Shim Sham
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The shim sham or sham originally is a particular tap dance routine. It is credited to Leonard Reed, who originally called it Goofus, or to Willie Bryant. For swing dancers, today it is kind of line dance that recalls the roots of swing.
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[edit] History
In the late 1920s and the 1930s, at the end of many performances, all of the musicians, singers, and dancers would get together on stage and do one last routine: the shim sham. Tap dancers would perform technical variations, while singers and musicians would shuffle along as they were able.
[edit] Variations
As a result of this conglomerate background, there is not one universal "shim sham" choreography - there are several variations. When a group of people do the Shim Sham (especially a group of people from different cities), their steps will be largely similar with some variation and even some improvisation. One particular routine is quite common, and can be learned by intermediate dancers in a social setting. Three alternative routines (developed by Frankie Manning, Al Minns and Leon James (also called the "Savoy Shim Sham"), and another by Dean Collins) are more complicated and take some practice.
[edit] The dance
The Shim Sham is a 10-frame dance (each frame lasting four 8-counts), so it does not usually take up an entire song. After the Shim Sham, dancers typically grab a partner and break into lindy hop for the remainder of the song. During this portion of the song, the band or a DJ may call out "Freeze!" or "Slow!" instructing the dancers to either stop where they are or dance slowly, calling out "Dance!" to tell everyone to resumes normal dancing. The Shim Sham goes best with swing songs whose melody lines start on beat eight. An obvious choice is The Shim Sham Song (Bill Elliot Swing Orchestra), which was written specifically for this dance and has musical effects (e.g., breaks) in all the right places.
