Frankie Manning: 1914-2009

Somewhat uncharacteristicly for me, I became heavily involved with social dance a little over ten years ago. More specifically, I fell into the Lindy Hop scene in Chicago, and after I moved to Boston, I quickly infiltrated the scene there as well. I met my wife that way as well as many of my good friends.

Although no one person can claim to have invented Lindy Hop, arguably Frankie Manning did more to popularize it back in the 1930-40s and then more remarkably help repopularize it in the 80s and 90s when I was introduced to it. This guy was still dancing in his 80s and 90s with two artifcial hips and the same infectious enthusiasm for the dance that he had over 60 years prior.

Even at the end, he was planning on attending a Lindy Hop Festival in honor of his 95th birthday. What a wonderful, well-lived life. I can only hope I'm still actively doing what I love at that age.

Summerdance

I went to Summerdance this past weekend. Summerdance is a city of Chicago-sponsored event in Grant Park. The weather was perfect, low 70s, and low humidity. The band was good, and I saw a bunch of people that I've recently met in the Chicago swing scene. The only problem was that because the weather was so nice, there was so many people out that the dance floor became very crowded. When the dance floor is crowded with many, ahem, neophyte dancers, you end up with sore shins and ankles.


Afterwards, we wandered up to the Drake Hotel bar, which has a regular band, and best of all, is smoke-free. The Drake is one of those fancy hotels from the early 20th century. It is on North Michigan Avenue (not too far from the Apple store). I had one of rare drinks, a key-lime martini, and ate more than my share of the complementary trailmix-like munchies. Afterwards, a couple of us got a ride back to Grant Park (where my car was), by a a fellow dancer dude (thanks Mike!) Overall, it was a great evening.