Lindy Hop Legend Frankie Manning dies at 94

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Frankie "Musclehead" Manning, a Harlem dancer and Tony Award-winning choreographer widely celebrated as one of the pioneers of the Lindy Hop, a breathlessly acrobatic swing dance style of the 1930s and '40s, died April 27 2009 at New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital of pneumonia. He was 94.

The effortlessly nimble Manning was a star attraction of Harlem's Savoy ballroom and brought to swing dance a flair for the theatrical that helped catapult the Lindy Hop from ballrooms to stage and screen, said Cynthia Millman, who co-wrote Manning's self-titled 2007 memoir.

His nickname ('Musclehead') developed from the chants of dancers, "Go, Musclehead, go!" as they watched Manning's strong and closely cropped head glisten with sweat as he kicked and spun himself, and his partners, into human propellers.

Appropriately, the dance reportedly owed its name to transatlantic aviator Charles Lindbergh, when one Savoy dancer told a reporter, "We flyin' like Lindy!"


Lindy Hop Dance

Original: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:14:00 GMT

Edited: Tue, 28 Apr 2009