Savoy Dance in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory | Arts and entertainment

Savoy Dance

Locality: Canberra, Australian Capital Territory

Address: 20 Genge street 2601 Canberra, ACT, Australia

Website: http://savoydance.com.au

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24.01.2022 Another little gem from the Big Apple is the JUMP CHARLESTON from none other than our in-class lovable goofbag, Kieran Ramsay!

24.01.2022 Looking forward to dancing with you all tomorrow night as we solo jam together with The Shim Sham and Tranky Doo... all welcome!

23.01.2022 TONIGHT - WE DANCE! We're excited to welcome new dancers every Wednesday night, and tonight we have the privilege of sharing with you the Second Stops routine, as created and performed by some of the beautiful original swing and jazz dancers we have been featuring on a Monday night. See you at 6.30pm for solo jazz and/or 7.30pm for partnered Charleston!

22.01.2022 Introducing yet another incredible original Broadway dancer - on Vintage Monday! Willa Mae Ricker was one of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, featured in the famous 1943 LIFE magazine story on Lindy Hop with Leon James, along with the white Broadway dancers Stanley Catron and Kaye Pop, whose picture appears on the cover. The photographers of individual dance steps by Gjon Mili are sensational. Especially notable is this full page photograph on a black background of Willa Mae and Leon both exuberantly jumping in mid-air. Many think this picture should have been chosen for the cover of the issue as it is much more spontaneous and less contrived than the one that does appear. In fact, it was used on the cover of the European edition. Many lindy hoppers relate to the energy and pure joy that this photo exudes!

20.01.2022 **4 tickets now available for tomorrow’s Savoy Dance 2020 Christmas Social! If you’d like to join in the fun, head on over to TryBooking!

20.01.2022 Wishing all of our dancing friends a restful and healthy Christmas Day!

18.01.2022 Solo Blues Workshop TOMORROW Sat 18 July - come and join Steve Lade and Cathie Gough as they take you through three progressive Blues classes. Still a few places left - experienced and new blues dancers welcome! See event for full details!

17.01.2022 TONIGHT! We are thrilled to be introducing you to TWO new routines: 6.30pm Mama's Stew 7.30pm The Big Apple... All dancers welcome to both classes. 7.30pm choreography is slightly more challenging than 6.30 - but we will take our time to ensure everyone is on the journey with us! Come join in!

17.01.2022 Curious about SwingTrain classes, or want to try a solo dance class this morning? Jump on the SwingTrain Canberra Facebook page and Cathie will lead you through a fun 25 minute workout this morning at 9:30AM!

16.01.2022 Wishing our superstar Blues teachers a very Happy Birthday for today! Both Cathie and Steve celebrate their birthdays on the 15th December, we hope you have a wonderful day!!

16.01.2022 The video is out!! We were tickled pink to get together and dance this wonderful routine created by Vicki and Adamo. How many times can you spot Canberra dancers (Hint... more than twice!)?! Getting excited for this Saturday’s workshop - hope to see you there!

15.01.2022 The last swing classes for 2020 are TONIGHT!! We are silly excited to see our favourite students tonight and again on Friday at the Savoy Dance 2020 Christmas Social! Come and brush up on some of our favourite solo jazz routines at 6.30pm and then put the finishing touches on your newly acquired 8 beat lindy hop skills!

15.01.2022 We’re just going to leave this here.... Come along tomorrow night for some more shimmy action!

15.01.2022 Tuesday can only mean one thing - DANCING TOMORROW NIGHT!! Pack your dancing shoes for TWO HOURS of dancing goodness! At 6.30pm, we learn the First Stops routine - so many fun, quintessential swing era moves including the Charleston, fall-off-the-log, dorothy's, hallelujah rocks..... At 7.30pm, we continue to introduce partner Charleston. ... No experience or partner required for either class, but experienced dancers of course always welcome. See you at the Griffin Centre from 6.30pm tomorrow!

14.01.2022 Partner dancing classes restart Wed 16 Sept at 7.30pm! Solo jazz at 6.30pm. All welcome!Partner dancing classes restart Wed 16 Sept at 7.30pm! Solo jazz at 6.30pm. All welcome!

13.01.2022 Hello Vintage Mondays! Introducing Ruth 'Sugar' Sullivan. Sugar started her career as a performer, choreographer, teacher and professional dancer at the age of nine. She was a member of the Original Jazz Dancers, a distinguished group of lindy hoppers and hoofers from Harlem's heyday. Sugar has been featured with the Harlem Blues & Jazz Band, Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho Orchestra, Duke Ellington Orchestra, Count Basie Orchestra and Panama Francis and his Savoy Sultans, among others. Sugar learned to dance at home and started tap dancing at the age of three. She was instructed in tap by Buster Brown of the Copasetics at age seven. Sugar toured United States and Canada for 15 years with Sonny Allen and the Rockets.

