Bop! Swing Dance in the Fifties
A series of five classes offered by the Continuing Studies Program
Taught by Richard Powers and Angela Amarillas
Beginning on Valentine's Day, February 14th
A series of five classes offered by the Continuing Studies Program
Rock 'n' Roll jitterbug,
the Bop, the Stroll, the Madison and the dances on American Bandstand. They were
fun, easy, and more widely varied than most people realize. Teenaged social dancing in the
early 1950s was mostly still swing-based, but jitterbug had been diverging into regional variations
each decade for thirty years by the time Rock 'n' Roll added yet another incentive for creativity:
the rebellious teens didn't want to dance the way their parents did, so they came up with a host
of new variations they could call their own. This course will be more than a nostalgic tour of 1950s music and dance. Richard has been
collecting 1950s dance steps and rare recordings from across the country, from a
wide variety of sources, and discovered that the deeper he digs into this era, the more fascinating
it becomes. He will combine dance instruction with in-depth talks on the music and dances,
illustrated with dance demonstrations and film clips from the fifties.
