The Lindy Hop is a partner dance created by African American dancers in Harlem in the late 1920s, mixing the Charleston, tap and breakaway with the swing music of the big bands. Its signature move, the swing out, sends partners away and back in a circular flow.
At the Savoy Ballroom (1926–1958), a block-long dance hall where Black and white dancers mixed, bands like Chick Webb’s played for dancers who invented aerials and new steps every night. Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, with Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, took the dance to Hollywood in ‘Hellzapoppin’’ (1941). The dance faded in the 1950s but was revived in the 1980s when Swedish and American dancers found Frankie Manning and asked him to teach. Today swing dance communities in hundreds of cities hold weekly socials, and events like Lindy Focus and the International Lindy Hop Championships gather dancers from around the world.
