazz singer and
actress. Louis Armstrong composed a piece for dancer Shorty George, "King of the
Savoy," who is often given credit for giving the Lindy Hop its name. Countee Cullen wrote
about the joy of dance in his poem "She of the Dancing Feet Sings." Painter William H.
Johnson's work, Street Life, was inspired by the stylish people he saw at the Savoy
Ballroom. Jazz musicians and dancers are pictured in Palmer Hayden's
painting, Jeunesse. Margaret Brassler Kane's sculpture, Harlem Dancers, depicts
embracing dance partners. And so on.
Painter Aaron Douglas describes the Harlem Renaissance, highlighting the relationship
between art and culture. "...Our problem is to conceive, develop, establish an art era.
Not white art painting black...let's bare our arms and plunge them deep through
laughter, through pain, through sorrow, through hope, through disappointment, into the
very depths of the souls of our people and drag forth material crude, rough, neglected.
Then let's sing it, dance it, write it, paint it." Social dance both reflected and was a
reflection of the culture of the Harlem Renaissance. It was a way for people to celebrate,
to escape, and to express their identity.
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I
I
I
I
bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Credit:
From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used with
permission.
Author:
Langston Hughes