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NEW DATE: June 5-6-7 weekend, 2026!All other details remain the same
1920s Jazz Age Dance Weekend!
Presented by Swing Toronto
Learn and do super popular 1920s Jazz Age dances, from a time when "everyone danced"!
Easy-to-learn, fun, engaging, vernacular, improvisational, free spirited, open ended.
Come to a 1920s Jazz Age Edition of Saturday Night Live Band Swing ft Ben Harvey and his Ornamentals!
Good music for Lindy Hop, swing dancing and 1920s dances.
Theme: Jazz Age Garden Party
Teachers: Cheryl Henry & Simon Threlkeld
Location: St Barnabas Upper Hall (2 minutes walk from the Chester subway stop and Carrot Common on The Danforth)
DRAFT SCHEDULE
Friday 7-11pm, Saturday 1-11pm, Sunday 2-7pm
FRIDAY NIGHT JUNE 5
1920s TWO STEP & SHIMMIE WORKSHOP, 7-9:45pm
- Two Step & Shimmie in 1920:
- Shimmie dancing circa1920:
- Gilda Grey, "the 1920s Shimmie Queen," photos: https://www.vintag.es/2023/05/gilda-gray.html
- Two Step in 1929:
- Learn 1920s Two Step, a smooth fun easy-to-learn style of Polka ("Polka without the hop"), and Shimmie. Two Step was extremely popular from from the 1890s through the 1920s. We will teach 1920s style Two Step, which is typically done in close embrace. Two Step is a precursor to swing dancing, and is where the triple step in Lindy Hop and swing dancing comes from. The first known swing dance, Texas Tommy Swing, from which Lindy Hop and other swing dancing developed, is, according to for example dance historian Richard Powers, an Afro-American reworking of Two-step/Polka.
JAZZ AGE DANCE PARTY 9:50-11pm
SATURDAY AFTERNOON June 6th
PEABODY WORKSHOP 1pm to 3:45pm
- Peabody & 1920s Charleston performance by Chad Fasca & Midori Asakura: https://vimeo.com/222761425?fl=pl&fe=vl
(Cheryl & Simon mainly learned Peabody from Chad & Midori.)
- Lindy Hop greats Frankie Manning & Norma Miller, illustrating some of the Peabody they did in the 1930s at the Savoy:
Peabody is an engaging and distinctive form of One Step, and was very popular in the Jazz Age, including at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom, the epicenter of Lindy Hop in the Swing Era. "All of the Lindy Hoppers" at the Savoy in the 1930s and Swing Era did Peabody, including Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, widely considered the greatest and most influential Lindy Hop performance group of all time. According to Frankie, Whitey's Lindy Hoppers included Peabody in their dance shows, before the highlight of their shows which was Lindy Hop with air steps.
SATURDAY NIGHT PRE-DANCE LESSONS 6pm to 7:40pm
- 1920s PARTNER CHARLESTON 6-6:30pm
- 1920s VERNACULAR FOXTROT and ONE STEP from FAST & JAZZY to SLOW & ROMANTIC, 6:30pm to 7:40pm
Film footage:
Some Jazzy Foxtrot in 1929:
Bad Boy Brody 1925:
Foxtrot was by far the most popular dance of the 1920s and 30s, (vernacular Jazz Age Foxtrot, not modern Ballroom Foxtrot which is something quite different). It is easy to learn, the basic step is just walking. Fox Trot in the 1920s was a broad concept. It can include One Step, Two Step, and alternating between slow and quick steps. It is free-spirited, varied, not rule-bound, and can be done at tempos from slow to fast, and everything in between, varying from wild and energetic to slow and romantic.
The swing music from the 1930s and 40s that is played at swing dances today, is almost always described, on the original records and sheet music from the 1930s and 40s, as music for Fox Trot. (Because that is what people mostly danced, including to swing music.)
In the mid 1920s there was a huge Charleston dance craze. 1920s Charleston is still widely done today, including by Lindy Hoppers around the world.
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE BAND SWING - ROARING 20s JAZZ AGE EDITION, 7:45-11pm
Band: Ben Harvey and his Ornamentals! (The 1920s Jazz Age edition of the Ben Harvey Combo, one of our favourite Saturday Night Swing Bands.)
Theme: Jazz Age Garden Party
Jazz Age attire is encouraged but optional
Traveling dances on the "outside track," non'-traveling in the middle, (as was done at the Savoy Ballroom and elsewhere in the Jazz Age and Swing Era).
SUNDAY June 7th
WALTZ IN THE 1920s WORKSHOP 2-4:45pm
- Learn 1920s style Waltz
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- 1920
DANCE PARTY 5-7:30pm
Swing Toronto website: https://swingtoronto.com
Facebook calendar of all Swing Toronto and Waltz
Toronto events: https://www.facebook.com/SwingTorontoPage/events
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
St. Barnabas Upper Hall 175 Hampton Ave, Toronto, ON M4K 2Z3, Canada
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
