Shim Sham Shimmy

Last night, as Song and I waited in the hallway outside Studio B for our tap class to begin, we were watching the beginner class practicing a routine that they've been learning for the past few weeks. At the time, I thought that the steps seemed vaguely familiar, but I didn't think much about it. Then, Keira (our instructor) started calling out some of the new moves that had been added this week, including the "Tackie Annie" and the "Half Break." That's when my ears perked up. I'd heard those terms before, but not in any tap classes, and I knew them well. In fact, I'd used them as recently as Saturday when a few friends and I went swing dancing. They were a part of the Shim Sham, a line dance that I learned about 5 years ago.

I first learned the Shim Sham in College Station, when I was learning to swing dance (thanks to the Texas Aggie Swing Cats). It wasn't until I started dancing in other cities and states that I realized that this wasn't a local dance, but rather, a very well known line dance in the swing dancing community. In fact, it was the most well known (because yes, there are many swing line dances, including the Jitterbug Stroll and Smiley's Charleston, which may be my favorite). Over the years, I learned that Frankie Manning, one of the founding fathers of Lindy Hop and American Swing Dance, was credited with developing the Shim Sham when he was dancing in Harlem in the 1930s (at Lindyfest in Houston a few years ago, I actually had the pleasure of doing the Shim Sham while Frankie Manning himself called out the moves at the ripe old age of 94).

Frankie Manning in Hellzapoppin', which is considered
one of the quintessential swing dance performances of all time.

Considering how swing-centric this dance is, imagine my surprise when I realized that Keira was teaching everyone a tap version of it! Imagine my further surprise when she told me that it wasn't originally a swing dance at all, but a well known tap routine that's been modified over the years to fit a number of different genres (or I guess mostly just swing dance, whatever)! As this information was pretty jarring for me, I decided to do some research.

Apparently (according to an un-cited article on wikipedia and backed up by a conversation I had in passing with my instructor... so pretty legitimate sources all around... don't judge me), the Shim Sham was first choreographed by Leonard Reed in 1927 as a tap routine. What started as a comedic act entitled "Goofus" that Leonard Reed and Willie Bryant performed when touring through the South, suddenly turned into a beloved tradition once the duo moved to the Shim Sham Club in New York. At the end of each performance, everyone would go up on stage, dancers, singers, and musicians alike, to perform the Shim Sham Shimmy together (thus renamed on account of the chorus girls' penchant for shimmying). The tap dancers would be more technical in their performance, while singers and musicians could shuffle along at their best depending on how adept they were at dancing.



How cool would it be to
see him tap dancing?

 From there, it was adapted by a number of people (including Leonard Reed himself, when he performed it with the World Heavyweight Boxing champ Joe Louis in 1948 - they called that version the Joe Louis Shuffle Shim Sham), which explains why there is currently no uniform choreography for it (everyone has the same basic gist, but with individualized flair). Frankie Manning was the one who modified it for swing dancing purposes, turning it into a line dance. He also added 2 phrases of choreography (which equates to eight 8-counts of music) including a "Boogie Back/Boogie Forward" phrase and a "Boogie Back/Shorty George" phrase (named for George "Shorty" Snowden, who was another founding father of Lindy Hop, as well as the one who gave Lindy Hop its name).

Isn't learning fun?!

Though it was a little challenging trying to re-wire my brain to learn a more technically complicated version of a dance I've done hundreds of times, I really enjoyed tap class last night. The dance as a whole was more difficult (especially when we tried speeding it up), but learning some of the steps as they were originally choreographed (or as close to it as we can get now) helped make some things in the swing version click better for me. If nothing else, it's great getting to experience first hand how different dance movements influenced each other.

As a bonus, here is a video I found on the interwebs of the Shim Sham. This video was made for Frankie Fest (also called Frankie 95), which was a celebration of Frankie Manning's 95th birthday. Unfortunately, Frankie was unable to attend the celebration, as he passed away a month before it was to take place. Not only does this video act as a beautiful tribute to a man who spent his life doing what he loved, but it also showcases how different cultures and groups have been able to take the Shim Sham and adapt it over the years.

Have you ever Shim Shammed? Should I have been so surprised that tap dance and swing dance use similar moves and dances even though they were both part of the jazz movement? Does anyone want to watch Hellzapoppin' with me later?