|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
 |
 |
|||
Remembering "Shorty" George Snowden |
||||
 |
||||
 |
Scan the net websites for references to George Snowden, the central figure in the creation of the Lindy Hop, and a weird pastiche of accounts comes up. Endlessly copied from each other, they mostly ignore even the evidence presented in the Stearns' book Jazz Dance. The centenary of his birth is thus a good time to renew our appreciation of this remarkable dancer. Born on July 4 in New York, together with his partner Mattie Purnell, he was the first African American to innovate a major dance form in a big city as opposed to the previous "rural" ones that had been brought up from the South. Created during a competition at Harlem's Rockland Palace ballroom, Snowden subsequently refined it on stage and it soon became an incredibly popular social dance. Snowden kept to the performance mode. After astutely linking it with the least swinging but most popular of the big orchestras, led by Paul Whiteman, his group introduced it to many parts of the USA. His estrangement from the Savoy, caused by the management's initial disapproval of energetic dancing, led to the eclipsing of his groundbreaking achievement by Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. Taking advantage of a change of attitude at the Savoy, they harnessed all three modes of the Lindy Hop - social, competition and performance - to position the ballroom at the centre of the Swing Era. Snowden retired in 1938, the only Lindy Hopper commemorated in a dance step, the "Shorty George." His unique reversal of the ballroom tradition, that was copied by many others, in which a later partner, Big Bea, tossed him in the air, opened the doors to any and every innovation in the dance. He carried on dancing in "Big George's" place in Corona, Queens the venue where the famous picture of Ann Johnson flying over Frankie's head was taken. He died virtually forgotten in 1982 despite being the single American to have been responsible for more dancing than any other in the 20th century.
Terry Monaghan
|
|
This event is produced by Yehoodi.com, Jelly Roll Productions and CU Swing with the support of the William J. Basie Trust. |
 |