So You Think You Can Dance: The Lindy Hop
From Season 2 of So you think you can dance. Dmitry & Donyelle learning and dancing the Lindy Hop.
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about lindy hop and jazz music
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On May 31st, 2008, I'm biking 3000 km from Vancouver to Mexico to raise money for micro-credit - small loans that change lives.
August 17th, 2007 at 1:21 am
Donyelle is so much love!
August 17th, 2007 at 1:23 am
(For x reason, the rest of my comment didn’t show up… so here it is!)
The drop/back jump Donyelle did near the end was purely courageous and amazing!
Here is season 3’s only Lindy Hop routine with Neil and Lacey.
It’s funny watching Lacey learn the Pancanke, Toss, hahaha. Reminds me of myself…
I think Neil and Lacey did a better job than Donyelle and Dmitry, but they’re all great for first-timers. Lacey says that Lindy is completely different from West Coast, and much harder. What’s your say on that?
SYTYCD should promote more Lindy Hop!
August 17th, 2007 at 1:32 am
Yeah, I watched Neil and Lacey’s routine as well. I’m glad Lindy Hop was featured on SYTYCD.
I think Lindy is definitely the harder dance to master, especially at those high speeds. But West Coast demands a lot of precision, so it’s also hard. I would settle on them being different.
You really need to relax and communicate with your center and not your arms, or else it ends up looking stiff. While watching the video, you can see that the fluidity/ stretch is so-so. Then again, they only had a week to learn this, so that’s normal. Check out this comment on the official Fox page.
SHOW 323/324
8/15/07
It took the whole season but we finally get to see the Lindy Hop. When you get a chance google “Lindy Hop” and watch some videos, then you’ll understand why they waited to release this dance from it’s cage. With Lacey’s swing background and Neil’s aerial moves you’d think this was the couple to do it, but it’s pretty cumbersome yet great energy.
Bill’s Bounce
The Big Elliot Swing Orchestra
August 17th, 2007 at 2:08 am
There’s an interesting interview with Evita Arce (who made it to the Vegas prelims for SYTYCD) on Swing Dancer Magazine:
http://swing-dancer.com/page.php?60
I really like this answer from her:
4) You’ve studied a lot of dances: ballet, tap, jazz, modern, and various partner dances. What is it about swing that draws you and keeps you out on the dance floor?
The music and the connection. The Lindy Hop connection (frame) allows much freedom for the follower to move in many different ways. I can pull footwork variations from Tap or Tango and still swing out.
Furthermore, unlike other dances that stay in closed position or have set standards for a specific shape, Lindy Hop stretches from wide open, to tight tangled embraces, even to break-aways. And of course there are the jumps and aerials which are like no other partnered dance I’ve ever experienced.
The music is also crucial to my loyalty. There’s something about the rhythms and steps that satisfies my need to jump and then connect back into the ground, as if the rhythm of swing music is the rhythm of gravity. The pulse and bounce required to really sit in the pocket of swing music are the most natural to my body.
Lastly, whenever I take class or study in a new style, I am amazed by the close relationship of that style to Swing. Nearly all American popular dances have roots in the swing era, and conversely I find the swing posture and feel are useful tools in any style. It’s funny, even if I tried to step away from Swing, it seems it would find me and bring me back.
August 18th, 2007 at 1:05 am
“It’s funny, even if I tried to step away from Swing, it seems it would find me and bring me back.” I agree so much with this part of Evita’s answer. After having learned Swing, when I learned Salsa and other dances, it seemed to be much easier compared to my previous attempts at learning partner dancing. And it’s true, the freedom in Swing is very enjoyable. Even for competitions, Swing competitions seem so much more fun than all the other types of dance competitions. The atmospheres and ambiances are totally different! It’s so much fun to do something with basic standardized requirements but with personal touches here and there.
I hope Evita goes to do the auditions again next year for SYTYCD, or any other Lindy hopper. It’d be so cool if a Lindy hopper would make it to the top 20!
August 18th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I wish I could dance like that. Sigh. Though it’s interesting - for a “Lindy Hop” routine, that was mostly partner Charleston. I think they did maybe just one or two Lindy basics in the beginning. But then I’ve often noticed that even in Lindy competitions what people are actually doing to faster music tends to be mostly Charleston.
August 20th, 2007 at 3:06 am
Re: Bernadette’s post –
Since Lindy Hop evolved out of Charleston, partner Charleston is legitimate in a Lindy routine. True, it’s nice to see some swingouts, but in performance things could get boring if you see too many.
p.s. - it’s natural in Lindy to haul out your Charleston steps for the fast numbers. One reason being Charleston steps don’t work too well with the slower stuff, so where else can you use them?
August 20th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Alain, thanks for linking Swing Dancer Magazine. I had so much fun talking to Evita about her experiences..on the show and in general. She is such a sweet and amazing person.
It was so sad to not see her advance on SYTYCD. She’s such a strong amazing dancer and could have held her own with any of the top 20.
If you’re interested in hearing more about her experience on the show, you should visit www.yehoodi.com and click the “Talk” link. There’s a podcast about swing dance that they do twice a month. Right after Vegas they interviewed her and got a lot more detail about the auditions than I was able to publish. She talks about hanging out with the hip hoppers and switching moves back and forth since there’s a similar root.
September 1st, 2007 at 1:35 pm
[…] was the choreographer of the So You Think You Can Dance Lindy Hop routine this season for Lacey and Neil. I love his musicality. And Carla is one of my favorite dancers at […]
September 2nd, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Hi Alain,
Nice site, and thanks for linking up with the SYTYCD videos. I missed the last episodes. It’s amazing what those dancers can learn in one week! The top 20 dancers were are all so good.
I think that Lacey would say Lindy is harder than WCS, because she’s been dancing WCS since she was 3years old or so. She has that style down. Lindy is new to here and needs more aerobic effort.
I think that rising to the top of the WCS scene is a lot harder than doing the same in the Lindy Hop scene. The main reason being that WCS dancers are generally better. The best WCS dancers have often been doing it since they were 5 years old, or something similar, and they started like 20 years ago. While for Lindy, the best guys in the world currently on the scene usually only started about 10 years ago when they were in their university years. That extra 15 years makes a big difference.
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At fast tempos, most Lindy hoppers break out the partner charleston moves. kick-step is so much easier to do fast than triple-step. It looks good and fits the music too.