Frankie Manning contributed more to the Lindy Hop than any other person,as a dancer, innovator and choreographer. For much of his lifetime he was an unofficial Ambassador of Lindy Hop. Originally touring as a dancer and choreographer with Whitey's Lindy Hoppers in the 30's and 40's, he helped spread the popularity of the Lindy Hop through three continents. Once again, since the swing dance revival that started in the 1980s, Frank Manning was a driving force worldwide with his teaching, choreography and performance. His own love of swing music and dancing was contagious as his dazzling smile.
In 1935, a dancer named Frankie Manning won a dance competition with a daring feat: He flipped his partner over his back and onto her feet, the Lindy Hop “air step” that would make Manning, arguably the most famous swing dancer of all time.
His career included both a first act and a later revival, bookending a 30-year job and a quiet life at the post office. He started dancing in his teens, and he was still dancing at his 85th birthday party, when he danced with 85 different partners.
Manning was born May 26, 1914 in Jacksonville, Florida. After his parents separated, at the age of 3 he moved to Harlem with his mother, who was a dancer.
Manning began dancing as a child. Manning's mother sent him to spend summers with his father, aunt and grandmother on their farm in Aiken, South Carolina. On Saturdays, farmhands and locals would come to the farm to play music on the front porch with harmonicas and a washtub bass. Manning's grandmother encouraged the bashful boy to get out in the yard and dance with the others. Once he got in the dance circle, he developed a feel for dancing and did not want to stop.
Back in New York, he started attending the dances at the Renaissance Ballroom in 1927 after his mother invited him to help her decorate the ballroom for a Halloween dance and promised to take him to the 9:00 dance that night.Watching from the balcony, he was surprised to see his mother dancing formal ballroom styles such as foxtrot and waltz, having only seen her dance before in a much looser and casual style at neighborhood rent parties. He danced with his mother later that night and she told him afterwards that "Frankie, you'll never be a dancer, because you're too stiff.
"Manning really loved his mother and wanted to do things to please her, so that is why he wanted to learn how to dance. He started listening to records on a Victrola in his bedroom and would practice dancing with a broom or a chair trying to get "un-stiff". When he was older, he started going to Harlem's Savoy Ballroom, which was for better dancers, and was also the only integrated ballroom in New York.
He frequented the Savoy in the 1930s, eventually becoming a dancer in the elite and prestigious "Kat's Corner," a corner of the dance floor where impromptu exhibitions and competitions took place. During a dance contest in 1935, Manning and his partner, Frieda Washington, performed the first aerial in a swing dance competition against George "Shorty" Snowden, the inventor of the term Lindy Hop, and his partner, Big Bea, at the Savoy Ballroom. The airstep he performed was a "back to back roll" and was danced while Chick Webb played "Down South Camp Meeting," which was Manning's request after having heard the song earlier in the evening. The airstep went flawlessly to the music and astonished the more than 2,000 audience members.
[If you're into 20s and 30s dancing, you've probably heard of the Lindy Hop. It popularised the Swing era and was a fusion of many dances, including jazz, tap, breakaway and Charleston.It was born in and important to the African-American communities in Harlem, but entered the mainstream in the 1930's.
The dance can be wild and spontaneous, with frenzied kicks and body movements, or it can be cool and sophisticated, and it is usually partnered. It can be fascinating and interesting to watch.]
Although he didn't come up with the name, Frankie Manning was known as the ambassador of the Lindy Hop because he helped make the dance popular.
He taught, performed and choreographed versions of the dance, introducing people to the fashionable moves all over America.
Frankie developed his own unique style of Lindy Hopping and is responsible for many innovations of the dance. This included dancing at a sharp angle to the ground like a track runner, instead of in the upright, stiff ballroom position of his predecessors.
In 1935, Herbert White organized the top Savoy Ballroom lindy hop dancers into a professional performance group that was eventually named Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. Manning created the troupe's first ensemble Lindy Hop routines and functioned as the group's de facto choreographer, although without that title. The troupe toured extensively and made several films. While with Whitey's, Manning also danced with Norma Miller, who became known as the Queen of Swing. Whitey's Lindy Hoppers disbanded around World War II when many of the male dancers entered the armed forces. Manning himself served in the U.S. Army.After the war, in 1947, Manning created a small performance group called the Congaroos. When the Congaroos disbanded in 1955, Manning quietly settled into a career with the United States Postal Service. Some 30 years later, Manning started his second career in dancing: travelling the world as a renowned instructor and inspirator.
In 1982, Al Minns, a former member of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, started to teach Lindy Hop at the Sandra Cameron Dance Center, where he introduced a new generation of dancers to the Lindy Hop. Before he died in 1985, he told his students that Manning, another surviving member of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, also lived in New York City.
In 1986, dancers Erin Stevens and Steven Mitchell contacted Manning and asked him to teach them the Lindy Hop. Manning at first declined, before finally agreeing to meet with them; he was skeptical that a much younger generation would really be interested in swing or Lindy. However, Mitchell and Stevens returned to California and helped to spread Lindy Hop to the West Coast and other areas of the U.S. Thus, the swing revival began. That same year, Lennart Westerlund contacted Manning and invited him to Sweden to work with The Rhythm Hot Shots. Manning traveled to Sweden in 1987 and returned there every year from 1989 onward to teach at the Herräng Dance Camp.
Manning died in Manhattan on April 27, 2009, aged 94.
Frankie Manning Foundation
The mission of the Frankie Manning Foundation is to carry on the work and the spirit of Frankie Manning in spreading the joy of Lindy Hop, danced to big band swing music, throughout the world. In accordance with Manning's own values, and those of the Savoy Ballroom where the Lindy Hop got its start, the fund seeks to promote projects which are grounded in unity and collaboration, and which enable people of all different backgrounds to participate in our joyous dance of Lindy Hop.
Information sorces:
telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/05/25/who-was-frankie-manning-and-what-is-the-lindy-hop/
delectant.com/frankie-mannings-incredible-dancing-skills-made-famous-twice-50-years-apart/
frankiemanning.com
savoystyle.com/frankie_manning.html
frankiemanningfoundation.org
imdb.com/name/nm0543278/
temple.edu/tempress/titles/1877_reg.html
vox.com/2016/5/26/11776066/frankie-mannings-102nd-birthday
Frankie Manning Tribute Video
Lindy Hop - Hellzapoppin (1941)
Frankie Manning - Never Stop Swinging!
This video was released back in 2009 on the weekend the world Lindy Hop community was to come together and celebrate his 95th birthday. Frankie Manning brought Lindy Hop to so many people all over the world and was a part of so many lives, his legacy lives on in every person that is transformed into a dancer by way of Lindy Hop. He was truly a one of kind person and who's memory will never be forgotten.
Part 2 Frankie Manning's first Aerial
Frankie Manning's Funeral Services - Shim Sham led by Chazz Young - 2009-05-02
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