The Lindy Hop and Alberta’s Pilot Dancers: Connections Between Flight and Dancing

While you’re dancing at the upcoming boogie-woogie at the Alberta Aviation Museum, it would be worthwhile to think about the history of those very dance moves you are doing. Of course, the music you hear, and the places you put your feet all have their own history and connections to the historically specific context in which they were developed. For instance, if you decide to perform a variation of the “breakaway” where you let go of your dance partner and show off some of your individual footsteps, hops, or flips, you might inadvertently be imitating the “Lindy Hop” developed in the Harlem Ballrooms of the late 1920s. You would then also be channeling that moment’s excitement for record-breaking pilots; the Lindy Hop is connected to the history of aviation.

The American pilot, Charles “Lindy” Lindbergh, is today remembered for completing the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, where he “hopped” across the Atlantic Ocean. His 1927 flight propelled the aviator into fame, with recognition coming from powerful figures, such as U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, and his name being known internationally.[1] The famous flight also cemented his name as a popular dance of the time: the Lindy Hop. One of the pioneering figures of this dance form was George “Shorty” Snowden, who when asked what he was doing with his feet at a marathon at Manhattan Casino in 1928, replied “The Lindy.”[2] Marathons such as the ones Snowden participated in were held in ballrooms across Harlem and throughout the United States, dancing to the jazz of Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Count Basie. The type of swing dance was incredibly popular with Black Americans in Harlem at places such as the Savoy Ballroom (one of the first integrated ballrooms in the U.S.), which had a coat check that could accommodate 5,000 people.[3] Throughout the interwar period, the dance quickly spread across the U.S. and made its way into Canada.  

In Alberta, jazz music and its associated forms of dancing proved to be an enjoyable and affordable escape from the trials of both the economic hardships of the 1930s and the following stress of war in the 1940s. With the establishment of air bases across Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during the Second World War, young men training to be pilots and air crew danced in their spare time. In Lethbridge, for instance, live swing bands performed for dances in which members of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan danced with locals. With dances every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night, Lethbridge’s Trianon ballroom was a popular place for the airmen to swing dance.[4] In fact, it could be argued that dancing was almost a favourite activity of members of the Air Force, and jazz was an easy type of music to dance to. 

“The popular, or dance music has a vital role to play with the service men,” John Oliver of the Edmonton Bulletin asserted in 1944. He argued that dance music was important because “in the army dances arranged for their benefit[,] the rhythms of the dance provide them with essential entertainment and relaxation.”[5] Dances were a great way to keep the morale high on the base, with part of the appeal coming from the opportunity to intermix with locals. In fact, at the Elementary Flying Training School Station De Winton, near Okotoks, young women from the surrounding communities were bused to the dances taking place on the air base.[6] For these reasons, dances occurred regularly at the air bases across Alberta.