The Lindy Hop Returns to New York

The American dance phenomenon known as the Lindy Hop recent made its way back into the mainstream as part of a festival in New York designed to honor the dance and one if its innovator, Frankie Manning.
The Frankie Manning Centennial and World Lindy Hop Day was celebrated from May 22-26, with the last day of the festival representing World Lindy Hop Day.

The Lindy Hop is a dance based on the popular Charleston, and was named for Charles Lindbergh’s Atlantic crossing in 1927. The dance came of age in Harlem in the 1920s and ’30s, and originally evolved with the jazz music of that time.

Lindy was a combination of many dances during that time, as it was mainly based on jazz, tap, breakaway and Charleston. It is frequently described as a jazz dance and is a member of the swing dance family.

Each year, hundreds of Lindy Hop lovers from many countries ascend to New York for World Lindy Hop day, which is held on Manning’s birthday.

Born in 1914, Frankie Manning’s moved to Harlem as a child, where he first saw dancing at neighborhood rent parties and ballrooms.

By the early 1930s, Frankie was a regular at the legendary Savoy Ballroom. While part of the Savoy’s inner circle of elite dancers, Frankie introduced many innovations into the Lindy hop, including the air step and synchronized ensemble routines, according World Lindy Hop day organizers. His ideas, done to this day, revolutionized the Lindy, catapulting it from ballroom to stage and screen.

For more about World Lindy Hop day please visit http://frankie100.com/why-celebrate/world-lindy-hop-day/.