Dancing the Shim Sham

Hello, Swing Dance Club

If you were a part of the Swing Dance Club at St. Olaf College, your greatest duty was to insist that anyone you met who wasn’t in the club absolutely without a doubt HAD to come and try swing dancing. It wasn’t a written rule, it wasn’t an oral contract, the organizers didn’t even tell you to do it; you just did it. Because swing dancing was just that SUPER DUPER AWESOME AND AMAZING.

These implorations I first heard from my dear friend shortly after we met, way back in the fall semester of my freshman year of college. One night he visited my roommates and me in our dorm room and taught us a few Lindy Hop moves. This was very confusing to me, as I didn’t really have any dance classes to build off of. However, it was still good fun, and the several months of hearing “You should come to swing club!” thereafter eventually convinced me to venture to the dance studio come spring semester.

All those people who insisted that you had to join swing club were right. IT WAS SUPER DUPER AWESOME AND AMAZING. Jazz moves are joyful and quirky, and learning to string them together with a partner is challenging yet rewarding. Getting the feel of the pulse, finding a rhythm with one’s partner, feeling and responding to cues, brings a sense of satisfaction that can rarely be matched.

To this day, hearing any jazzy music automatically calls up memories - both in my mind and in my body - of Lindy Hop. Classics like Sonny Parker’s “Lavender Coffin” and Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing”, as well as modern hits with swung beats, like “Ex’s and Oh’s” by Elle King and “1,2,3,4” by Feist.

But once you’ve learned the Shim Sham, nothing get’s you moving like Jimmie Lunceford’s “Tain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It)”.

What’s the Shim Sham?

The Shim Sham is a line dance that utilizes solo jazz and tap moves like Tacky Annies, Boogy Forward and Boogy Back, and Shorty Georges, typically danced to Jimmie Lunceford’s “Tain’t What You Do”. Once the “line dancing” portion of the dance is complete, everyone finishes out the song by Lindy Hopping with the nearest partner they can find. During this section of the Shim Sham, whomever is “leading” the dance will yell out things like “Freeze!” or “Dance!” or “Slow motion!” or (like in St. Olaf’s case) “Itch!” all just to make the dance even more improvisational.

The modern Shim Sham is attributed to Frankie Manning, a giant of the Lindy Hop world whose legacy is scattered throughout the very fabric of swing dance. As the story goes (according to the Boulder Swing Dance site), a tap routine was developed in the 1920’s, which made its way to Harlem, where Frankie Manning and other dancers would dance along in the wings. Later, Manning adapted the choreography for swing, adding in other solo jazz moves. This sequence is what is commonly danced today in swing and jazz communities the world over.

But like any good jazz dance, there are areas left open for interpretation. I don’t mean solely the end of the dance, when everyone breaks out into social Lindy Hop. There are spots - little sections of 8-counts - where specific moves are not required. If one were to go on a world tour, dancing the Shim Sham in all corners and curves of the globe, one would find all the same moves, except for a spot here or there throughout the line dancing portion that is different in every location. For instance, at St. Olaf we would add in a Soulja Boy. In other locations, that same set of 8-counts might be a certain kind of shuffle, and so on and so forth.

Additionally, there’s a section of Lunceford’s song that leaves people to completely improvise as individuals. During this set of two 8-counts, the dancers are free to do whatever they so desire. Many sing and mime the words, some step in time in circles, others often interact with those adjacent to them, and generally do all manner of personalized dances. It is typically a fun-loving break in the choreography where people’s personalities get to shine.

All together, the Shim Sham becomes a complex sequence of choreographed line dance and improvisational self-expression, uniting people from all nations through a shared love of dance.

When that song comes on….

We all have that one song. Maybe more than one. When it comes on over the speakers, or out of the instruments of the band, it triggers a reaction deep inside. A tingle runs up the spine, the chest tightens with excitement, a flood of warm joy wafts through the body from the core to the extremities. It’s that one song, that song you can’t help moving to, that tune that gets into your head, your heart, your bones. You bounce up from your seat and shout, “I know this one!” and race to the dance floor.

For me, that song is Lunceford’s “Tain’t What You Do.” It’s a special reaction, because not only does it consist of the euphoria of hearing “that one song,” it is accompanied by a sudden connection with every single dancer around me as everyone begins clapping in time to the music. Suddenly the dance hall rings out with rhythm, suddenly I don’t have just one partner but ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred. Yet, I am still myself, and I bring my own personal touch to the movement of the crowd.

And while I’m tucked away in coronavirus quarantine, I can still hear that crowd, I can still feel that connection, whenever I hear that song, even if I’m dancing with no one but myself.