13.01.2022 Frances "Mickey" Jones (25 January, 1919 - 9 May, 1982) was born and raised in Harlem, New York. Frankie Manning remembers her as a wonderful dancer who was exceptionally quick to catch on to new steps. She performed at the 1939 World's Fair and danced in Keep Punching, Hellzapoppin' and the famous soundie Hot Chocolates with partner William Downes. After Whitey's Lindy Hoppers disbanded, the pair continued performing locally as a tap act for a time. Mickey also performed in a tap duet with her sister, Sales, eventually going solo.

12.01.2022 Is this drizzly weather making you hungry?! Come and join us for some more of Mama’s Stew at 6.30 or take a bite out of the Big Apple at 7.30!

09.01.2022 Partner dancing classes restart Wed 16 Sept at 7.30pm! Solo jazz at 6.30pm. All welcome!Partner dancing classes restart Wed 16 Sept at 7.30pm! Solo jazz at 6.30pm. All welcome!

08.01.2022 Chazz Young (born 8 November 1932) is an American choreographer, dancer and actor. A spectacular dancer with a long and successful stage career, he was first inspired by his father, Frankie Manning. He became serious about dancing at the age of 12. He performed with Norma Miller's dance troupe at the famous Apollo Theatre with famous bands like Count Basie. He travelled extensively with the Norma Miller Dance Troupe, including to London, Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Like his father, Chazz taught dance while working foe the New York postal service for 26 years. He continues yearly trips to the famous Herrang Dance Camp in Sweden, where he has been teaching since the early 1990s.

07.01.2022 We’re just going to leave this here.... Come along tomorrow night for some more shimmy action!

06.01.2022 Hello to our Wednesday Night Big Apple friends! Here is the section we broke down last week - in case you'd like to practice before Wednesday :)

06.01.2022 Welcome to Vintage Mondays! We have been teaching some well-loved jazz moves and routines over the last two months and we would like to share with you just some of the incredible original dancers whom made these possible for us. To kick off this series, we would like to introduce lindy hop legend, FRANKIE MANNING! Frankie Manning (26 May, 1914 to 27 April, 2009) is considered one of the founding fathers of lindy hop. He began dancing as a child, then started attending the ear...ly evening dances at the Renaissance Ballroom. When he was older, he frequented Harlem's Savoy Ballroom in the 1930s (the name sake of Savoy Dance!), eventually becoming a dancer in the elite and prestigious Cats Corner - a corner of the dance floor where impromptu exhibitions and competitions took place. Manning danced in several performance groups, including the renowned Whitey's Lindy Hoppers and the Congaroos, touring extensively and making several films with the former. While with Whitey's, Manning danced with Norma Miller, who became known as the Queen of Swing. When the Congaroos disbanded in 1955, Manning settled into a quiet career with the United States Postal Service. Some 30 years later, Frankie Manning started his second career in dance, travelling the world as a renowned instructor and an inspiration to the lindy hop community around the globe. See more

04.01.2022 Another quintessential lindy hop image for Vintage Monday! Billy Ricker and his high school sweetheat and wife, Willa Mae (featured last Monday), were close friends with Frankie Manning from their pre-Savoy days in the early 30s at the Renaissance Ballroom till Ricker's death in 1987. Ricker was a member of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers and later worked as one of Norma Miller's jazzmen. Billy Ricker is credited with creating a style of the lindy hop called 'mutiny' in which a swing out is followed by one air-step after another. When Frankie Manning first saw Ricker doing this dance with Ester Washington, he exclaimed, "Billy, that's mutiny!" Meaning it was mutiny against the traditional lindy hop. The name stuck! And aerials are an optional but exhilarating element to swing dancing and many competitions still to this day!

02.01.2022 Another trip down memory lane for Vintage Mondays! Barbara Billups was Sonny Allen's partner after he won the Lindy Championships at New York's Harvest Moon Ball in 1958. Together with Sugar Sullivan, Barbara was one of the four ladies of Sonny Allen and the Rockets fame. The Rockets, a song & dance revue, grew out of the dancing at New York's Savoy Ballroom (namesake of Savoy Dance). They travelled across the United States and Canada, entertaining packed audiences in hotels and nightclubs everywhere!

02.01.2022 Free solo live FB class tomorrow morning - if you’d like a fun workout in the morning!

02.01.2022 Continuing on with highlighting some of the original dancers of the lindy hop, introducing Tops & Wilda! Wilda Crawford was born in Harlem NY in 1921 (and died in 1989) and began dancing out at the Savoy Ballroom as a teenager where Frankie Manning reports she was affectionately called Quack Quack, for her wacky behaviour! Together with her partner Thomas Tops Lee, the duo appeared in Keep Punching and Swing the Dream. In 1940, they won the Harvest Moon Ball, while Frankie and Ann got second place. Frankie says the name Topswas a play on his high opinion of himself! They continued to perform together for about 10 years after leaving Whiteys Lindy Hoppers in the early 1940s. They were originally slated to be in Hellzapoppin’ but because they missed a rehearsal, Frankie had to cut them from the gig.

01.01.2022 7 STEPS TO TURN YOUR SELF-IMPROVEMENT DESIRES INTO REALITY: Thought about trying or getting back into dancing, or simply want to take your dancing or exercise to the next level and are struggling? Read this....! https://zenhabits.net/7-steps-to-turn-your-self-improveme/