Translator: Riaki Poništ Reviewer: Denise RQ
Good evening.
My name is Ryan Francois.
I'm a choreographer, and I'm excited and inspired to get the chance
to talk to you about my favorite dance: the Lindy hop,
and its impact on the world today.
You're probably wondering what the Lindy hop is,
so let me give you a brief history lesson on what it's all about.
(Audience) Hey! Ryan Francois: Hey!
(Laughter)
RF: I like that.
In 1927, a young aviator called Charles Lindbergh
flew the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
He flew from New York City to Paris in "The Spirit of St. Louis."
The front page headlines of the New York Times,
to celebrate this particular historic event read,
"Lindy hops the Atlantic."
This not only inspired a nation,
the headline also gave its name to a new dance style
that was growing in Harlem.
They called it the Lindy hop.
(Music starts)
(Music ends)
RF: Best dancers -
(Applause)
the best dancers came from a place called The Savoy Ballroom in Harlem.
At first, the Lindy hoppers would only do what we call floor steps,
meaning they didn't really take their feet off the ground,
until a young and very talented man called Frankie Manning
invented the first air step.
He did it by throwing his partner over his back
and with a quick-witted genius, he decided to call the step "Over the Back."
(Laughter)
In this moment, Lindy hoppers everywhere took to the air.
(Music starts)
(Music ends)
(Applause)
Originally an African-American black dance,
and in part inspired
by Benny Goodman's concert at Carnegie Hall in 1938,
the Lindy hop became known as the jitterbug.
In contrast to the African American style, though,
this new dance craze was mainly for a white populace,
particularly during the Second World War.
(Music starts)
(Music ends)
(Applause)
Sorry, I'm a dancer; I find myself kind of moving to everything.
After the war, dance trends changed; the Lindy faded away.
That is until the 1980s,
when, inspired by old movie clips,
a bunch of young new dancers from the UK, from Sweden, from the USA
- myself included - started what we called the Lindy revival.
Pockets of Lindy hoppers emerged, but there was a problem:
The technology needed to do this dance, to research this style was weak.
We had no Internet, we had no DVDs,
no CDs, no mobile phones, no Internet, really.
In those times, if you wanted to learn how to do this dance,
what I had to do is, I had to get on a plane from New York -
sorry, from London, and I'd fly to New York.
I'd go to a place called the Lincoln Center, we'd sit,
and we'd watch this documentary called "The Spirit Moves,"
which would show you film footage of the Savoy Ballroom;
what it looked like from the inside.
But what you had to do then, is you had to try and memorize it all;
and once you've memorized this thing,
you'd get back on a plane, and you'd go back to the UK.
This was the only way to do it.
So, we struggled at first
to take this technology into, or at least to learn this style of dance.
Different pockets of dancers emerged in different countries,
and they were unaware of each other's efforts to recreate this dance.
At first, we started with dance companies,
but eventually, we propagated the dance in these things we called dance camps.
The Swing World was born,
but it was still a little slow communication.
We decided that we needed to take the dance,
and we saw it in different communities everywhere.
The different communities had a different way
of approaching these different styles.
In some countries and the UK,
a style of dance that we did, a "Swing Out," it looked like this.
So this was a UK Swing Out.
(Scatting)
When doing the UK Swing Out, often we just a hang back on the partner,
so that she got like this big, dipping push to the step.
But it looked very different when they did it in New York.
(Scatting)
In New York, it was much more upright, and they'd hold on all the way to the end,
which is very different to the style in Sweden.
(Scatting)
Swedish -
(Laughter)
- and I don't know why -
(Laughter)
I think they'd thought they were black.
(Laughter)
You know what I mean? It's like... getting down.
(Applause)
But in California, in Pasadena, they did it something like this.
(Scatting)
And this, they started to call "Hollywood style,"
much more like what you think of as the jitterbug.
Thank you.
These very basic differences -
(Applause)
these basic differences in styles and approaches to the dance
carried on like this for the next two decades,
but something happened.
I remember when I first got a computer.
It was a gateway, this sort of big screens,
it had these big keys like this,
It was the first time I'd ever seen a computer,
but we were told we should have one of these things.
The first thing I did was I turned it on,
and I wanted to understand what this thing called email was.
If you were you around then, email was AOL.
So, the first thing I clicked, it said, "You've got mail."
I clicked on "You've got mail," but I didn't have -
I didn't know anyone else who had email.
(Laughter)
So, my first email actually came from AOL
saying, "Hey, this is how you accept email."
But things changed.
Dancers became aware of each other because of this technology.
Dancers became aware of each other.
They shared their ideas.
Communities grew.
Through this medium of the Internet, we became aware of each other.
They started to teach each other, share their ideas,
move this dance into another world.
We propagated the dance
by showing it in competitions,
in dance halls, on stage;
we showed the dance by showing it
through Facebook, YouTube, Google, Twitter;
but to begin with - Myspace.
Yeah, you remember Myspace.
Dancers began sharing this dance,
taking it around the world, sharing their ideas,
exposing us to this thing called the Lindy hop.
So, I say, "Thank you."
"Thank you" to the Internet,
"thank you" for taking my dance, sharing it, and spreading it
across over 110 countries across the world,
"thank you" for taking me and making me a swing, Harlem globetrotter.
(Laughter)
But -
I welcome that we have this thing called the Internet,
I welcome that we share, globally, this dance,
I welcome that we share the history of the dance,
that we share with different countries,
that we get ideas and styles from different places.
But what has happened to the styles of the dance,
now that we share this thing?
What has happened to my dance,
what has happened to the Swing Out, that was different in the UK,
different in Sweden, different across the world?
If you look at a swing out,
you'll see that they pretty much look the same.
It's great that we have global sharing,
it's great that we share ideas of the dance,
it's great that we share with other countries
and that we learn from each other,
but what I like about the Lindy hop
is that it's about the creativity of an individual dancer.
I want to have a community where we share via the Internet
but I'm afraid, that sometimes,
it may take away from the diversity of what we do.
Never -
or try to keep in mind that our creativity comes from a single mind.
Try not to think that it's ever a bad thing to be different.
There's nothing wrong with having a different idea,
but surely, being different is what it's all about.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)