A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Quinne from the online ticketing service EventBrite about an article she was writing about lindy hop. We had a lovely phone chat for 15 minutes and I promptly forgot about it.
Yesterday her story went live on the EventBrite blog: “How Lindy Hoppers Moved Their Groove Online.” Thankfully I didn’t say anything too dumb (although I am not the founder of Yehoodi.com, as she writes, just it’s current editor).
“Last Saturday, I went to four different virtual dances and concerts in my home, which sounds kinda sad, but also really cool,” Panganiban laughs. “I can just kinda like, go to my friend’s live stream and watch him play jazz guitar and tip him on Venmo, then switch over to this other dance that normally happens in LA … Meanwhile, I’m going to the kitchen and cooking and playing with my cat.”
It’s a neat story about how the practitioners of the dance are innovating and experimenting to keep practicing their art in this time of quarantine. There’s some sweet quotes from Adam Brozowski:
Norma Miller, one of Harlem’s original Savoy Ballroom Lindy Hoppers, was known as the Queen of Swing before she passed away in 2019, but had some words of wisdom for Brozowski when they taught together in San Francisco. “She always said, ‘If you ain’t got a horse, ride a cow,’” he remembers. “This mantra … really described how she had to fight to stay innovative in a society that didn’t allow female Black artists like herself to succeed, and I think that her message is really relevant right now. Necessity if the mother of invention, [and] what we create now may help us innovate the next big thing.”
Read the whole piece here.