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Norma Miller
Norma Adele Miller (December 2, 1919 – May 5, 2019) was an American Lindy hop dancer, choreographer, actress, author, and comedian known as the "Queen of Swing". Early life Miller was born in 1919 in Harlem, New York City to mother Alma, a charwoman, and father Norman, a shipyard worker, both from Bridgetown, Barbados. Norma was named after her father, who died from pneumonia a month before her birth. She had an older sister, Dot. Even though her mother struggled to pay the rent, Norma was enrolled in dance classes from a very young age. At the age of five, she was performing at amateur nights in theaters. Miller knew she wanted to be a dancer very early on:"Black girls didn't have many outlets. You had laundry. You had hairdresser. Or teacher. Now, I didn't qualify for none of those. I could dance, I just could just do it naturally." When the Great Depression began in 1929, Miller and her family moved to a cramped and noisy tenement apartment on 140th street that overlooked ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), Central Park North on the south. The greater Harlem area encompasses several other neighborhoods and extends west and north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard (Manhattan), Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and 96th Street (Manhattan), East 96th Street. Originally a Netherlands, Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Harlem's history has been defined by a series of economic boom-and-bust cycles, with significant population shifts accompanying each cycle. Harlem was predominantly occupied by Jewish American, Jewish and Italian American, Italian Americans in the 19th century, but African-American residents began to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Bottom (dance)
The black bottom is a dance which became popular during 1920s amid the Jazz Age. It was danced solo or by couples. Originating among African Americans in the Deep South, rural South, the black bottom eventually spread to mainstream American culture and became a Novelty and fad dances, national craze in the 1920s. The dance was most famously performed by Ann Pennington (actress), Ann Pennington, a star of the Ziegfeld Follies, who performed it in a Broadway show, Broadway revue staged by Ziegfeld's rival George White (producer), George White in 1926. Origins The dance originated in New Orleans in the first decade of the 20th century. Jazz pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton wrote the tune "Black Bottom Stomp", its title referring to the Black Bottom, Detroit, Black Bottom area of Detroit, Michigan, Detroit. Sheet music from the mid-20s identifies the composers as Gus Horsley and Perry Bradford and claims the dance was introduced by the African-American dancer and choreographer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
