My mum and I just decided to have a holiday in Paris, a few weeks from now! Woopee! After the Provence Swing Festival in a few weeks time, I’m going to abandon Juan and flit off to gay Paree to meet ma mere and trip the light fantastic for a week, before heading on to Genoa, Italy for the Be-Lindy Camp. Hoorah! My mum lives in Dubai (not Australia – yes, we’re a very international family), so I rarely get to see her, it’s a real treat!
Damn, I just realized how lame I am. I didn’t blog about the International Lindy Hop Championships at all!! Well, actually I did post up some photos over at SwingFashionista.com, but that’s not what I’m talking about…
I’m talking about The Killer Dillers winning 1st place in the team division!
Oh and PS:
1st place Charleston: Juan Villafane (Killer Diller)
2nd place Charleston: Nathan Bugh (Killer Diller)
3rd place Charleston: Jo Hoffberg (Killer Diller)
Filling out the rest of the Charleston finals: Evita Arce, Kevin St Laurent & myself (ie: all the rest of the Killer Dillers)
1st place Cabaret: Evita Arce (Killer Diller) & Mike Jagger (honorary Killer Diller)
3rd place Cabaret: Kevin St Laurent, Juan Villafane & Nathan Bugh (uh yeah, The Killer Dillers)
All the girls dancing together in the last video I posted, reminded me of this brilliant photo.
Seems to be the theme of the moment – in the latest Killer Diller routine, I have to swing the lovely Jo Hoffberg out. This would be great if I could lead a swingout like Kevin St Laurent, but… well, I don’t even need to finish that sentence!
Anyway, although I’m in love with following and have no ambitions to be a Lindy lead, if I have to practice my swingout on someone, it may as well be Jo – at least I get to admire her swivels from the other side!
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 that I’ve been meaning to write a post about the 1939 New York World’s Fair, so here it is! What I wouldn’t give for one of the Savoy Ballroom exhibit souvenir programs (above)!
The whole idea of a World’s Fair is absolutely astonishing to me. Almost an entire city is built for the fair alone, which lasts from 3 months to a year or so, and is then demolished. Millions upon millions of dollars are poured into the World’s Fair, which showcases industry, science, culture, art, and even nations themselves. Countries build their own “national pavilion” to represent the nation at the exposition – an architectural manifestation of a nation? Think about the international politics in 1933 or 1939 and then check out the photos of the national pavilions at those expos. Just amazing. Here’s the 1939 Russian and Italian pavilions, if that gives you any idea:
There’s just so much at these World’s Fairs, I don’t know how anyone could have seen everything. There were art exhibitions, the national pavilions, new inventions on display, carnival rides, theater, vaudeville and even girly shows, shops and stalls, restaurants, zoos and menageries, gardens and water fountains and huge installations, sporting events and balls, sideshows, scientific unveilings… ahh, so much!
The World’s Fairs have been held all over the globe, and each one has attracted millions and millions of people. Even at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900, 50 million people attended! The legendary Crystal Palace was built in Hyde Park in London for the very first exposition, The Great Exhibition of 1851. The new invention of the telephone was unveiled at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power by illuminating the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. That World’s Fair also unveiled the first Ferris wheel, introduced the hamburger to the USA, and showcased Scott Joplin playing ragtime. At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 the diesel engine, talking films and escalators were all publicized for the first time. I’ve mentioned on this blog before, that it was at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, that Sally Rand danced naked with her feather fans in the ‘Streets of Paris’ exhibition, and was catapulted to burlesque stardom. And now that I think about it, it was at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair that Little Egypt showed belly dancing to America for the first time, influencing the course of burlesque for the next 60 years. Firsts at the 1939 New York World’s Fair included color photography, nylon and air conditioning. So many amazing things happened at these World’s Fairs!
Ok, so back onto topic… the 1939 World’s Fair is of particular interest to Lindy Hoppers, since a) it was in New York, and b) the Savoy Ballroom had its very own exhibit! Here are two amazing pieces of footage from the Prelinger archives showing – IN COLOR – the Savoy Ballroom exhibit at the World’s Fair, and another showing jitterbugs dancing to Glenn Gray and his Orchestra.
Gloriously, there’s a lot more footage (and yes, even more color footage) of the New York World’s Fair. You’ve got to see Salvador Dali’s surrealist funhouse, it’s flabbergasting! Visit Archive.org to see the other World’s Fair footage available as part of the Prelinger Archives. And here’s a Flickr set of the New York World’s Fair in Pictures.
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* – a couple waltzing (No. 35., title from item.)
SUMMARY Images on a disc which when spun gives the illusion of a couple dancing.
MEDIUM 1 print : lithograph, color.
CREATED/PUBLISHED c1893 (14699Y U.S. Copyright Office). Copyright by Eadweard Muybridge (expired).
SUBJECTS Dance–1890-1900; Locomotion–1890-1900; Optical illusions–1890-1900.
FORMAT Optical toys 1890-1900; Lithographs Color 1890-1900.
Maybe I’m just the last swing dancer in the world to have seen this little Herrang creation from way back in 2004, but it’s just adorable, I had to post it:
Recorded at the Herrang Dance Camp in 2004. Nikolas “Lloyd” Lloyd and Mindi “Mindi” Lundqvist demonstrate some dance moves that sank, perhaps undeservedly, into obscurity in the swing era.
Moves: the twizzle jig, the ankle-shaker, the ape walk, the golf swing, the bunny hop, the proposal.
