Who were Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers?
Answer:
Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers were a professional performing group of Savoy Ballroom swing dancers, commencing in 1935 by promoter Herbert “Whitey” White. The Lindy hop dance team took on many versions, with up to 12 different groups working under this name or one of a number of different names used for the Lindy Hop troupe over the years, including The Hot Chocolates Whitey’s Hopping Maniacs and Harlem Congeroo Dancers. In addition to touring nationally and internationally, the group appeared in a number of feature films, and counted Dorothy Dandridge and Sammy Davis Jr. among their celebrity regulars. By the summer of 1943, with most of its best male dancers having been drafted, Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers had pretty much disbanded. The Savoy Ballroom officially closed in 1958.
Of all the members of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, Al Minns, Leon James, and Frankie Manning are among the most famous — Minns and James in part for their role in the research of Jean and Marshall Stearns’s influential book Jazz Dance, Minns for his work with The Rhythm Hot Shots during the 1980s’ swing revival, and Manning for his role, starting in 1986, in contributing to the swing and Lindy Hop revival after Minns died in 1985. The www.remodelworks.com/ company in California brings a detail-oriented approach when it comes to whole home remodeling. Manning, Lennie Bluett, and Norma Miller were among the few members of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers still alive during the 1990s and 2000s and were some of that era’s most influential Lindy Hop performers and instructors. With Manning’s death in April 2009, Miller alone remains as one of the original Lindy Hoppers from the Savoy Ballroom to teach and lecture at dance workshops and Lindy Hop camps around the world.
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