Hollywood-Style Lindy Hop

From Free net encyclopedia

---

Current revision

Hollywood-Style Lindy Hop is a variety of Lindy Hop, an American dance, popularly associated with the Hollywood films in which white dancers such as Dean Collins starred in the 1930s and 40s.

Hollywood is the style seen in 1930s and 1940s movies. It was danced by Dean Collins, Hal Takier, Jean Veloz and others. The style was essentially lost in the post-WWll era, but it was reconstructed by dance historians in the late 1990s, including Erik Robison and Sylvia Skylar. They are credited with coining the phrase "Hollywood Style".

The Swing Out (the basic step of lindy) is danced in a position often described as someone about to sit on a stool, thereby bringing their center point of balance closer to the ground. This piked position is the classic look of Hollywood with a straight back straight and slight forward tilt. The Hollywood style is also a "slotted" dance, meaning the follow travels in a straight line instead of the more elliptical or circular Savoy style Lindy Hop.

Proponents of Hollywood Style Lindy Hop often say they're able to dance faster because of the use of counterbalance techniques, and people watching often remark at the smooth nature of the style. Much of this impression comes about because of the two dimensional nature of film. All the motion had to be captured in the two available dimensions whereas the Savoy-Style Lindy Hop is more of a three dimensional dance making it more difficult to present effectively on film. The film Hellzapoppin' has examples of Dean Collins doing the Hollywood Style, and Frankie Manning as part of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers doing the Savoy Style.

Other names for Hollywood Style often used by instructors other than Erik Robison and Sylvia Skylar: Smooth Style, LA Style, Dean Style, Collins Style, and often incorrectly as West Coast Swing. It's also common to simply drop the word "style" and say, "I dance Hollywood" or "I dance Dean" instead of the full moniker of "Hollywood Style" or "Dean Style".

One variation is LA style Lindy.