Manitoba Peregrines > McKenzie Seeds Peregrines
Names for the Chicks
The Peregrine Chick:
George - after "Shorty" George Snowden
George Snowden was the top dancer in the Savoy Ballroom from its opening in 1927 into the early 30's, when he formed the first professional Lindy Hop troupe, the Shorty Snowden Dancers. They performed with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra at the Paradise Club downtown through most of the thirties.
Although he was barely five feet tall, Snowden made his height an asset rather than a liability. With comic genius, he parodied himself in his signature "Shorty George" step, in which his bent his knees, swinging from side to side, exaggerating his closeness to the ground.
Shorty's partner, Big Bea, towered over him. They often ended their routines in a comic move in which she carried him off the dance floor on her back. Frankie Manning says that this move inspired him to create his first air step, in which his partner started out on his back and then she flipped over his head and landed on the ground. Ironically, Shorty was defeated by Manning in a major competition when Manning introducted this first air step in 1935. Manning replaced Snowden as reigning king of the Savoy.
Manning remembers his first idol and sometime competitor at the Savoy this way: "Shorty was a great comic dancer who knew his art well, like Jack Benny on violin and Victor Borge on piano.He brought comical moves to Lindy Hop and intricacies of footwork."
Snowden is often given credit for giving Lindy Hop its name. As the story goes, there was a charity dance-marathon in New York City in 1928, shortly after Charles Lindbergh's (known as "Lucky Lindy") triumphant "hop" across the Atlantic. A reporter saw Snowden break away from his partner and improvise a few steps in a style that was popular in Harlem. "What was that!?" he asked. Snowden thought for a few seconds and replied, "I'm doin' the Hop...the Lindy Hop". The name stuck.
In recent years some writers have challenged the authenticity of the popular story about Short George naming the Lindy Hop. When asked about this, Frankie Manning has said, "All I can say is that I heard the story from Shorty George himself. The other fellas from that time were standing around listening and they didn't say 'Aw, come on Shorty, quit the BS' --- which they would have said if it wasn't true."
source & videos = http://www.savoystyle.com/shorty_george.html
The Peregrine Chick:
Lindy - besides being the name of this year's only female at McKenzie Seeds, it is also the theme for his year's names = the Lindy Hop.
According to Wikipedia, the History of Lindy Hop begins in the African American communities of Harlem, New York during the late 1920s in conjunction with swing jazz. Lindy Hop is closely related to earlier African American vernacular dances but quickly gained its own fame through dancers in films, performances, competitions, and professional dance troupes. It became especially popular in the 1930s with the invention of aerials. The popularity of Lindy Hop declined after World War II, and the dance remained dormant until revived by European and American dancers in the 1980s.
The origins of the name 'Lindy Hop' are much debated in Lindy Hop communities today. One account is that "Lindy" was the slang in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for young woman and that "hop" was a term for swing dancing and was used by early Texas Tommy dancers to describe the basic move for their dance. Another account is that dancer "Shorty" George Snowden renamed the breakaway dance he performed during a dance marathon in 1928 in Harlem. Fox Movietone News was covering the marathon and filmed a close-up of Shorty's feet and when the interviewer asked him what he was doing, Shorty replied (apparently without stopping his dancing) "the Lindy". A particularly popular account believed to have been created by a reporter wanting to make his story on Shorty Snowden more sensational was that the dance was named after Charles Lindbergh's 1927 transatlantic flight - "Lindy" was Lindbergh's nickname and "hop" for the staged flights necessary to cross the ocean.
For a much longer & more detailed history on the Lindy Hop = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lindy_Hop
The Peregrine Chick:
The Brandon Chicks have new names ... and yes, there is a theme for their names this year ...
left to right: George (yellow tape on silver leg band), Frankie (red tape) and Lindy (no tape)
photo courtesy of Dennis Swayze - www.pbase.com/photobydennis
The Peregrine Chick:
Kelly is on the left, Bogart has his back to us and Spencer is the one in the ladder.
The Peregrine Chick:
Here are the votes broken down by gender ...
19% Spencer (Tracy) 12% Kelly (Grace or Gene)
18% Bogart (Humphrey) 10% Mae (West)
13% Guiness (Alec) 8% Hepburn (Katharin or Audrey)
12% Kelly (Grace or Gene) 6% Garland (Judy)
10% Astaire (Fred) 5% Marilyn (Monroe)
When we banded the chicks we took great care to measure their ankles before we put their bands on. We had one small male and one larger male and one female. Because Princess and subsequently Hurricane both have produced small chicks in the past, it will be interesting to see if the larger male survives if it is a male or perhaps a small female. I had hoped there would be a more even split among the names based on gender but the top 3 names are males, the fourth is for either a male or a female and the fifth based on votes is a tie - one male and one female. So looking at the winners here are the assignment of names ...
Bogart = small male - green tape on his silver leg band
Spencer = larger male - no tape on silver band
Kelly = female - red tape & the largest of the three birds
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