The Spirit Moves - Dancefloor documents

The Spirit Moves : A History Of Black Social Dance On Film 1900-1986

Mondomix checks out what happens when a Russian dancer inspired by Isadora Duncan meets Josephine Baker in Paris and ends up in the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Welcome to the world of Mura Dehn, the director, editor and narrator of The Spirit Moves – an incredible 3 volume documentary film of African American dance styles.

Sure enough, we’ve all seen James Brown and Michael Jackson drop incredible moves from the Popcorn to the Moonwalk. We’ve clocked Usher and experienced Voguing. We’ve seen Style Wars and witnessed the birth of breakin’ and poppin’ and lockin’. Online you can find cats crunkin’ in shopping malls but if deep old skool jazz is your bag you’ll have been limited to a couple of Hollywood film clips of the Nicholas Brothers or the Berry Brothers or Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Fortunately, that’s about to change.

In 2009, it seems incredible that the brilliant innovations in street style dance, that paralleled the majestic musical achievements of Duke Ellington or Charlie Parker, would have vanished from history had it not been for one Mura Dehn - a Jewish Russian dancer of the Isadora Duncan school, who’d been bitten by the jazz dance bug when she hooked up with Josephine Baker in Paris.

When Mura walked into the hotbed of style and fashion that was Harlem's Savoy Ballroom she knew she had found her spiritual home. She was amazed at the dancers exquisite ease, at the range of styles and the thrilling sense of improvisation. Coming from Europe and confronted with African dance traditions that had been buried from sight during slavery and reborn in the urban jungle of New York City to the challenging sounds of Cab Calloway, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, Mura Dehn - the dancer - freely admitted, "it was so tremendously effortful to swallow the rhythmic pill." However, she knew instantly that this remarkable scene had to be documented: "So, I sacrificed my career to promote the tidal wave of black jazz, to film the greatest dancers of the Savoy… My contribution is to have assembled and preserved these dances as presented by their greatest exponents." And for that, we have to give thanks!

The Spirit Moves

The Spirit Moves was filmed by Herbert Matter on the dancefloors of The Savoy and The Palladium, as well as in the studio. Mura focussed mostly on well known dancers like James Berry, Al Minns, Leon James, Teddy Brown, Frankie Manning, Sarah Washington, Sugar Sullivan, Sandra Gibson and Pepsi Bethel – all brilliant dancers who move deftly from one style to another. But she also turns her camera onto the dancefloor and the regular punters and that footage is pure dynamite… such a buzz! Overall we get an incredible document that delivers both the dance styles and a living record of the men and women who forged those styles into an improvisational art form. For Mura Dehn, it was knowing “how to hold your body and how to let it go.”

Over three marvellously remastered DVDs, that individually cover Jazz Dance from the Turn of The Century to 1950, The Savoy Ballroom in Harlem and the Post War Era we get a host of brilliant dance styles – The Cakewalk, Charleston Black Bottom, Susie Q, Shake Blues, Lindy Hop. Shim Sham, Gutbucket Blues, Trunky Doo, Big Apple, aerial Lindy Hop, Bebop, Mambo and Afro Cuban. It’s all amazing stuff. If you dance - professional or club stepper - there’s got to be something there for you. For the girls there’s footwork, being tossed around and some very sensual, dare we say, risqué rhythmic moves. Pour moi? I’m vibin’ on the Mambo and some of those slithery sliding moves but Bebop is the one - a touch dark, with a mysterious humour and tempos that scatter expectations. A dance style that tells its own story.

At 60 bucks a pop these DVDs are not cheap but they are essential viewing. This is our history. If you’ve danced to jazz or funk or house you have participated in that cultural continuum. Over 20 years have elapsed since Mura Dehn passed away and fortunately The Spirit Moves has been rescued from obscurity and cult status. I’ll leave the final word to the critic of the Village Voice who reviewed the film when it was premiered at the Public Theatre in NYC: “Jazz dance, like jazz music, is one of America's major contributions to world culture, and if you haven't seen the film, then you have been cheated of your own dance history.”

DVD : The Spirit Moves : A History Of Black Social Dance On Film 1900 -1986
The African American Jazz Tradition (2008)
Part 1 : Jazz Dance from the Turn of the Century to 1950 (45 minutes)
Part 2 : Savoy Ballroom of Harlem, 1950s (30 minutes)
Part 3 : Postwar Era, 1950s-1980s (40 minutes)
Produced, directed and narrated by Mura Dehn

www.dancetimepublications.com

Paul Bradshaw/Straight No Chaser

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