“Jitterbug” or swing dancing has been around for nearly 100 years, originating in New York City in the 1920s. But this year’s champs couldn’t care less how old it is–they make it look as sharp and relevant as ever.
Jitterbug is also called the “lindy hop” dance and was actually the product of racial segregation–or to be more precise, it was developed in the one popular place in NYC that didn’t have racial segregation in the 1920s: the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Blacks and whites were allowed to dance together and the black patrons referred to the way some of the whites danced as looking like “jittering bugs.” But the dancing style caught on with both races and became a national phenomenon.
The 2022 National Jitterbug Championships took place in Hollywood over the Labor day weekend and featured some fantastic performances. Here we see Irina Amzashvili and Anthony Chen dancing to Ella Fitzgerald’s “All of Me” in a fantastic dance full of spins, energy and fancy footwork. These two did a fantastic job and definitely deserved first place.
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