The Board of Directors of the Frankie Manning Foundation wishes to thank Mandi Gould for her many years of dedicated service. Mandi volunteered with our Ambassador Program from 2010-2012. After joining the board from 2012-2020 (with a leave in 2015), she worked tirelessly to support our mission of sharing Lindy hop and Frankie’s legacy with […]
Blog Posts
Video – Thriving in Crisis: The Chick Webb Orchestra and the Great Depression
Thank you to Professor Christi Jay Wells for this seminar on Saturday, May 30, 2020. ⭐For ESL, you can follow along with the script here. ⭐The full dissertation can be found here. Here is the video: About our guest speaker, Christi Jay Wells Ph.D. Christopher J. “Christi Jay” Wells is assistant professor of musicology at […]
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Contemporary Swing Albums to Purchase During COVID-19
Daphna Harel is a friend and supporter of the Frankie Manning Foundation. She has put together a wonderful list of swing music albums to buy during this difficult time. If you’re looking to build your music collection while supporting swing musicians, make sure to check out this list! CLICK HERE […]
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Hellzapoppin’ & A Day at the Races in Color!
Enjoy these newly released copies of Hellzapoppin’ and A Day at the Races, two of the greatest lindy hop performances of all time, now for the first time in color! […]
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Situating the Frankie Manning Foundation within the Context of Community Archives
Guest post by Zoë Webb Click here to view the document Existing literature is full of many, many articles attempting to define “community,” “archives,” and “community archives,” and exploring the reasons for–and value of–community archives. To sum up these articles, community archives exist because the community concerned feels either underrepresented or misrepresented within mainstream […]
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Norma Miller’s Harlem
A wonderful initiative by Karen Campos McCormack “So just a month to go for Norma’s 100th. Last year when I was staying in NY I created this map of Norma Miller’s Harlem, the venues where she danced and other important spots (most of them no longer standing) based on her memoir. It’s work in progress […]
The Story of Afro Swing in Mozambique
By Puxtana Manhiça Associacao Hodi Email: associacaohodi.cult@gmail.com It was in 2011, the year in which we met Lisa Josefsson. In a visit to the group she said she had something to share with us. We were very far from thinking that that sentence would be the beginning of a long journey and it would be […]
Frankie, our teacher
Guest post by ewa “W” burak I believe the music told Frankie what to teach in class. Frankie had often a song in mind that inspired him as he figured the material out, and in the corner of the room, right before class started, he shared it with me or one of the other followers. […]
Frankie Manning and Camino de Swingtiago
There was a time, back in the 90’s, when regional and stylistic differences in Lindy hop were front and center, and even the cause of dispute. During this period the term “Smooth Style Lindy” emerged, to differentiate itself from the Savoy Style of Lindy hop of Frankie Manning and other Savoy Ballroom graduates. Frankie Manning […]
Swingin’ in the Light in Dark Times
How “Swing” influenced Japanese-Americans Interned during World War II — Chad Kubo My Dad loved Big Band music and one day, when I was young, he showed me his collection of 78 rpm records. I asked him why he liked the music. “I discovered a love of Big Bands in the internment camp.” He had […]
Swingin’ Réunion – an event recap by Ewa “W” Burak
The following was written by Ewa “W” Burak, lindy hop dancer, instructor, and former member of The Rhythm Hot Shots, Sweden who recently returned from teaching at Swingin’ Réunion along with Lennart Westerlund. Reunion Island Oct 12-14, 2018 I have always been fascinated by the helicopter perspective. What in the moments seems to be random events look different from […]
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Guest Post: Vote for Hellzapoppin’ for the National Film Preservation Board
Guest post by Ricardo Ferraro The internet has plenty of posts related to relevant lindy hop dance movies. But, what if there was a program to preserve the original copies of these movies ? Indeed, there is one: The Library Of Congress Film Registry from the Library Of Congress National Film Preservation Board. And the […]
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