Frankie Manning

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Frankie Manning in Herräng, 2005
Frankie Manning in Herräng, 2005

Frankie Manning or Frankie "Musclehead" Manning, born Frank Manning in Jacksonville, Florida, on May 26, 1914, (94) is an American dancer, instructor and choreographer. Manning is considered to be one of the founding fathers of Lindy Hop.

He frequented Harlem's Savoy Ballroom in the 1930s, eventually becoming a dancer in the elite and prestigious "Kat's Korner", a corner of the dance floor in which impromptu exhibitions and competitions took place. During a dance contest in 1935, Manning and his partner Frieda Washington performed the first air step (often referred to as an aerial) in a swing dance competition at the Savoy Ballroom. The air step he performed was a "back to back roll" and was danced while Chick Webb played "Down South Camp Meeting" (which was Frankie's request after having heard the song earlier in the evening).

In 1935, Herbert White organized the top Savoy Ballroom Dancers into a professional performance group which was eventually named Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. Frankie created the troupe's first ensemble Lindy Hop routines and functioned as the group's de facto choreographer, although without that title. The troupe toured extensively and made several films. Whitey's Lindy Hoppers became disbanded around the time of WWII since many of the male members were drafted. After the war in 1947, Frankie created a small performance group called the Congaroos. When the Congaroos disbanded in 1955, Frankie settled into a career with the United States Postal Service.

In 1982, Al Minns, a former member of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, started to teach Lindy Hop at the Sandra Cameron Dance Center where he introduced a new generation of dancers to the Lindy Hop. Before he died in 1985, he told his students that Frankie Manning, another surviving member of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, also lived in New York City. In 1986, Erin Stevens and Steven Mitchell contacted Frankie Manning to ask him to teach them the Lindy Hop. He first said no before agreeing to meet with them. The two returned to California and helped spread the dance to the west coast as well as other areas in the U.S. That same year, Lennart Westerlund contacted Frankie Manning and invited him to Sweden to work with The Rhythm Hot Shots. Frankie Manning traveled to Sweden in 1987 and has returned to Sweden every year since 1989 to teach at the Herräng Dance Camp.

Frankie Manning received the Tony Award for co-choreography of the Broadway musical Black and Blue. In 2000, he was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship.[1]

In recent years, Frankie Manning's annual birthday celebrations have drawn together dancers and instructors from all over the world. His 80th birthday (1994) was commemorated by a weekend-long celebration in New York City; his 85th culminated in a sold out party at New York's Roseland Ballroom, where a pair of his dance shoes were placed in a showcase along with those of dancers such as Fred Astaire. For his 86th birthday, a huge gala was feted in Tokyo in his honor, which included workshops taught by the maestro himself. The climax of the festivities featured a live orchestra. Frankie drew a huge crowd of Japanese and foreign expatriate swing enthusiasts for this memorable occasion. Dedicated cruises were organized for his 89th and 90th birthdays. For his birthday dances, he followed his custom of dancing with one woman for every year of his life, partnering 89 and 90 women in succession, respectively.

Contents

[edit] Autobiography

Frankie's autobiography (Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop) was published May 28, 2007. It was co-written with Cynthia Millman. The book contains a collection of (often humorous) stories about the early days of swing dancing and his experiences dancing with Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. The book continues to recount his experiences up through the revival of swing dancing in the 1980s.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] References

  1. ^ 2000 NEA National Heritage Fellowships: Frankie Manning. National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved on 2008-04-02.

[edit] Further reading

  • Frankie Manning and Cynthia R. Millman, Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop, Temple University Press, 2007, ISBN 1-59213-563-3.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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