# @realdlhughley on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/C6b5Ua9PYJA
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/17039204-realdlhughley-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/d8d95bab4d.jpg
- **Posted:** 2024-05-01T18:30:19.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** realdlhughley (@realdlhughley) — https://gondola.cc/realdlhughley

## Caption

I swear I love US!! #TeamDL

Ann Johnson was part of the famous Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers.

**Lindy Hop is a Black American artform that emerged in late 1920s in Harlem, NYC during the Swing Jazz era..**

ABOUT ANN JOHNSON
It’s no surprise that her partner, Frankie Manning, once said : “[She was] like a cat….no matter what way I threw her, she would land on her feet.”

To this day, nobody has pulled off “The Snatch” like Ann & Frankie, which is when the flyer is caught on the shoulder with a pause and then thrown back the same direction. Ann & Frankie were dance partners between 1940-1952.

She appeared in Life magazine in 1940 & 1941 and starred in famous Lindy Hop sequences such as Hellzapoppin’, Killer Diller & Hot Chocolate. 

I’ve always personally been fascinated with her flying capabilities and style. Here she is seen smiling at incredibly high tempo (310 bpm).

One needs some serious core to pull this off since such swing momentum would tear any normal individual’s shoulder off.

Furthermore, Ann Johnson’s around the back (the move just before the snatch) is rarely performed this way, with an upside down motion, as most would be nearly horizontal to the floor.

It’s very unfortunate that we don’t know more about Ann Johnson’s life. If anybody has more info, please share in the comments.

Note on the movie’s context : this is shot during Jim Crowe era. For movies to be played in theaters in southern US, generally black people were dressed up as labor workers in movies to be make it “more acceptable”. The reality was that they wore the most prestigious garments and suits to go nearly daily to famous Savoy Ballroom. The irony is that before VHS, many young Jazz dance enthusiasts would have gone to the theater repeatedly just to see this sequence again and again and again... it’s one of the movie clips that will influence the spread of the Lindy Hop in Europe.

Credit to BlackPepperSwing for the colorised version.
This is taken from the movie Hellzapoppin that came out in 1941.

#dancehistory #lindyhop #swingdance #airsteps #aerials #dance #coupledancing #rocknroll #jazz #jazzdance #bgirl #boy #breaking #swing #coupledance

## Stats

- **Views:** 27,820
- **Likes:** 8,229
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- **Comments:** 284

## Tags

swing, boy, dance, bgirl, swingdance, coupledancing, aerials, jazzdance, breaking, rocknroll, teamdl, coupledance, airsteps, jazz, dancehistory, lindyhop

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