Last weekend at the Great Lakes Balboa Escape, along with theming and re-theming the snack table all weekend, I shot a panel about the history of Balboa, starting with the roots in Southern California and extending toward modern day! The panel featured Bobby White, Tise Chao and Niko Centino.
The video should speak for itself, but here are a few pics I grabbed from a few sources to add a bit of visual flair and also to cover up for goofy moments in shooting.
During the panel, Tise refers to a few places that were big parts of my personal swing dance history. If you look to the Lineage tag here on the blog, you'll find some of my memories on similar subjects.
Hal Takier and Bart Bartolo at Bobby McGee's
Freda Angela Wyckoff's 90th birthday celebration
Closing night at the Derby in Los Feliz
I recommend checking out the cards that should pop up in the corner of the video. Those will link to videos which are pertinent to the discussion. There's a limit to the number of cards I can add to a video. I wish I could add so many more.
I couldn't find a good picture of the dance floor at Bobby McGee's in Brea, but at least this matchbook mentions the Brea location.
There's a lot more mentioned in the panel. I snuck this pic of myself dancing at the Derby in there because y'know, I needed attention.
I was saddened to learn earlier today that my old friend Holly Dumaux Ginsburg passed away suddenly this morning near her home in Palos Verdes. All of my previous Lineage posts pay respect to dancers from earlier generations. Holly has earned her spot in the family of lindy hoppers who we should remember, even though we only started dancing within days of each other.
Holly was witness to my own earliest days of exploring the lead/follow dynamic. We were in the first bunch of students taking private lessons with Erik Robeson & Sylvia Skylar, right before the phrase Hollywood Style popped up. This was that period sometimes called the Style Wars, more about which some other time.
She more than once credited me with making leading and following work for her. I'll take the compliment, though I'd be remiss if I didn't note how much hard work, blood, sweat, tears and LOVE Holly put into the dance with her then partner Tip West.
Tip & Holly were among the crew of young dancers who spent so many Sundays with the old timers at Bobby McGee's around the turn of the century. As far as I'm concerned they're the dancers who really understood Hal Takier's lessons on how to do the Merry Go-Round. That was one of their signature moves, and I know how important it was to them to get it right.
And these two were up in the top of the competition all the time. I remember watching a full house at the Palladium for one of the early Camp Hollywood events and feeling like the roof exploded when they landed one of their stunts.
But if it was only for collecting moves and competing, there were so many of us doing that. Holly was a mother-figure to us, then the young dancers. And while the world was looking at Tip & Holly as rock stars, to us in Los Angeles, they were family.
So many weekends spent at Holly's condo in Pasadena, watching VHS footage we collected, or going over steps together. Holly made sure everyone felt welcome. I'm sure she felt that we were all kin. She was one to keep us together.
And though I haven't seen her for many years, many memories are flooding back. I'm grateful to have spent so much time with Holly and hope you'll find some time to remember her yourself.
My last post a few months ago was a meditation on the lineage of the Lindy Hop. There I mentioned Freda Angela Wyckoff having celebrated her 90th birthday. Earlier this week I received the news via Facebook that she was in intensive care. This morning I received the news that she passed away from heart failure last night.
Morgan Day dubbed her the Queen of the Rock & Roll Lindy era. I think to many of us (including Morgan) she was much more than that.
Here are a couple of her memorable videos from YouTube, dancing with George Christopherson:
I'm sad to say that none of the photos on my classic MySpace profile with me and Freda survived the transfer to new MySpace. There weren't many, but I remember a picture with Freda, Lila Desatoff and me, in which the ladies wore t-shirts with bikinis printed on them. Perhaps someone has a copy somewhere. There are plenty of photos of Freda surfacing on her Facebook profile at the moment. She clearly meant a lot to us.
Do I even remember the time she went from being the lady who danced in those clips to being a person whom I knew and loved? Faintly perhaps. I'm not sure if it was my first or second time at Bobby McGee's. At that point I was still taking in those first whiffs of family, like being part of a thing that was more than a hobby. Freda wasn't alone in that sense, but she was a major part of that.
The thing I remember is that she loved us kids. She welcomed us with open arms, without reservation. I mainly remember lots of hugs. There was a lot of love in that woman. That's what I remember more than the dancing.
Here's the tribute that my friends at the Swing Pit made for her 90th birthday just a short while ago.
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Watching this clip now I think it was Dave Frutos who put the word "Lineage" into my mind via this exact clip. It's a sadness for me that I wasn't there. I miss you all, my friends.
Here's a comment I wrote just minutes ago to a photo of Kim Clever and Freda from that same party:
Hugs, Kim
I miss Freda too. I had been thinking about her since I moved so far away. And I think that more than her dancing were the open arms with which she greeted us youngsters. And I hope you won't mind if I say I feel you embody that really well. So in some way, Freda lives on.
