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...
This weekend in Munich for the Rock That Swing Festival, Juan and I taught a class of moves from the Harvest Moon Ball. As promised, here is the footage I showed at the beginning of class. It’s a compilation I put together of a bunch of the surviving footage, overlaid with ...
I just got pointed towards a snippet of footage of the late great Frank Manning, social dancing in the Savoy Ballroom in 1937! I have so much vintage footage in my collection (over 2,000 short clips on my laptop alone), that sometimes it seems impossible that I could ever stumbl...
My new enormous 1920s Charleston compilation, with more vintage footage of the Charleston than you can shake a stick at (as we would say in Australia). See if you can spot these dancers: Joan Crawford, Leon James, Josephine Baker, Al Minns, Frankie Manning, Ginger Rogers, Pepsi B...
Below is the entire text of the book “Modern Dancing”, written in 1914 by the famous husband-and-wife ballroom dancing couple, Irene and Vernon Castle. They are credited with invigorating the popularity of modern dancing. They were inventors of a number of dances, inc...
On 23rd August 1943, LIFE Magazine featured the Lindy Hop and declared that “a true national folk dance has been born in the USA”. It featured a short article and a 10 page photographic editorial (pages 95-103). The dancers were Leon James and Willa Mae Ricker (of Whi...
1939 New York World’s Fair Savoy Ballroom Exhibit Souvenir Program My boyfriend was in a vintage clothing store recently, and bought himself an antique souvenir tie clip from the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933 (aka The Century of Progress Exposition). It reminded me tha...
What a gorgeous phenakistoscope animation of dancers! From Wikipedia, via Morbid Anatomy. Click here to see more animations/images of the same phenakistoscope. Wikipedia gives the following information: CREATOR Muybridge, Eadweard, 1830-1904, artist. TITLE The zoopraxiscope* ...
Rusty Frank has written a short, but truly lovely biography of The Berry Brothers, for the American National Biography Online. The Killer Dillers might just be The Berry Brothers’ biggest fans, as you may have figured out. So what a nice excuse to post a few videos. Here&#...
