Learn the Original Line Dance

“The Shim Sham is a short routine that brings together tappers & bdancers of all skill levels. No one’s too old, too young, too inexperienced or too accomplished to partake.”

The Shim Sham is a popular line dance performed to various songs but mostly “Tain’t What You Do” by Jimmy Lunceford. What started out as a simple line dance created so a variety of dancers with all sorts of dance skills, styles, and genres can dance together.

Now the Shim Sham is now a global phenomenon when specific songs are played, the whole group get to dance together. Different cities and venues have their own variations.

So, where did the Shim Sham come from?

In the late 1920s, as Lindy hop was still being invented, a pair of tap dancers named Leonard Reed and Willie Bryant started a routine they called “Goofus”, danced to “Turkey in the Straw.” They were performing at the time with the Whitman Sisters, a popular and long-running musical troupe. The act needed a finale, so the two men quickly invented a short routine of tap steps pulled from various sources. This routine was similar to the first section of the Shim Sham danced today: some shuffles, cross-overs, tacky Annies, and a half-break.

Incidentally, have you ever wondered where the name “Tacky Annie” came from? But according to writer Harri Heinila on Authentic Jazz Dance:

“They got the tack annie from a Tap dancer called Jack Wiggins who did a thing called ‘Pull it’. He used to say to the audience: ‘Do you want me pull it’. The answer was usually ‘Yes!’. Once he was performing to the audience, where was also his girlfriend Annie, Jack said those words again and added: ‘Annie, next step may be tacky, but I gonna do it for you!’”

Over time, the routine caught on, and by the early 1930s it was performed onstage at venues all over Harlem. Often it functioned as an all-hands finale, where dancers, singers and musicians alike would join in. At the Savoy Ballroom, Frankie Manning and his friends sometimes danced it together on the sidelines.

Some sixty years later, Frankie introduced the routine to a new generation of Lindy hoppers. He created a longer version by repeating the original Goofus chorus a second time with breaks, then adding a section of boogie forwards, boogie backs, and shorty Georges. Here’s an instructional video featuring Frankie Manning and Erin Stevens from the late 1980s:

After learning the routine from Frankie, members of the New York Swing Dance Society started doing it every week at the local dance. From there, it spread to other venues, until a global tradition was born.

Come learn the Shim Sham with us! No experience or partners needed!

Jump into some fun and be ready to tear up the dance floor in no time! Taught by your very own local National Lindy Hop & Jitterbug Champion – Jeff Miller.