The Jiving Lindy Hoppers dance company was dreamt up in 1983 and launched the following year in order to bring the dance known as The Lindy Hop back to life in the UK in its original form. Created in Harlem, New York City in 1928 the Lindy Hop has remained one of the most intriguing and entertaining of dance inventions of the 20th century, that has defied subsequent changes of dance taste by remaining popular with audiences all over the world.

Members of the elite Harlem dancing company, Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, first brought the Lindy Hop to Britain when they toured the UK in 1935 and 1937, and through the sequence they danced for the 1936 Marx Brothers film Day At The Races. The precision of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers' style of dancing was lost among the many variations of Lindy Hop/Jitterbug that were brought over by the US troops when they arrived in the UK en masse during the Second World War and then further diluted by the home grown jive styles.

The Jiving Lindy Hoppers endevour to emulate the beautifully high standards of dancing by original Lindy Hoppers such as Whitey's Lindy Hopper, so our audiences can enjoy great shows.

The Jiving Lindy Hoppers
at the Royal Albert Hall

 

Harlem had not given up on the UK though. Superlative Lindy Hoppers continued to visit and perform here, but the attempt that really hit home was the 1983 "invasion" by the "Mama Lu" Parks Traditional Jazz Dancers who re-established the original Lindy Hop in the UK. The Jiving Lindy Hoppers emerged directly out of the classes and performances she gave then, and the UK Lindy/Swing dance scene developed out of the JLH's performance and teaching activities that carried on Mama Lu's work after that.

 

Although the initiative to found the JLH was part of the emergence of several groups taking a new interest in the Lindy Hop in the USA and Europe, it was unique in that Warren Heyes and Terry Monaghan alone decided to make the construction of a "performance company" their central goal, and they did this two months before Mama Lu arrived on the London scene. Because the UK already had an up and running '50's retro dance scene, a competition ballroom-jive scene and other popular Lindy derivative dance forms being danced, Warren and Terry felt the most appropriate way to inspire and encourage other people to specifically dance the Lindy Hop in the UK would be by demonstrating clearly how unique and aesthetically perfect the original Lindy Hop really was. Establishing a top-flight performance company seemed to be the best means of accomplishing this. The company was actually founded in 1984, went full-time in 1987 and has remained continuously on the road ever since.

 

The subsequent extraordinary performance record of the JLH and the resultant UK "swing-scene" validated the original decision. As the company developed it stuck to the original plan as it became increasingly obvious as time passed how much more there was and is to learn about this dance and its other related forms that are parts of the Authentic Jazz Dance tradition than was originally supposed. The challenge of new performances, choreographic commissions, educational projects and residencies that required more specific understanding, and increasingly our involvement in academic research, underlined the reasons why the company should carry on striving to improve on what it does best - the Lindy Hop!

This section of the site provides a brief overview of the JLH itself and looks at the role it plays not only in the international Lindy Hop scene but the dance world in general, who its dancers are now, its Artistic Policy, some idea of the vast number of performances it has completed to date and of course Frequently Asked Questions.