''The Spirit Moves: A History of Black Social Dance on Film, 1900–1986'' is a documentary film by Mura Dehn chronicling the evolution of

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

social dance Social dances are dances that have a social functions and context. Social dances are intended for participation rather than performance. They are often danced merely to socialise and for entertainment, though they may have ceremonial, competit ...

throughout most of the 20th century. In its original form it consists of nearly six hours of rare archival footage shot over the course of thirty years. Since 1987 this complete version has only been available for viewing at a select few institutions (the Library for the Performing Arts at

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

in New York City and the Smithsonian). In 2008 the first three parts of Dehn's work, totaling two hours, were remastered and released on DVD by Dancetime Publications.

Mura Dehn

Background

Dehn grew up in Russia and was trained as a ballet and modern dancer in the style of

Isadora Duncan Angela Isadora Duncan (May 26, 1877 or May 27, 1878 – September 14, 1927) was an American dancer and choreographer, who was a pioneer of modern contemporary dance, who performed to great acclaim throughout Europe and the US. Born and raised in ...

. She was exposed to jazz as a child but didn't think much of it until, at the age of 20, she saw

Josephine Baker Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...

perform in Paris. She was thrilled with the vitality of the style: "Before, European couple dancing was very formal—too pleasing and too relaxed. But life was not like that. We needed something to energize us, to give us abandon. The Charleston gave us the spice of rhythm and syncopation." She began to incorporate it in her work and even put on a jazz concert in Vienna in 1925. In 1930, seeking the homeland of jazz, Dehn immigrated to the United States.

Motivation

Shortly after arriving in New York City, Dehn stumbled upon the

Savoy Ballroom The Savoy Ballroom was a large ballroom for music and public dancing located at 596 Lenox Avenue, between 140th and 141st Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Lenox Avenue was the main thoroughfare through upper Harle ...

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), ...

, an influential hotspot of African-American social dance. The dancing she found there was unlike anything she had ever seen—all of the energy of jazz she had come to love in Europe, with a characteristically American ease of movement. After immersing herself in the scene, Dehn realized what a tremendous waste it would be if such exceptional dancing was not somehow preserved for future generations. This sense of purpose took her away from her own dancing and became her life's work. Looking back on the matter years later, Dehn mused that "I sacrificed my career to promote the tidal wave of black jazz, to film the greatest dancers of the Savoy.… My contribution is to have assembled and preserved these dances as presented by their greatest exponents."

Summary

Organization

There are three parts to the publicly available version of the film, with a handful of chapters each. The original editing is preserved: Each chapter is prefaced with a short narration by Dehn to establish the setting and the performers while a list of the dances and styles to be shown is displayed.

Themes

Throughout the entirety of ''The Spirit Moves'', Dehn let her footage of the extraordinary dancing speak for itself. Her brief introductions at the beginning of each chapter do not touch upon any sociocultural analysis or other personal feelings. However, in the biographical short film ''In a Jazz Way'', filmed shortly before her death, Dehn revealed that she was always keenly aware of the dominant feelings in African-American society and their manifestations in dance.

The Savoy dances, the main thing of the dance of that time, of the 1930s, was hope. They felt triumphant, they felt recognized. They felt that they could, through dance, through music, earn a position of equality ... Bebop was just the opposite. They found throughout during their work experience that nothing was going to be given to them, that they weren't going to be treated in the same way. Bebop is
hem A hem in sewing is a garment finishing method, where the edge of a piece of cloth is folded and sewn to prevent unravelling of the fabric and to adjust the length of the piece in garments, such as at the end of the sleeve or the bottom of the ga ...
turning their back on white influence, breaking up couple dancing, breaking up all the movements. It represented the broken up, disoriented, lost world in which they could only rely upon themselves.

Later, when questioned about the then-recent development of breaking (which she also documented), Dehn expressed her view that the style and its wild, athletic movements are a response to the pain and discomfort of growing up in the modern world.