In memory of Freda I suggest that you find a way to hug someone at a dance this week. Just let them know they are welcome. Show someone some love.
Now that I live in the Midwest, I've realized what it is that Southern California has that most other places don't. This morning I spent a good half hour responding to Scout Craft's question on Facebook about the benefits of social dancing in Hollywood style. I was unaware that folks still used that phrase. I've always believed that branding dance styles is ludicrous. I'm much more concerned with the lineage and the traditions of wisdom that have been passed along.
But now I have to reflect on what the style of dancing at home meant to me and it wasn't a style. I personally never tried to dance like the old timers, but sort of swimming in the same pool with them was a big deal. Now that I've lived in places where their influences aren't felt I know a lot more clearly what it is that they shared. I miss that. Most places don't have a direct link with their history. Most Lindy Hoppers don't have a familial connection with their dance.
Bart Bartolo passed away in February and Jack Carey passed away last month. Freda Wyckoff just celebrated her 90th birthday last weekend at the Swing Pit. I'm glad I knew all of them.
I went to a Balboa event last month and I think there's a giant missing component in the modern Balboa community. I'm not able to elaborate on it very much but old Balboa dancers really wanted to impress upon us that Balboa could be danced as slow as 80BPM. That range of tempos has really shrunk over the decades and it seems like most modern Balboa dancers don't even know this is an option.
I include that last part in this post because it's about lineage. And as our elders continue to pass on, I think it's vital to remember their knowledge.
Hal Takier (also known as Hal Savoy or Hal Chavoor) passed away yesterday. My condolences go out to his family, especially his widow Marge. Together they hosted the biweekly dance at Bobby McGee's in Brea for what must have been decades.
I can easily say that swing dancing in Los Angeles would not have been the same without Hal. Of course the dance at Bobby's was an instant bridge between the turn of the century jitterbugs and the "old timers." Still, I think Hal's contribution to us kids (who have been called by some old timers ourselves) was more than just a place to learn sweet old moves, connect to history or even to find our places in a larger community. For the life of me, I'm having trouble putting it into words.
Let's go back a little bit. I remember the first time I saw Hal dancing. It was the clip from Twice Blessed, with Hal in the striped shirt. That was one of the first clips in my collection, and I still think it looks like nothing else before or since. When I first saw it the notion that the dancers in those old clips could be just a short drive away wasn't thinkable, but the dancing blew my mind nonetheless.
My friends and I eventually found our way to Bobby's. We would go every time without fail. I remember Hal as fairly soft spoken, sitting, smiling and from time to time coming out to impress us with some honest-to-goodness bad-assery. I remember Tip and Holly getting lessons from Hal about his signature move, the merry-go-round. Was that why we kept saying "you're doing it wrong" to each other all the time? If you don't remember they went on to win a ton of titles, and I believe their first awards could easily be attributed to their time with him.
See the striped shirt at 2:02.
I just remembered how all the boys sought out striped shirts, surely because of that clip I mentioned above. For a while that was the look everyone wanted.
How could I have not yet mentioned his dancing? The period when we were dancing at Bobby McGee's was the same period that we were first discovering all those beautiful clips that you can now find effortlessly on YouTube. It was also the time of the style war.
For those of you who weren't there, the style war of the aughts was known as "Savoy vs. Hollywood." It was fought by online warriors who generally knew very little about anything. It could be summed up by saying that some students enjoyed dancing inspired by Frankie Manning and the dancers of Harlem while others were digging the dancing inspired by Dean Collins and his protégés.
Hal Takier's dancing was something else. He was from Southern California, but from what I remember, his dancing predated Dean Collins's influence. He was dancing bal-swing, but at the time we barely had words for it. And anyway, Hal's dancing was Hal's, and it wasn't Savoy or Hollywood, and it was awesome.
My memories are starting to blur at this point. All I have left is to thank Hal for his kindness and his contribution.
Lindy Hop legend Frankie Manning has been hospitalized. Frankie can be viewed elsewhere in this blog in the dance clip from Hellzapoppin', in which he danced one of the most memorable and influential routines of all time.
Here is a re-post of an email sent by the organizers of the upcoming Frankie 95 event. That's the event celebrating Frankie's 95th birthday later this month.
Dear Friends of Frankie,
As you might have heard, Frankie entered the hospital a week and a half ago, due to problems with his medication. Then on Friday, he was taken into the intensive care unit after he developed pneumonia. It is a very serious situation.
Although he cannot talk or move his limbs, he recognizes people and responds to their messages of caring and love. Throughout all of this, his spirit remains strong and his family and close friends are with him.
Please take some time during your day to send Frankie healing energy, prayers and love, and tell everyone you know to do the same. You can also send him a personal note of encouragement here:
Frankie Manning, PO Box 737648 , Elmhurst NY 11373
Frankie needs our support!
Of course, we will keep you all updated as his condition changes.
