The Shim Sham Shimmy, Shim Sham or just Sham originally is a particular

tap dance Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perf ...

routine and is regarded as tap dance's national anthem. For today's swing dancers, it is a

line dance A line dance is a choreographed dance in which a group of people dance along to a repeating sequence of steps while arranged in one or more lines or rows. These lines usually face all in the same direction, or less commonly face each other.Knight, ...

History

In the late 1920s, when

Leonard Reed Leonard Reed (January 7, 1907 in Lightning Creek, Oklahoma – April 5, 2004 in West Covina, California) was an American tap dancer, co-creator with his partner, Willie Bryant, of the famous Shim Sham Shimmy (Goofus) tap dance routine. He was s ...

and

Willie Bryant William Stevens Bryant (August 30, 1908 – February 9, 1964) was an American jazz bandleader, vocalist, and disc jockey, known as the "Mayor of Harlem". Biography Born in Chicago, Illinois, United States, while growing up he took trumpet l ...

were with the Whitman Sisters troupe on the

T.O.B.A. Theatre Owners Booking Association, or T.O.B.A., was the vaudeville circuit for African American performers in the 1920s. The theaters mostly had white owners, though there were exceptions, including the recently restored Morton Theater in Athens, ...

circuit in Chicago, they created a tap dance routine they called "Goofus" to the tune

Turkey in the Straw "Turkey in the Straw" is an American folk song that first gained popularity in the 19th century. Early versions of the song were titled "Zip Coon", which were first published around 1834 and performed in minstrel shows, with different people c ...

. The routine consisted of standard steps: eight bars each of the Double Shuffle, the Cross Over, Tack Annie (an up-and-back shuffle), and Falling Off a Log. In early 1930s, the Shim Sham was performed on stage in Harlem at places like Connie's Inn, Dickie Wells's Shim Sham Club, the 101 Ranch, the LaFayette Theatre, and the

Harlem Opera House Harlem Opera House was a US opera house located at 211 West 125th Street, in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by architect John B. McElfatrick, it was built in 1889 by Oscar Hammerstein; it was his first theater ...

. At the end of many performances, all of the musicians, singers, and dancers would get together on stage and do one last routine: the Shim Sham Shimmy. Tap dancers would perform technical variations, while singers and musicians would shuffle along as they were able. For example, in 1931 flash dance act The Three Little Words would close their show at Connie's Inn with the Shim Sham, and invite everyone to join in, "and the whole club would join us, including the waiters. For awhile people were doing the Shim Sham up and down Seventh Avenue all night long," according to Joe Jones. According to tap dancer Howard “Stretch” Johnson the word "Shim" was a contraction of the term "she-him", a reference to the fact that the female chorus line dancers at the 101 Ranch were played by men. At the Savoy Ballroom, some lindy hoppers did the shim sham as a group line dance, without the taps. A bunch of dancers would just jump up and start doing the shim sham on the side of the ballroom, over in the corner. Although a few people might join in, most everybody else kept on dancing without paying any attention to it. In the mid-1980s,

Frankie Manning Frank Manning (May 26, 1914 – April 27, 2009) was an American dancer, instructor, and choreographer. Manning is considered one of the founders of Lindy Hop, an energetic form of the jazz dance style known as swing. Biography Manning was born ...

introduced the shim sham at New York Swing Dance Society dances, and he also created a special version of the shim sham for swing dancers. Frankie Manning's version of the shim sham caught on, and it's now done at swing dances worldwide.

Variations

There are several variations of "shim sham" choreography. There is the choreography used by Leonard Reed and Willie Bryant, as well as a number of variations by Leonard Reed and others. Other "shim sham" choreographies include ones by

, Al Minns and Leon James (also called the "Savoy Shim Sham"), and Dean Collins. The Leonard Reed Shim Shams: * The original Shim Sham from 1927, a 32-bar chorus composed of four steps and a break * The Freeze Chorus, circa 1930s, the original Shim Sham without the breaks * The Joe Louis Shuffle Shim Sham, 1948, a tap-swing dance 32-bar chorus number that Leonard Reed performed with the World Heavyweight Boxing champ Joe Louis * The Shim Sham II, 1994, a 32-bar chorus dance based on the original Shim Sham * The Revenge of the Shim Sham, 2002, a 32-bar chorus dance, Leonard Reed’s final Shim Sham, which builds upon his original four (the name was suggested by Maxwell DeMille at a performance at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles).