Part 1: Jazz dance from the turn of the century to 1950

When Dehn first began her undertaking in the early 1930s, she faced a dilemma. To properly frame the current state of African-American social dance, she needed to record examples of styles from as early as the 1900s. As is true today, social dance progresses quickly and much had changed in the intervening decades. Unable to find the older styles performed in any of the modern venues, Dehn enlisted a group of talented dancers from the Savoy Ballroom to give demonstrations in a studio setting and fill in the gaps. The same format was also used to showcase the modern styles of dance of the 1930s and 1940s. The result is a clean, clear presentation of five decades worth of innovation in social dance that abstracts out everything but the movement of the dancers. Due to the technical limitations of film at the time, a separate soundtrack was added after recording the visuals; It features music of the same style as what was performed to by the dancers, but not necessarily the same songs. Chapter 1 of this section focuses on

Ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...

dances such as the Strut and

Cakewalk The cakewalk was a dance developed from the "prize walks" (dance contests with a cake awarded as the prize) held in the mid-19th century, generally at get-togethers on Black Slavery in the United States, slave plantations before and after End ...

, as well as Jazztime styles like the

Charleston Charleston most commonly refers to: * Charleston, South Carolina * Charleston, West Virginia, the state capital * Charleston (dance) Charleston may also refer to: Places Australia * Charleston, South Australia Canada * Charleston, Newfoundlan ...

of the 1920s and the Jazz steps of the 1930s (e.g. Susie Q, Black Bottom,

Shimmy A shimmy is a dance move in which the body is held still, except for the shoulders, which are quickly alternated back and forth. When the right shoulder goes back, the left one comes forward. History In 1917, a dance-song titled "Shim-Me-Sha ...

). Chapter 2 is all about the

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

, featuring examples of the

Rent Party A rent party (sometimes called a house party) is a social occasion where tenants hire a musician or band to play and pass the hat to raise money to pay their rent, originating in Harlem during the 1920s. These parties were a means for black tenants ...

, Shake Blues, and Gutbucket blues styles. Chapter 3 departs from the studio briefly to home in on practice sessions inside the Savoy: Trunky Doo,

Big Apple "The Big Apple" is a nickname for New York City. It was first popularized in the 1920s by John J. Fitz Gerald, a sportswriter for the ''New York Morning Telegraph''. Its popularity since the 1970s is due in part to a promotional campaign by th ...

, and Aerial Lindy are some of the styles demonstrated.

Part 2: Savoy Ballroom of Harlem 1950s

Dehn's familiarity with the Savoy Ballroom gave her the perfect setting to observe and record social dancing in its natural environment. Correspondingly, Part 2 consists of footage of the general public enjoying themselves on the dance floor. By a coincidence that could only have been deliberate, Leon James and Al Minns (two of the best Lindy Hoppers of the era) are in the crowd. Included is a dazzling recording of an aerial Lindy contest in which one of the two dancers is always in the air, with the role frequently switching between the man and woman.

Part 3: Postwar era, 1950s–1980s

When the Savoy Ballroom closed its doors for the last time in 1958, Dehn choose to depart Harlem as she continued her work. As a result, Part 3 was filmed at Public School 28 in Brooklyn and the

Palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...

in Manhattan. In it Dehn witnesses a complete revolution in Lindy Hop, from its fall out of popularity in the early 1960s to its revival in the mid-1980s.

Notable performers

Dehn captured performances by some of the most brilliant dancers of the age. ''The Spirit Moves'' includes footage of James Berry,

Pepsi Bethel Alfred "Pepsi" Bethel (August 31, 1918, Greensboro, North Carolina – August 30, 2002, New York City) was a jazz dancer, choreographer, and leader of his own dance troupe, the Pepsi Bethel Authentic Jazz Dance Theater, which he founded in 1960.T ...

, Teddy Brown, Thomas King,

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 b ...

Al Minns Al Minns (1 January 1920 – 24 April 1985), was a prominent American Lindy Hop and jazz dancer. Most famous for his film and stage performances in the 1930s and 1940s with the Harlem-based Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, Minns worked throughout his lif ...

, Willa Mae Ricker, Sandra Gibson, Leon James, Scoby Strohman, and Esther Washington—among many others.

References

External links

''The Spirit Moves'' Part 1, Chapter 3 (watch online)''In a Jazz Way'' (watch online)''Purchase from Amazon''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spirit Moves 1987 films Documentary films about dance Documentary films about African Americans Jazz films 1980s English-language films