My Facebook friend Frida Häggström Gerdt just posted up an amazing photo of Juan and I, competing at the 2010 Stockholm Jazz Jam in the finals of the Lindy Hop battle. This photo alone is worth posting. It really captures how crazed we were in the contest – we were all exhausted and burning up our last ounce of energy like maniacs! There are three contests at the Jazz Jam – a solo jazz battle, a Lindy Hop battle, and a Jack & Jill. The prelims and finals for all three are on the same night, all within the space of a few hours, and Juan and I were lucky and foolish enough to compete in all three, and make the finals of all three. This final round, for the Lindy Hop battle, was the last of the six, so needless to say we were trashed by this stage. Juan and I were pushing so hard to be able to keep going, we came off one solo and roared at each other like lions! Adrenalin, delirium, Juan even looks like he’s asleep in this photo…
But anyway, browsing Frida’s album I discovered two more absolutely stunning photos from that contest, the first of Frida & Sakarias, and the second of Davis & Claudia, both also capturing the late-night fury of this particular battle:
Look at the expression on Davis’s face!! How great! Congratulations to Frida and Sakarias for winning the battle, it was definitely well-deserved! And did you know, Frida told me that’s the first time they’ve ever come in 1st place together, can you imagine? Huge congrats on that, hope to see more Frida & Zacke action at the European Swing Dance Championships next June.
On that topic, watch Andrew & Karen doing some wholehearted embracing of their own in the Camp Jitterbug 2010 couples final, a few weeks ago:
It’s easy to see why Andrew and Karen are the most popular couple in swing dancing. You guys rock, love your work! (Oh, and did you catch some of those new tricks? Hello, Snatch Backflip! And Laura’s backbend? Oh hell yeah…)
So, for anyone that missed the reference, the year was 1998 and khakis were, apparently, swinging…
Anyone who’s taken my jazz classes recently knows I’m on a huge Bob Fosse kick (it all started when I began looking for inspiration for my new Beatnik routines, my current pet project). Nah, not 1970s “Spirit Fingers” Fosse, but the way cooler 1950s Fosse. Here’s one of my favourite clips at the moment, I’ll be definitely drawing on this for my Beatnik number! It’s Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse dancing in Damn Yankees (1958):
Anyway, I stumbled across this newspaper clipping from 2000, what a treat! As a dancer, you can only dream that one day your poses and silhouettes could be as recognisable as Fosse’s…
I got asked three times recently, where the name of our team The Killer Dillers comes from.
The phrase “killer diller” is jazz slang, in common use in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. To be a “killer” or a “killer diller” meant you were red hot, back in the day. So if you’re a Killer Diller you got chops, you’re gangbusters, you’re really the cat’s meow. Dig it?
The phrase can be heard in lyrics sung by the likes of Cab Calloway, Slim & Slam, Fats Waller, The Cats & The Fiddle, and Benny Goodman even played a tune called Killer Diller in his historic concert in Carnegie Hall in 1938.
Killer Diller was also the name of a film made in 1948 that, amongst other things, featured famed Lindy Hop troupe The Congaroos (including the late and great Frankie Manning) performing a fast and wildly acrobatic number that has gone down in swing dance history as one of the greatest ever. Here is that scene:
Oh, and the Urban Dictionary defines a Killer Diller as “Something so cool there are no other words to describe it.” That’s fine with us.
As promised, I’m posting up all the video clips that I referenced during my Stompology 2010 classes. Once the class reviews and performances appear online, I’ll post those videos as well, so you can compare! So here we go…
Ballin’ The Jack, choreographed by Gene Kelly for a television special (with Donald O’Connor) in 1960:
And here are the numbers that inspired my Beatnik Routine! Firstly…
Steam Heat, from the film The Pajama Game (1957), with dancers Eddie Phillips, Carol Haney and Buzz Miller, choreographed by Bob Fosse:
Gwen Verdon singing Whatever Lola Wants, from Damn Yankees (1958), choreographed by Bob Fosse. Fun fact, Gwen Verdon was Bob Fosse’s wife!
Stompology 2010 is this weekend! I just arrived in Rochester, New York for the event, and I’m resting up a few days so I’ll have all my energy for the weekend. Stompology is an all-jazz weekend, and this year the instructors are myself, Juan Villafane, Bethany Powell and Mike Faltesek. In honour of the event, the four of us each choreographed a phrase for a line dance for the weekend: The Stompology Stompoff! It’s actually quite tricky, but I like it a lot. Here are the four parts:
The Killer Dillers performed live with the Nine Penny Big Band in Bologna Italy for the Swing Brother Swing Festival, May 2010. It was an epic show, with ALL LIVE MUSIC! Many thanks to the Nine Pennies for learning our arrangements, it was a real pleasure!
In case you don’t know, The Killer Dillers are:
Sharon Davis (that’s me!)
Juan Villafane (juanvillafane.com.ar)
Evita Arce (evitaarce.blogspot.com)
Nathan Bugh (nathanbugh.blogspot.com)
Jo Hoffberg (johoffberg.com)
Kevin St Laurent (kevinstlaurent.com)
Here is colour 16mm footage (no sound) from the 1939 production of The Hot Mikado, at the New York World’s Fair. The musical was an all-black adaptation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado, with jazzy tunes, big-name performers and famous dancers, including Bill Bojangles Robinson and the Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers:
Can you believe those costumes!?
If you want to find out more about the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and see more colour footage, I posted about it here.
Here’s that snippet of a black couple dancing in the 1944 film Go Down Death that I mentioned to some people recently. Juan stumbled across a compilation clip someone had thrown together on YouTube, and the first half of it was all vintage burlesque from Harlem, so he was showing it to me to see if I had seen it before (I had), but then this little gem popped up at the end, what a treasure! It’s a fairly rare thing that I find a vintage clip of swing dancing that I haven’t seen before, so it was a nice little thrill. Still haven’t figured out who the dancers are, their style looks like they’re from the West Coast. Also haven’t got my hands on the film to get the full clip with the original sound yet, working on that. It’s available on Amazon I believe. She’s great, love her style…
