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Frankie Manning's dancing skills made him famous twice (2016)

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Re: Frankie Manning's dancing skills made him famous twice (2016)

#31
post #2

Second time seeing lindy hop related thread on HN. Are there many practitioners here? Very excited and sad as I don't see I can go back to this hobby anytime soon.

Danced the Lindy for nearly 20 years. About six months into it, I visited Herräng. Picture the main dance house: a huge spacious hardwood dance floor, cute decorations over the walls, a custom-built DJ booth at the back, and standing at the front was Dawn Hampton. Dawn was a short woman whose talents spanned dance, music, songwriting, and anything Cabaret. Her favourite song was Count Basie's Splanky. I had arrived a…

Dawn's "musicality" class in Herräng is legend.

https://youtu.be/HYql477fb8w

Re: Frankie Manning's dancing skills made him famous twice (2016)

#32
post #2

Second time seeing lindy hop related thread on HN. Are there many practitioners here? Very excited and sad as I don't see I can go back to this hobby anytime soon.

Swing dancer from Honolulu here -- primarily Balboa, followed by Lindy, Charleston, and Blues. Really looking forward to dancing again, which hopefully be safe again before too many more months go by.

Re: Frankie Manning's dancing skills made him famous twice (2016)

#33
post #2

Second time seeing lindy hop related thread on HN. Are there many practitioners here? Very excited and sad as I don't see I can go back to this hobby anytime soon.

Danced the Lindy for nearly 20 years. About six months into it, I visited Herräng. Picture the main dance house: a huge spacious hardwood dance floor, cute decorations over the walls, a custom-built DJ booth at the back, and standing at the front was Dawn Hampton. Dawn was a short woman whose talents spanned dance, music, songwriting, and anything Cabaret. Her favourite song was Count Basie's Splanky. I had arrived a…

The really awesome part about Dawn (and musicality) was how open she was to the beat and the sound. One of my favorite videos is of her dancing to Bhangra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwsTIp2KDfc

Re: Frankie Manning's dancing skills made him famous twice (2016)

#34

Went to Herrang once, took many a workshop with Frankie in NYC back in the day. He was amazing. Can't wait to get back to Swing 46 someday!

Standard tech swing easter egg: search google for sweden, zoom in on the pin/center of the "sweden" text

clarification: seems to only work on mobile these days

Re: Frankie Manning's dancing skills made him famous twice (2016)

#35
I was fortunate enough to take a workshop with Frankie Manning around 2004 or 2005 at the Atomic Ballroom in Orange County. He was an incredible teacher, and the ladies who got to dance with him to demonstrate moves were absolutely blushing. It’s such a shame that he spent so many years undeservedly in obscurity. I like to think that he knew how much he meant to so many people, but it doesn’t replace what he should have had. A wonderful dancer and a wonderful man.

Re: Frankie Manning's dancing skills made him famous twice (2016)

#36
I like the little detour through "uncritical analysis of rent control in post-WW I New York" which shows that the author is at least ignorant of one topic, and perhaps others.

"What they often found was discriminatory high rents. Rent was exorbitant for black New Yorkers in the 1920s: A study by the New York Urban League in 1927 found that rent for black New Yorkers had doubled since 1919 while increasing only 10 percent for white residents. Black residents had to pay far more than white residents for virtually identical apartments."

New York passed rent control in April 1920, as a result of skyrocketing rents due to a housing shortage caused by WW 1. It had provisions for control for renters with tenure.

Meanwhile, this period saw an enormous influx of black people to specifically Harlem.

Additionally, there was significant inflation beginning on 1920 on the heels of monetary policy used to address the War (resulting, ultimately in the Depression of 1920-21).

So, supply is low, demand is high, including inflationary pressures. The legislatures pass laws to curtail rents on existing tenants, leaving only new tenants to suffer the burdens of rent increases.

So, while it may be easy to say "black people paid higher rent, must be discrimination" - and some of that might be true - it is probably more fair to say that a poorly-considered rent-control scheme coupled with the results of monetary policy during WW1 and an accident of demographic change, resulted in a coincidence.

New renters paid significantly more rent that tenured renters. New renters happened to be black, because that demographic was shifting.

It is notable that the principal region - Harlem - had been a traditionally Jewish area, and whatever discrimination looks like today, it's not like Jewish New Yorkers were getting a free pass on discrimination in the 1920s. It is much more likely that delta in demographics was largely coincidental.

Re: Frankie Manning's dancing skills made him famous twice (2016)

#37
post #36

I like the little detour through "uncritical analysis of rent control in post-WW I New York" which shows that the author is at least ignorant of one topic, and perhaps others. "What they often found was discriminatory high rents. Rent was exorbitant for black New Yorkers in the 1920s: A study by the New York Urban League in 1927 found that rent for black New Yorkers had doubled since 1919 while increasing only 10 per…

[deleted]

Re: Frankie Manning's dancing skills made him famous twice (2016)

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checking in from Melbourne, similarly missing it.

Knowing Melbourne, there surely must be lindy hop groups.

There surely are, but we’re still in covid-control mode for a few things, and social dancing is probably one of the most effective infectious disease spreading activities I could imagine. :)
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