Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series about the (old) Bop dance.
This post provides excerpts from one book and three online articles about the (old) Philly Bop and other old Bop dances.
The Addendum to this post provides information about Chicago Steppin, a closely related partner dance.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/06/videos-of-old-philly-bop-and-other-old.html for Part II of this series. Part II showcases five videos of the (old) Bop dance. Selected comments from four of these videos' discussion threads are also included in that post.
The content of this post is presented for historical and cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/06/book-article-excerpts-information-about.html for Part I of a pancocojams series on "the Chicago Bop", a completely different American dance form that name includes the word "bop". The "Chicago Bop" was most popular among some African Americans in Chicago, Illinois from 2013-2015 and by 2017 no longer appeared to be danced by African Americans in that city.
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BOOK & ARTICLE EXCERPTS ABOUT THE "PHILLY BOP" DANCE
These excerpts are numbered for referencing purposes only.
EXCERPT #1
From Rock 'n' Roll Dances of the 1950s
Lisa Jo Sagolla - 2011 - [page 66]
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0313365563
"This Bop started during the bebop era of jazz music, in the 1940s, and was passed down from one generation to another. The emphasis was on the display of individual styles or steps. Slightly different forms of the dance evolved in different regions, fueled in part by the competitive spirit of African American dancers from different locales. For example, the Bop that was danced in Baltimore, was stylistically different from the Bop done in Washington, D.C., or Chicago. A dancer could be recognized as being a native of a particular area based on the way he danced the Bop.
The “Philly Bop,” as it was practiced in North Philadelphia (which was different from the smoother, more conservative “West Philly Bop”) consisted of a basic step-resembling the fundamental jitterbug step-interspersed with breakaway sections during which the partners freely improvised their own movements. The partners stayed together musically during the breakaways by maintaining the common rhythm of the basic step. As the dance proceeded the couple transitioned seamlessly back and forth between unison executions of the basic step and the improvisational breakaway sections. A white teen who grew up in the Midwest remembers a friend teaching her a dance they referred to as the “Dirty Bop”. “It was like the jitterbug, but with no acrobatics, just lots of footwork, and you did it to very fast rock ‘n’ roll songs”, she said. Though originally performed by adults to jazz music, in the 1950s the Bop was done to rock ‘n’ roll, and continued to be danced afterwards to a variety of pop music genres.
A dancer was taught the Bop by parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, or even grandparents. And it is this dance that the term “teenybopper” is thought to be derived. According to oral folkloric history, an African American learning to “Bop” was called a “teenybopper” well before that term came into the mainstream usage as a general descriptor for adolescents.
Two instructional dance publications from the mid-1950s-Johnny Sand’s How To Bop and Art Silva’s How To Dance The Bop-offer somewhat differing codified steps for the dance. But as the two stress the Bop’s roots in earlier African American vernacular dances and its strong improvisatory element, it is likely that they are both describing the generic Bop, not the fad dance performed on American Bandstand. Silva presents a basic step that involves lifting the heels on the off-beat and dropping them to the floor on the down-beat. Knee bends"... [Google Book quotes for this section end here]
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From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bandstand
"American Bandstand is an American music-performance and dance television program that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989,[1] and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as the program's producer. It featured teenagers dancing to Top 40 music introduced by Clark; at least one popular musical act—over the decades, running the gamut from Jerry Lee Lewis to Run–D.M.C.—would usually appear in person to lip-sync one of their latest singles."...
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Until February 1964, American Bandstand was filmed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Most-if not all- of the featured dancers were White Americans.
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EXCERPT #2
From https://philadelphianeighborhoods.com/2017/06/28/haddington-and-cobbs-creek-teaching-the-philly-bop-dance-at-community-libraries/ Haddington and Cobbs Creek: Teaching the Philly Bop Dance at Community Libraries–Text, images and video by Jim McCormick, June 28, 2017
"On Saturday afternoons throughout the summer, the Cobbs Creek and Haddington branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia host Philly Bop dance classes.
[...]
