alain’s dance blog

The Spirit Moves is considered the bible for Lindy Hop and authentic jazz forms. Indeed, the documentary contains authentic footage of dancers back in the day, dancers that we now consider “legendary”, dancers like Leon James, Al Minns, Frankie Manning.

Here’s a description from SavoyStyle, maintained by Judy Pritchett:

Mura Dehn was a Russian emigrant to the United States in the 1930s. She was so impressed with the African-American social dance that she saw in New York City that it became her life’s work to document African-American vernacular dance. One of her achievements was “The Spirit Moves”, consisting of six hours of remarkable archival film. Formerly available for viewing only at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in New York City and the Smithsonian. The first 3 parts of this are now available on videotape at SavoyStyle.

For those who are curious about the content, here’s the original index from the movie:

Chapter 1
Ragtime: Strut, Cakewalk, Breaks–steps in cakewalk
Jazztime: Charleston (1920’s), Jazz steps (1930’s, including Boogie-woogie, Shimmy, Susie-Q, Snake hips, Black bottom, Fish tail

Chapter II
Blues: Rent party, Shakeblues, Speak easy, Male shake blues, Gutbucket blues

Chapter III
Savoy routines: Trunky doo, Aerial lindy, California (lindy), Big Apple.
Postwar trends: Calypso, Apple jack
Jazz Dance

Many Lindy Hoppers today study the Spirit Moves and learn from them. For example, Mike Faltesek’s famous 2006 solo blues routine draws elements from the Shake blues section. And Naomi Uyama’s winning performance in the solo blues contest at Showdown 2006 shows influence from the solo dancing of Mildred Pollard (aka Sandra Gibson).

I’m so glad this documentary exists to show us authentic jazz dance forms as danced by artists from that time period. You can purchase The Spirit Moves at Swingdanceshop.com.

Mélanie Huot-Lavoie and Alain Wong competing in the Lindy Hop performance division at the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown 2007.

Mélanie hasn’t seen the video yet, but I think we are satisfied with our performance. I was really stressed the morning of, waking up before everyone else in our hotel room and then watching CNN in the lobby because I had nothing else to do to keep me distracted.

We did get some good feedback from dancers, so that was cool. Ben Yau from California commented on the fact that despite our short stature (we were by far the smallest couple performing), we did a good job of dancing big. Yay arms and hands.

Let me know what you think of our performance.

In anticipation of the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown this weekend, here’s one of the highlights from last year that I immortalized on a handpainted t-shirt.

The Harlem Hotshots on Sweden’s version of America’s Got Talent. The dancers are Sakarias Larsson and Frida Segerdahl, Daniel Heedman and Åsa Palm, Mattias Lundmark and Hanna Zetterman.

During the Century Masters event in Seattle this summer, a group of Lindy Hoppers paid tribute to the Harlem Congaroos by recreating two 1940s clips in front of many jazz dance greats. The dancers are Mike Faltesek and Casey Schneider, Stefan Durham and Bethany Powell.

You can watch the original Killer Diller clip here.