Balboa-Swing Dancing in the short Maharaja (1943)

Balboa-Swing Dancing in the short Maharaja (1943). Dancers Hal & Betty Takier. Brought to you by the San Francisco Jitterbugs, www.jitterbugs.info

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Balboa
• Swing
• Dancing

[LamarDL]

The dance in this clip is neither lindy hop, nor balboa. It is CA swing dancing/Randy Swing or just known as swing by the dancers. They incorporate a move called the flyin' lindy which is not the same as a lindy swingout. Hal and Betty also employ charleston steps, jigtrot and lollieswing. Altogether the use of these steps forms one style of dance as done by swing dancers in CA during the forties that is neither lindy hop nor balboa.

[jackp780]

wow Betty had some nice stems!

[59cadcoupe]

WoW - Some acrobatic moves!

[Lindyjoff]

R.I.P. Hal

[hebneh]

To quote Edward Everett Horton in "The Gang's All Here" (also 1943), "I hope that woman is his wife, because if she isn't, there should be a law!"

I especially note at 1:07 when Betty's being held upside-down while she and Hal execute "pecking", and her legs are splayed wide apart in the air. Not an acceptable move in a Hollywood film of that time, but permissible for a "Soundie" which only got shown on a jukebox-like machine in a bar or restaurant.

[allenlewis]

It's all about the foot work, and west cost swing is more laid back with the feet. my Mom was a west cost swing dance competitor in San Diego in the 40's she's in her 80's and still dances. This dance has some east and some west in it. I play in a hard hitten swing band today and see great swing dancing on most all my gigs, both east and west and also tex swing.

[sscalise03]

I got tired watching them! All that energy!

[JacobLA]

@varneydance In this particular case it is extremely valid to say that there is not any lindy hop in what Hal is doing. The girl does swing out but the timing is very different and the way the rotation in closed is done is also quite different from lindy hop (I've danced with Hal's wife Marge a number of times and you can get a feel for what it is just by her default way of "swinging out"). Hal never really danced lindy hop much, if at all (it was his own brand of swing).

[lindyhop411]

@fiddler123 Maharaja? It was probably a unique song written specifically for this soundie, similar to the song that's used in the Hellzapoppin' clip.

[fiddler123]

What is the name of this tune?



[varneydance]

...

Same goes for what we see in these clips. When I can easily identify aspects of these clips as Lindy, or bal, or shag etc. But when someone comes up and yells about the old timers not calling it that, it is similar to someone yelling at me for calling the theory of fluxion "calculus."

It is annoying, and serves to look for authority through obscurity.

[varneydance]

What I find interesting is how people will argue with fervor about what the old timers called what they were doing. Any time someone says "huh, that looks like Lindy Hop" someone will jump in with: "the old timers did not call it that, they simply called it swing. "

This is tiresome in my opinion.

While it is interesting from a historical point, people trot out this fact as if it makes them an expert.

Newton called developed the theory of fluxions. Now days people call it calculus.