Haddington’s branch manager Marvin DeBose thought about developing the series of classes while at a recent family wedding.
“I noticed so many of the younger people participating in the line dances,” said DeBose, “but a real lack of the couples dancing that you find with the traditional bop style my parents and their parents enjoyed in the 50s. I thought there was real potential in this type of class.”
DeBose wrote a proposal and secured funding via the Free Library system for the summer dance series in an aim to foster the rebirth of the bop in his community.
“It’s an important part of African American history in this city that we need to communicate with our generational peers and with younger people,” said dance instructor Melissa Talley-Palmer, who teaches the summer series and previously wrote a grant for her own series of bop classes throughout the city’s library system.
“The Philly Bop is a smoother and more stylistic version of the Lindy Hop and East Coast Swing styles,” said Talley-Palmer. “What makes it unique is that it’s a six-count dance that includes a double step and rock step combination. Each neighborhood in Philly would put its own twist on it.”...
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EXCERPT #3
From https://www.streetswing.com/histmain/z3bop1.htm
"BOP !
Be-Bop was a type of music that was a rhythmic and melodic extension of Jazz music developed in the early 1940's. Most bop music however was not very danceable (a Musical Jazz Improv if you will) with the traditional type dances, however some Bop songs were very danceable as well. Bop was a popular form of Swing dancing during the 1950's as well as done as a solo dance (especially when the melody divorced itself from traditional dance rhythms). It's style was slightly different than its predecessor Jitterbug. The term Bop was also used as slang for a type of careless movement, such as "Bop on over." The Bop lead the way for Beatniks, Cappuchinos etc.
The dance style was a form of Jitterbug, or more recently East Coast Swing. Bop was mainly 8 counts with a hip-twisting, body swaying, double rhythm style. The basic step is done in open position, Follower mainly staying in front of the Leader: Originally: "Tap-Step---Walk-Walk---Tap-Step---Walk-Walk (or Rock-Step)" - swaying from his left to right. Today a basic East Coast Triple rhythm is all that's needed to change the dance but old style Bop Swing is really no longer done, but that doesn't mean it can't come back.
The Solo Bop was was done a few different ways, Brenda on the right shows the inplace version and the clip on the left shows the group version. There is also Bop Clubs (Beach Bop Swing) in the Southern & Midwest states such as Florida, Virginia, Atlanta, Chicago, etc. that call themselves Bop dancers plus doing other forms of swing dance as well. However I don't have much historical info. on them at the moment. Rock-a-Billy also has its own "Boppin' " as well.
A few clips can be seen in the television infomercial advertisement for 1950's music that shows clips of swing dancing of the 1950's, it has a few clips of the Bop being done. Today, younger West Coast Swing dancers call this generic Bop movement "Funky Swing," adding it into the West Coast Swing at any given time when they dance to modern Funk/ Disco/ Techno/ Rap or Motown type swing danceable music, however it is rare."
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EXCERPT #4
From http://www.myreporter.com/2009/06/whats-the-difference-between-shagging-and-the-old-bop/ What’s the difference between shagging and the old Bop?, Ben Steelman Date posted: June 24, 2009
...”Some people would be hard-pressed to see any difference at all between shagging and the Bop. Both are slotted swing dances, which seem to have evolved over time from the basic Lindy hop and other forms of “jitterbugging” from the 1930s and ’40s. (They’re called “slotted,” because the dance partners move back and forth in a “slot,” instead of swaying all around the dance floor, “in the round.”) Both generally follow a double-triple-triple count (as in “one, two, three-and-four, five-and-six”).
According to Babs, the Bop has a stronger down beat, and the dancers press down on the floor harder. (The questioner wrote, “I can still hear the THUMP when everyone’s foot hit the floor at the same time.”) Shagging — and let’s not forget that Carolina shagging has NOTHING to do with the British/Austin Powers slang definition — is a little freer, looser on the steps; it’s sometimes called a “rooster dance” since the great male dancers, like “Chicken” Hicks of Carolina Beach, loved to improvise and show off their moves.
