The Big Apple Routine in Keep Punching ( Whitey’s Lindy Hopper)
Routine or Social Dance?
The Big Apple Routine (shown above) is a line dance choreographed by Frankie Manning and Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers. It’s a Solo Jazz choreography made famous in the movie Keep Punching. In the modern Lindy Hop world, dancers enjoy dancing this routine on the social dance floor and on stage. Being a choreography that is a few step harder than the Shim Sham and Trankey Do.
However, the history of the Big Apple didn’t actually start as a Choreography. The original dance involved a caller calling spontaneously calling out moves. This was done as both a contest and socially.
The original form of The Big Apple was invented around the 1930s and was popular throughout many of the dance halls in the US. In The video above, you can see an example of this form of the dance done in 2014 during what would have been Frankie’s 100th Birthday.
The First Apple
The origins of the dance seem to come from a club called the “Big Apple” in South Carolina. Where three white students heard the tunes from a juke joint and were let inside to watch from the rafters. The dancing they saw there – they decided to name after the club. Eventually trying to copy it on their own. (The State – Jeff Wilkinson)
The dance spread far and wide, reaching national popularity by 1937. Life Magazine even did a 4 page feature on it (although with white dancers) showing this unique dance.
While we rarely dance the original form of this dance on the social floor. Modern Lindy Hoppers still have a go with Frankie’s choreography often. Connecting us to the storied history of those original jitterbugs showing showing off at a small club called The Big Apple in South Carolina.
Florent Llamas, Jérémy Chanton, Ludovic Chanton, Fred Caputo & Niko Rodrigues Pacaswing at Swing Family Festival Red Prysock – Hand Clappin’
The Mama Stew or Mama’s Stew routine is a solo choreography that once again comes to us from the origins of Swing. Its a routine that was routinely practiced by Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers and used as a warm up before they got onto the ‘real’ stuff.
The name comes from ‘Mama Lu & The Parkets’ who would perform the routine regularly. Louise “Mama Lou” Parks is actually the former hostess of the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, and was also one of the dancers helping to bring Lindy Hop into the 21st century.
Mama Lou started as a hat-check girl at the Savoy. But under the tutelage of dancers like George Sullivan, Delma “Big Nick” Nickerson and Lee Moates Mama Lu became a significant dancer in her own right.
After the Savoy Ballroom closed in 1943, Charles Buchanan, the Manager of the Savoy, urged Mama Lou and her fellow dancers to take on the responsibility of staging the Lindy Hop preliminaries, at the new Savoy Manor in the Bronx, for the Harvest Moon Ball Dance Competition. Mama Lu was integral for keeping the tradition of the Harvest Moon Ball going for years to come.
Mama Lou (right) and Her Parkets
By 1961 she had established a professional dance company mostly comprised of those who had won the Harvest Moon Ball, which had various names The Lou Parks Dancers, The Parkettes; Mama Lu Parks and her Jazz Dancers – as well as other incarnations. The company continued touring for 29 years until her passing in 1990.
Her dancers also toured around the world, performing in Sweden in 1963 with the “King Coleman Show”, in Mexico in 1968 at a cultural festival before the 1968 Olympics
The Parkettes attracted the attention of the British TV Company who produced “The Southbank Show” a UK television show on ITV. In 1981 they paid for one of Mama Lu’s events to be re-staged at Small’s Paradise Club on 7th Avenue in Harlem.
The routine itself is fairly simple, with the hardest move being the ‘Squat Charleston’. But it makes for a fun solo dance that can be done FAST. If you’re interested in trying it out on your own, you can check out this video we made at the beginning of the pandemic that should get you through the basics of the routine. And I’m sure you’ll be using it in your warmups in no time.
Mama Lou 最初是 Savoy 的一名帽子檢查女孩。但在 George Sullivan、Delma “Big Nick” Nickerson 和 Lee Moates 等舞者的指導下，Mama Lu 憑藉自己的能力成為了一名重要的舞者。
1943 年 Savoy 宴會廳關閉后，Savoy 的經理查理斯·布坎南 （Charles Buchanan） 敦促 Mama Lou 和她的舞者們承擔起在布朗克斯區新 Savoy 莊園舉辦 Harvest Moon Ball 舞蹈比賽的 Lindy Hop 預賽的責任。Mama Lu 是未來幾年保持 Harvest Moon Ball 傳統不可或缺的一部分。
婁媽媽（右）和她的派克特
到 1961 年，她已經成立了一個專業舞蹈團，主要由贏得 Harvest Moon Ball 的人組成，該舞團有各種名稱 The Lou Parks Dancers、The Parkettes;Mama Lu Parks 和她的 Jazz Dancers – 以及其他化身。該公司繼續巡演了 29 年，直到她於 1990 年去世。
Al and Leon are famous Lindy Hop and Jazz dancers who grew to fame in the 1930s and 1940s. While there are lots of videos of them dancing together, they performed with others, including partner dancing in the performance troupe – Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers.
In the video above you can see Al and Leon doing a short demo of the Charleston dance to the tune ‘Charleston’. It’s a great demo of some of the different styles of Jazz dancing from the 20s to 30s. And there is even a small amount of ‘partner dancing’ for good measure. If you ever get confused you can recognise Al Minns by his high-energy dancing and more athletic shapes. Leon James is a little more smooth and is known for his iconic hand gestures, often flashing his palms.
They would both keep dancing throughout their lives, acting as stewards of the dance form, keeping it alive throughout the years. They teamed up to help Jazz musicologist Marshall Stearns, who was writing a history of Jazz music in the 1960s. Stearns was instrumental in getting them multiple TV appearances as they went on tour together, allowing us to see so many clips of these phenomenal dancers in action! For that, we are forever indebted to Mr Stearns, for his allyship and his ability to open doors when they might have been closed to black dancers. In this clip from Playboy’s Penthouse -Hugh Hefner has his own TV show in the 60s, who knew!- you can see Stearns being interviewed by Hefner whilst Al and Leon dance.
In the early 1980s, Al Minns was instrumental in further spreading the dance around the world. Travelling to Sweden to teach a group of brand new dancers and helping out in New York with the renewed international interest in Swing Dancing.
Leon James passed in 1970 while Al Minns managed to see 1985 before also passing. Their life and contribution to Swing Dancing will forever be remembered.
Because of the Covid situation, dancers had to be creative to keep on exchanging and creating. Of course, lots of content moved online too!
A big dance competition that went online in 2020 is the International Lindy Hop Championship, ILHC 2020. For the occasion, they added a new division to their long list of competitions, The Video Showcase. A comp where you could be as creative as you like.
We weren’t too keen on joining in this competition at first, but then Thom had an idea that we couldn’t pass on. We wanted to do a ‘One Shot’ take. Somewhat inspired by my recent watch of the film ‘1917’ by Sam Mendes. We spent a lot of time doing some research on what it takes to do a one-take clip.
It turns out that the techniques to pull off hidden cuts are actually fairly simple, it just takes a lot of planning and trial and error.
Unlike previous dance projects, this showcase would have to be choreographed while keeping in mind where and even what the camera was doing. So we set off to try something entirely new for both of us.
After shooting some test footage and figuring out what sort of cuts we wanted to involve, we got started choreographing to the song Voyage by The Schwings Band.
It seemed fitting that after a year with no travel, we would dream of it while dancing. Once we had the choreography done and practiced we next needed to shoot it.
Our photographer friend Melissa with the help of her husband Sean helped to film us in various locations in Hong Kong and helped with some of the editing.
You can watch the final take below. And while we’ll probably never be 100% happy with the results, we are quite proud of what we managed to create on what was essentially a no-budget production.
