(8pm-9pm) Level 1 - Beginner Lindy Hop Series
Dec 3, 2008 - Dec 17, 2008
20's Charleston In Your Lindy
This 3 week series class will teach you the basics of 20's style Charleston, will give you lots of fun variations to put into it, and will also show you how to get in and out of it from side by side dance position. Charleston is a wonderful dance that's a part of the Lindy Hop that will get you dancing to faster tempos with ease! This series is suitable from the absolute beginner with no dance experience to dancers with 4-6 months of Lindy Hop dance experience. No experience is necessary! No partner necessary! Just bring your enthusiasm! Pricing for this series class (Dec 3, 10, & 17th): $40 [History - from Wikipedia] The Charleston is a dance named for the city of Charleston, South Carolina. The rhythm was popularized in mainstream dance music in the United States of America by a 1923 tune called The Charleston by composer/pianist James P. Johnson which originated in the Broadway show Runnin' Wild and became one of the most popular hits of the decade. While it developed in African-American communities in the USA, the Charleston became a popular dance craze in the wider international community in the 1920s. Despite its black history, Charleston is most frequently associated with white flappers and the speakeasy. Here, these young women would dance alone or together as a way of mocking the 'drys,' or citizens who supported the Prohibition amendment, as Charleston was then considered quite immoral and provocative. Charleston was one of the dances from which Lindy Hop and Jazz Roots developed in the 1930s, though the breakaway is popularly considered an intermediary dance form. A slightly different form of Charleston became popular in the 1930s and 40s, and is associated with Lindy Hop. In this later Charleston form, the hot jazz timing of the 1920s Charleston was adapted to suit the swing jazz music of the 30s and 40s. This style of Charleston has many common names, though the most common are 'Lindy Charleston', 'Savoy Charleston', '30s or 40s Charleston' and 'Swing(ing) Charleston'. In both '20s Charleston' and 'Swinging Charleston' the basic step takes 8 counts and was danced either alone or with a partner.
|