History of Rock & Roll

Ballroom dancing

While the music of rock and roll comes mainly from the country and R & B, rock does not inherit his dance from these musical forms.
Dances that were fashionable in the U.S. in the 20’s were mainly the famous Charleston, black bottom and a few other little steps of short and fast movements with the name of animals: turkey trot (trot turkey), fox trot (fox trot) ... As the music accelerated, the movements became faster and caught up.

Also in the same decade blacks danced a rhythm called North Texas or breakaway Tommy, whose translation could be something like <break and get away> and that was because the couple had a break on the steps they were doing, the man departed of women and then to come back to continue dancing. This dance was popularized in 1927 and renamed it the day Lindy Hop, jump <the Lindy> ... but who was Lindy? Well, it was an affectionate way of calling (and honor) Charles Lindbergh, who had recently performed the feat of crossing the Atlantic with his plane <Spirit of St. Louis>. The top place to go dancing this rate of 8 times was the Harlem Savoy Ballroom, and the father figure and this dance was Frankie Manning.

The Lindy Hop is danced to the beat of popular swing orchestras of the time: Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington ... The relationship between dance and music was in crescendo, and it was mutually stimulating: the dancers danced faster than accelerating musicians music, which encouraged the dancers to perform an even more frenetic dancing and in turn this will cause the musicians played with a crazy rhythm that the dancers performed reaching incredible levels of expression and creativity in both carriers.
In 1937, Benny Goodman gave a recital at the Paramount Theater in New York. The attendees were so motivated by the music started dancing in the aisles of the hall, and the next day the newspapers gave the name to that of jitterbug dancing. From the jitterbug also emerge dances as the boogie-woogie and swing- boogie, and begins to use the term Jive generically to refer all the dances, were they of 6 or 8 times, successors of the Lindy Hop. In all the cases were still dancing to the rhythm of swing and Dixieland.
After the 2nd World War, the big bands are reduced and transformed in groups or bebop or <jump blues>, a pace that led to the dance. Little by little features are moving away from dance music and swing, as the music evolves into rockabilly branches of the tree of music and dance together in a single identity that is undisputed and the rock and roll.

While it is undeniable and obvious marriage of rock and roll music and rock and roll and dance, its origins were somewhat different. Consider the pedigree of the dance music compared to rock and roll.

At the dawn, of the Rock there were no discs or players: young Americans went to the dances that are usually organized in the gymnasium of the school. These dances are called "hops" or, in some cases, "cotillions" given the decor of the place with items cotillion (remember, for example, from the movie “Back to the Future”. Normally used as basketball courts with hardwood floor, used to prohibit the use of shoes and slippers for less than less (which squeaking!) Not to ruin, hence the name "sock hops". At that time, it had to come in pairs, and the man who had to dance the first and last <piece>. For the rest, the girls had a card or cards, so if a guy wanted to dance with a girl, he formally requested a piece, and recorded in the card. Respecting the dance card, if he had regrets later, to mourn the church had to dance like that!
In Argentina, the method of “carnecito”, but also took the invitation pitching inherited from tango around the dance floor and tables are available to imagine the scene: an entire trouser press crosses the track to get the girl to dance and this tells you no. Horror and great detriment to his manly pride! The tango developed a more dignified way of being rejected without (almost) nobody knows: both ladies and gentlemen are looking around and when a gentleman wants to invite a lady, makes a motion with the head (as a kind of assent or indicating with his head in the direction of the track If she agrees, she nods and both are on the track, or the boy comes to the table of the girl. If she is not interested in the gentleman, she just turns her face. And smart his Argentine machismo is sheltered and free of injuries. This system is still used in the milongas until today.
Recall that in those days was slow too ... but also remember that many times mothers (vigilant!) used to accompany the girls to dance, so everything was made even more difficult!
Beyond the dance styles that today exist: rockabilly, rock, lounge, rock, stone, etc., dancing the same steps with the other rock rhythms, such as country and Dixieland. The dance can be finer or more Guarro, simpler or more complex, including in this case up stunts and acrobatics that are the subject of global competitions. But the important thing is to express all our energy and our desire the universal power of rock, while fun and enjoy the powerful music of rock and roll.

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