The Masters of Lindy Hop and Tap

Time travel being what it isn’t, we can’t really ask Mozart any questions about his work, but we can still hear Frankie Manning talk about the origins of swing dancing. Manning was one of the original Lindy Hoppers, the high-flying dance named after Charles Lindbergh’s 1920s “hop” over the Atlantic from New York to Paris. Manning is still here, and Century Ballroom doyen Hallie Kuperman has brought him to Seattle several times before, to teach and to reminisce. But what started as a simple workshop has grown up into a festival of rhythm dancing—five days of classes, demonstrations, films, panel discussions, and performances, capped off by general dancing for all. It’s all fabulous, but any event that includes Manning, or his fellow Lindy Hoppers Norma Miller, Sugar Sullivan, Barbara Billups, and tapper Jenny LeGon, will give you a direct link to a past that will take you over the moon.