Jason Lancaster

Charm City Swing will be hosting an amazing event, the LINDY 500, June 19-21. This is actually our second year hosting the event — it was held under the name “Leap Year Lindy Weekend” last year.

Just like last year, we have an amazing lineup of guests dancing with us and teaching workshops:
Kevin St. Laurent, Jo Hoffberg, Nina Gilkenson, and Michael Seguin.

We’re now less than 2 weeks away. Registrations are starting to pour in from everywhere — DC, Philly, New York, Boston, Cali, Atlanta, and more! We’re going to have a ton of great dancers again this year.

Last but not least, the band lineup:

• Friday: Cangelosi Cards
• Saturday: Boilermaker Jazz Band
• Sunday: Sac Au Lait

Whether you’re a beginner or very experienced, there will be something for everyone. Hope to see you there!

Keeping with the Lindy theme, I thought I’d post a really great interview with Frankie Manning a couple years ago. Most interesting to me is his description of what it was like to walk into the Savoy Ballroom every week. I can only imagine stepping into a ballroom full of 2,000 people with a band as amazing as Chick Webb or Duke Ellington playing. Man, what a time to have lived!

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Today is a perfect day to followup my last post where I had a few people ask me, “What is Lindy Hop?”

Lindy Hop formally began in 1927 using elements from jazz, tap, breakaway, and Charleston; and evolved with jazz music to become what we see in early videos like the infamous Hellzapoppin:
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