I may or may not have a man-crush on Carl Nelson. Just putting it out there.
Old video, but I seriously can’t get over how perfect Nina Gilkenson’s swivels are.
ALHC 2007, Pro-Am- Nina Gilkenson and Carl Nelson.
Nick Williams is a man of many talents. I like to imagine that he can crush walnuts in the crook of his muscular, muscular arms. Pro tip: get a private lesson with Nick or Carla Heiney. They are superb in their attention to detail and helping you understand how to improve your dancing.
This video is so incredibly amazing. I had no idea Nick Williams could sing.
Le Hot Sauce 2011- Nick Williams performance
“Growing up in the Lindy scene I have heard so many times how women should wear heels because that’s what women are suppose to do. We are women and women wear heels. Now I loved that traditional ideal but I never could get past the FEELING that being in heels gave me. Every attempt I had made to…
Swing Kids (1993)
I wonder if any movie has ever really captured a realistic representation of swing dance culture? I love Swing Kids (un-ironically, for your information), and the dance scenes are fun to watch, though understandably, these are actors and not professional dancers. So of course, their swing-outs are not the greatest ones ever danced, and the aerials are put in there for show. And it still makes for a fun watch! But I don’t know if I’ve ever gone to a dance before and seen people pop in aerials on such a crowded floor. In fact, I usually hear people complain when a dancer attempts to pull off an aerial when it’s so crowded, especially since it’s dangerous not only to the couple but all the dancers around them.
I’ve only really seen four movies with swing dance in them, Swing Kids and Malcolm X being the obvious ones. Swingers had that scene in it that I posted earlier (which was mainly east coast swing?), and … I don’t know if it counts, but Back to the Future had 50s dancing in it. Arguably swing, but I guess at that point it was rock n’ roll/boogie woogie. I think Swing Kids and Malcolm X consulted with Frankie Manning to try to capture the feel of the old dance halls, and it does work on the level of communicating the energy and passion present in the culture. Perhaps all the things you see in these clips don’t happen over the course of a single song, but they certainly do occur over the course of the night.
If only I had a time machine (flux capacitor!) to travel back to the Swing Era. What other movies out there have swing scenes in them?
Rockstar Games (the guys behind Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption) has a new IP on the way soon called L.A. Noire, a new crime thriller that takes place in 1940s Los Angeles. I was scanning through the screenshots for the game and came across this. It looks like there’s a couple dancing “the swing” in the picture (it could be Balboa; it’s California, after all). Here’s hoping that they actually mo-capped real dancers for however many seconds that dancing is in the game for.
