Tuesday Dance Trivia: Malcolm X quote
by Alain Wong
Last week’s answer
Name the jazz standard that is also the name of a dance. Bonus: name the creators of this dance. Super bonus: name the team that performed to this jazz tune at the American Lindy Hop Championships.
ANSWER: The jazz standard is Carioca. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers performed a choreographed dance to the song in the movie Flying Down to Rio (1933), which was the first time the two were paired together for a movie. The Carioca was essentially a stylized ballroom version of the Samba, mixed with Maxixe, Foxtrot, Rumba and Tap. There has been debate as to whether this was a new dance at all, but following the success of the movie, people wanted to learn it, and so dance instructors started teaching “The Carioca”. The distinctive feature of the dance, as seen in the clip, is the partners’ touching of foreheads.
Connexion Crew performed a team choreography to Artie Shaw’s recording of Carioca
at ALHC 2007. There were 17 couples in that choreography - I think it’s probably the modern day record, surpassing both Mad Dog and this past year’s Team Canada in sheer numbers!
Thank you Martynas, Sam, Freddie, David and Srikanth for commenting. Charleston, Truckin’ and Ballin’ the Jack are all dances that are also the names of songs. Srikanth, thank you for your thorough list of guesses - all excellent ones!
I myself did not know that Ballin’ the Jack was a dance, so for those of you out there who likewise had never heard of the dance, watch a clip of Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, and Polly Bergen singing and dancing in the movie That’s My Boy (1951). Here’s how Peter Loggins learned Ballin’ the Jack: “Ladies and Gents we’d like to do just one or two more steps for you. You step back, ball the jack, shimmy shimmy , chicken scratch, fall off the log, and turn around, do a little break and then you Truck on down…” (you can find the thread on DanceHistory.org, including a clip of Hal Takier showing the Ray Rand Swingers’ version of Ballin’ the Jack)
This Week’s Tuesday Dance Trivia Question: Quote from Malcolm X
Quote from civil rights leader Malcolm X, “All the other dancers would form a big ‘U’ with the band at the open end. The girls (…) would slip over to the sidelines and change from high heels into low white
sneakers” (from The Autobiography of Malcolm X). What is Malcolm “X” Little referring to?
Know the answer? Let everyone know and comment.
I had no idea the Carioca was a real dance. I first saw a rendition of it in the French comedy “La Cité de la Peur”. The scene features two men trying to stall the show by performing this improvised piece. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQqKNU1OHgI&feature=related
I highly recommend the movie to any francophones out there.
The first version i did learn was in fact the Ray Rand Dancers steps (Hal and Venna) and how they performed it during the 1930’s.
The Original version of Ballin’ the Jack goes back to 1914…and that’s how I always teach & perform it.
Thanks, Peter
Jam circle?
[...] Last week’s answer Quote from civil rights leader Malcolm X, “All the other dancers would form a big ‘U’ with the band at the open end. The girls (…) would slip over to the sidelines and change from high heels into low white sneakers” (from The Autobiography of Malcolm X). What is Malcolm “X” Little referring to? ANSWER: Malcolm X is referring to a typical competition among Lindy Hoppers, in what we refer to as jam-style format today. The omitted text reads “The girls who intended to compete would slip over to the sidelines and change from high heels into low white sneakers. In competition they could never survive in heels”. [...]