Again, it depends on which period you’re talking about. Shagging emerged on the South Carolina Grand Strand in the 1940s, soon after World War II, and in Carolina Beach not long afterward, or at about the same time. (A few of the faithful claim that Hicks and his buddies invented it after slipping over to the all-black “juke joints” at Seabreeze to check out the new steps over there.) It revived in the early 1960s when Harry Deal and the Galaxies began playing at the Myrtle Beach Pavilion and groups like The Embers began touring the North Carolina coastal resorts, playing “beach music,” which sounded a lot like early Motown rhythm ‘n’ blues.
The Bop was more associated with the mid-1950s and the Elvis era — or, more specifically, with Gene Vincent and his single “Be-Bop-a-Lula,” released in 1956. (It should be emphasized that THIS bop has nothing to do with the bebop jazz of the ’40s and early ’50s, as practiced by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, etc. — great stuff, but a totally different animal.) That’s about the time our questioner recalled bopping at Johnnie Mercer’s Pier at Wrightsville Beach.
You’ll also find regional variations. What they call “Beach Bop” in Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Florida, sounds a lot like Carolina shagging. If you go to the Florida Boppers’ Web site, you’ll find dance instructions that sound suspiciously like what shaggers do at Myrtle Beach.
Of course, as Babs notes, the so-called “St. Louis shag” is nothing like Carolina shagging. The Philly Bop is a lot different from ’50s Bop (they jump out of the slot completely), and the Savannah Bop is awfully close to shag.
If you’d like to learn more, check out “Shagging in the Carolinas” by ” ‘Fessa” John Hook (Arcadia Publishing, 2006), which is informative but a little eccentric; Hook claims people were shagging at Lumina in the late 1920s and at Wilmington’s Roaring ’20s “Feast of the Pirates.”
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ADDENDUM: INFORMATION ABOUT CHICAGO STEPPIN
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_stepping
"Chicago-Style Stepping, (also known as Steppin') is an urban dance that originated in Chicago and continues to evolve while defining its unique style and culture within the context of mainstream Swing dance. Chicago-Style Stepping has gained popularity, particularly in the urban neighborhoods of America. "Chicago-Style Stepping" makes reference to other urban styles of dance found throughout the United States larger enclaves in cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Origins
Chicago-Style Stepping, affectionately known as steppin, like most social dances, evolved from the "Bop" in the 1970s. In 1973 Sam Chatman was the first to coin the term "Chicago Step", and has been widely credited with marking steppin's evolutionary transition from Bop. The swing dance known as Steppin' is a part of the Western Swing family. The parent dance "Chicago Bop" may have been more Eastern Swing, but Steppin' has characteristics more similar to Western, especially its usage of a lane or slot. The term "Bop" was used to describe the dance form by Chicagoans until the early 1970s. Prior to that time "Bop" was a universally known term with its origin beginning sometime between 1945 & 1950 to express music and dance. The dance known as Chicago Steppin' evolved from Bop and is more likely a derivative of Jitterbug...
Popularity
R. Kelly's songs that featured Steppin' or Stepping helped move the dance into mainstream culture.
Characteristics
Chicago Stepping is a slotted dance. The follower is typically kept traveling up and down the slot. Two action two one count cycle is the structure. Patterns like "roll out and rollback" describe the action on the slot or lane. The lane belongs to the follower and the leaders travel on, off and around the slot or lane. Steppin' has a 6 or 8 count basic pattern. Its tempo ranges 70 to 100 bpm. Its basic rhythm pattern consists of a double and two syncopated triples. The patterns start traditionally on the downbeat of one. The leader's footwork is started on their Left and finished on their Right. The follower's dance is naturally opposite. The dance bears similar characteristics to New York Hustle and West Coast Swing."
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Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/04/chicago-stepping-information-videos.html for information and videos of Chicago steppin.
Note that Chicago Steppin isn't the same as the steppin that is most closely associated with historically Black Greek letter fraternities and sororities.
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This concludes Part I of this two part pancocojams series.
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