In the 1920s, dance crazes like the Charleston and the Lindy Hop swept across the nation, much as dust storms would do in the decade thereafter. And while those two examples were famously (and exhaustively) documented in movies and photos of the time, hundreds and perhaps even thousands escaped the clutches of documentarians, forever doomed to live on only in finely wrought (if horribly written) descriptions by the era’s choreographers. Until now.

Using these historical records, our team of dance historians have recreated these legendary (if elusive) moves for the very first time.

Additionally, our dance historians managed to unearth this newsreel featuring never-before-seen footage of one of the dances…

Appears in Whim Quarterly Issue #2. Written by Paul Underwood. Photographs by Ashley Macknica and Joel Barhamand. Dancers: Jocelyn Hansmann and Paul Fears. Video produced by Brock Mahan.