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’s Rusty’s short history of the trio:
“The Berry Brothers consisted of Ananias “Nyas” Berry (18 Aug. 1913-5 Oct. 1951) and James Berry (c. 1915-28 Jan. 1969), both born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Warren Berry (25 Dec. 1922-10 Aug. 1996), born in Denver, Colorado, the sons of Ananias Berry and Redna Berry, whose occupations are unknown.
In 1919, Nyas and James first began performing together, touring the church circuit in Chicago as elocutionists reciting poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar. After the family moved to Denver, the two elder brothers branched out and began playing carnivals. Their father, a very religious man, had forbidden them to dance, but Nyas had memorized dances he had seen other performers do, and had built upon them himself. He persuaded his father to let him enter an amateur dance contest, in which he floored the audience. The theater manager offered Nyas $75 a week; the elder Ananias insisted that Nyas and James continue as a team.
They then put together an act based on the widely acclaimed Bert Williams and George Walker, the most famous African-American show business performance team of their time. Nyas and James named their act “The Miniature Williams and Walker.” In the mid-1920s the Berry family moved to Hollywood, California, where James danced at parties given by silent film stars such as Mary Pickford and Clara Bow. They also appeared in Our Gang comedies. Toward the end of the decade they opened as a duo, “the Berry Brothers,” with the already legendary Duke Ellington at Harlem’s Cotton Club. Although the famous nightclub would remain their home base for the next four and a half years, they toured and performed in other groundbreaking shows. In 1929 they traveled to London and were featured performers in Lew Leslie’s popular and highly acclaimed all-African-American revue Blackbirds of 1928. They were the first African-American act at the Copacabana in 1929. They appeared in “Rhythmania” at the Cotton Club and “Rhapsody In Black” in 1931. When Radio City Music Hall had its grand opening on 27 December 1932, the Berry Brothers were on the bill.
In 1934 Nyas Berry left the act and married Valaida Snow, a popular African-American entertainer. It was during this time that Warren Berry, the youngest brother, was pulled out of school and formal dance classes and drafted into the act. James Berry taught his younger brother every move of the Berry Brothers’ act, and soon this new duo was performing steadily. When Nyas’s marriage dissolved, he talked his brothers into forming a Berry Brothers act with three Berrys. Nyas also persuaded them to move back to Hollywood. The Berry Brothers enjoyed tremendous success in their newly formed trio and appeared extensively throughout the United States on stage, in clubs, and in film, as well as throughout Europe. The brothers possessed three distinct personalities and styles: Nyas was the king of the strut, James was the comedian and singer, and Warren was the solid dancer/acrobat. Their act remained virtually unchanged for over twenty years. In addition to their work in the 1941 musical film Lady Be Good, the Berrys also appeared in Panama Hattie (1942), Boarding House Blues (1948), and You’re My Everything (1949). Their club engagements over the years included the Apollo Theatre, the Zanzibar Café, and the Savoy Ballroom in New York, the Moulin Rouge in Paris, and the Rio Cabana in Chicago.
In 1938, at the downtown Cotton Club, a legendary competition took place between the Berry Brothers and the Nicholas Brothers, another great dance act. The Berrys devised a memorable finish in which Nyas and James ran up side stairways onto an elevated balcony and took a flying leap twelve feet out and over the heads of the entire Cab Calloway orchestra, while Warren, on the stage below, completed a flip-flop twist. On the last note of the music, all three landed simultaneously in splits. “People talked about that for a long time!” recalled Warren Berry (Frank, 1990/1995).
The secret of the Berry Brothers’ success was timing, precision, and dynamics. They were masters of the “freeze and melt,” the sparkling contrasts between posed immobility and sudden flashing action. The act that the three brothers perfected stayed their act for over twenty years. This repetition was common throughout vaudeville, when acts toured the country year after year. During that time, audiences wanted to see exactly the same familiar act with no changes. When the Berry Brothers contemplated using a new song or creating a new dance routine, the bookers dissuaded them. Resigned, the Berry Brothers kept their act intact until Nyas’s death of heart failure at the age of thirty-nine, in New York. Warren and James performed together and then as solo acts individually for a time. But then Warren’s hip injury that he had suffered as a teen finally disabled him. In 1969 James Berry died in New York of complications of arteriosclerosis. Warren worked for over fifteen years as a film editor for Screen Gems in New York City. During his last years he worked in Los Angeles on several unpublished scripts; he died in Los Angeles.
The Berry Brothers are remembered as one of the greatest dance acts in the history of the American stage and cinema in the twentieth century. At a time when tap dancers were “a dime a dozen,” these brothers combined their talents to form a unique act that remains unsurpassed. Ironically, they never wore taps on their shoes because the work that they did with the canes and acrobatics required leather-soled shoes for safety. Their mixture of the Cakewalk’s Strut, tap dancing, thrilling acrobatics, and amazing cane work was a winning and lasting formula.
Bibliography
For further reading on the Berry Brothers, see Jean and Marshall Stearns, Jazz Dance, The Story of American Vernacular Dance (1968/1994), which provides information on the content of their dance act. Rusty E. Frank, TAP! The Greatest Tap Dance Stars and Their Stories 1900-1955 (1990/1995), contains the last published interview with Warren Berry. Obituaries for Ananias, James, and Warren Berry appear respectively in the New York Age, 13 Oct. 1951; the New York Amsterdam News, 8 Feb. 1969; and the Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug. 1996.