The dance

The Shim Sham is 10 phrases of choreography (each phrase lasting four 8-counts), so it does not usually take up an entire song. After the Shim Sham was over, the dancers then would exit either stage left or right, depending on what was agreed upon for that show. Today in the Lindy Hop scene, once the Shim Sham choreography is over, dancers typically grab a partner and break into

lindy hop The Lindy Hop is an American dance which was born in the Black communities of Harlem, New York City, in 1928 and has evolved since then. It was very popular during the swing era of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Lindy is a fusion of many danc ...

for the remainder of the song. During this portion of the song, the band or a DJ may call out "Freeze!" or "Slow!" instructing the dancers to either stop where they are or dance slowly, then call out "Dance!" to tell everyone to resume normal dancing. The Frankie Manning version repeats the basic choreography (replacing each of the break steps with an 8-beat hold), then adds two Boogie Back/Boogie Forward phrases and two Boogie Back/Shorty George phrases to the end of the second repetition of the basic choreography. Only after the final Shorty George is completed do the dancers break into freestyle Lindy Hop.

The music

The Shim Sham goes best with swing songs whose melody lines start on beat eight, as does the choreography. An obvious choice is The Shim Sham Song (Bill Elliot Swing Orchestra), which was written specifically for this dance and has musical effects (e.g.,

breaks Break or Breaks or The Break may refer to: Time off from duties * Recess (break), time in which a group of people is temporarily dismissed from its duties * Break (work), time off during a shift/recess ** Coffee break, a short mid-morning rest ...

) in all the right places. However, today the Shim Sham — particularly the

version — is danced more often to "'Tain't What You Do (It's The Way That Cha Do It)" by

Jimmie Lunceford James Melvin Lunceford (June 6, 1902 – July 12, 1947) was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader in the swing era. Early life Lunceford was born on a farm in the Evergreen community, west of the Tombigbee River, near Fulton, Mi ...

and His Orchestra, or "

Tuxedo Junction "Tuxedo Junction" is a popular song written by Erskine Hawkins, Bill Johnson, and Julian Dash with lyrics by Buddy Feyne. The song was introduced by Erskine Hawkins & His Orchestra, a college dance band previously known as the Bama State Collegi ...

" by

Erskine Hawkins Erskine Ramsay Hawkins (July 26, 1914 – November 11, 1993) was an American trumpeter and big band leader from Birmingham, Alabama, dubbed "The 20th Century Gabriel". He is best remembered for composing the jazz standard "Tuxedo Junction" (1 ...

. In fact, it is typical now at a Lindy dance party for dancers to start up a Shim Sham whenever "'Tain't What You Do" is played. There is also a recording "

Stompin' at the Savoy "Stompin' at the Savoy" is a 1933 jazz standard composed by Edgar Sampson. It is named after the famed Harlem nightspot the Savoy Ballroom in New York City. History and composition Although the song is credited to Benny Goodman, Chick Webb, Edgar ...

" with the George Gee band where Manning himself calls out the moves.

The steps

These are the steps of the original 32-bar Shim Sham:

Step 1: The shim sham/double shuffle

The break

Step 2: Push and cross/Crossover

Step 3: Tacky Annies/Tack Annies

Step 4: Half breaks/Falling-off-the-log

References

{{reflist , refs = {{cite book , last = Stearns , first = Marshall and Jean , year = 1994 , title = Jazz Dance: the story of American vernacular dance , publisher = Da Capo Press , isbn = 0-306-80553-7 , pages
195–196
, url-access = registration , url = https://archive.org/details/jazzdancestoryof00stea/page/195 {{cite book , last = Frank , first = Rusty , year = 1994 , title = Tap! the greatest tap dance stars and their stories , publisher = Da Capo Press , isbn = 0-306-80635-5 , pages
43–44
, url = https://archive.org/details/tapgreatesttapda0000fran/page/43 {{cite book , last = Feldman , first = Anita , year = 1996 , title = Inside Tap , publisher = Princeton Book Company , isbn = 0-87127-199-0 , pages = 105–106 {{cite book , last = Boyd , first = Herb , year = 2000 , title = Autobiography of a People: three Ccnturies of African American history told by those who lived it , publisher = Doubleday, a division of Random House , isbn = 0-385-49278-2 , pages
260
, url-access = registration , url = https://archive.org/details/autobiographyofp00boyd/page/260 {{cite book , last = Valis Hill , first = Constance , year = 2010 , title = Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History , publisher = Oxford University Press , isbn = 978-0-19-539082-7 , pages
80
, url = https://archive.org/details/tapdancingameric0000hill/page/80 {{cite book , last = Manning , first = Frankie , year = 2007 , title = Frankie Manning, Ambassador of Lindy Hop , publisher = Temple University Press , isbn = 978-1-59213-563-9 , pages = 70, 226

External links

The Shim Sham Steps For Swing Dancers
( PDF) Line dances Tap dance Lindy Hop