Here is some footage of Dawn and I working out a disagreement about dancing:

Just kidding! After mentioning Apache Dancing last week, I thought I would post one of my favorite clips of it. It’s from The Crazy Gang’s  “Okay for Sound” (1937). The simulated violence takes an amazing amount of coordination and practice to get down pat… and the stunts rank up there with the most difficult swing aerials. And if you are wondering, this dance is where the Apache move comes from in Lindy Hop.

Oh… and don’t try this stuff at home kids!

I don’t know how your week is going, but I am in real need of a cartoon break. In this Disney Silly Symphony, we visit a insect jazz club. After everyone arives as the club, there is a great spoof of an Apache dance followed by a cartoon song and dance explaniation of what “truckin’” is. Something every hep cat should know about. Overall, very cool… good music and I always enjoy old cartoon takes on swing dancing.

Natch sent this my way. For those of you who are fans of the “How It’s Made” series on Discovery, you’ll really like this. Well… it’s not like you intend to be a fan of that show… it just sorta comes on… you don’t intend to watch it, but then your eyes start to get glued to the screen and you can’t change the channel… just too fascinating… for that brief moment, it’s like your life somehow is incomplete unless you know how they make acrylic bathtubs. Anyways… this is really interesting! Enjoy!

I don’t know about you, but it’s midweek and I need to take a break and watch some cartoons. While browsing, I found this gem to share. In this short, Betty is hosting a swing dance and ponders “What can I do for the jitterbugs tonight?”. Ha! I think I can relate!

“How about you? Can you swing it?”

Just tripped upon this video… haven’t seen it since I was a kid. By far the most entertaining instructional dance video I’ve ever run across!

Funny how life works. Almost two weeks after the Swingin’ the Decade dance, I run across this gem while searching through our old VHS collection looking for something completely different. This ran on channel 6 local news in the summer of 1998 when swing hit big in Orlando and across the country.

You might see some familiar faces flash across the screen. Dawn and I lurk in the background of one of the studio segments. The dance instructor dancing with the anchor was one of our first teachers. This was a real trip down memory lane!

We’ve been teaching Hal Whips in our intermediate Lindy series, so I thought I would post this clip for the class to see where the move originated. This is Hal and Betty Takier dancing a blend of Balboa (Bal-Swing) and Lindy in the 1943 short “Maharaja”. You can see Hal’s signature move at :47 and 2:24.

After my last post (Swingology), I had some people ask about dancing in old cartoons. I forget that not everyone has seen Disney’s “All the Cats Join In”. In my opinion, this is the greatest of all the old cartoons that feature clips of dancing. So I did a quick search and was surprised to find the video in its entirety on YouTube. So here it is:

All the Cats Join In - 1946

From my understanding, the animators used real dancers of the day to model the movements of the animated characters. Next time I’m DJing, feel free to request the song… I’ll even play the version with the sound effects in it.

Katnip Kollege - 1938

Cute! Some cartoon dancing with some distinctive styling of the day… the truckin’ finger… some peckin’… solid!

Some good friends of ours, Joe and Tabitha, recently popped up on YouTube from a recent swing jam in DC. Some of you may recognize them. For those of you who don’t, Joe and Tabitha were a staple in the Orlando scene for years and got their start dancing here. Since, jobs and life have taken them north, but it’s really good to see some recent video of them cutting up the dance floor!

FYI… the other couple is DC’s own Tom and Debra.