The 9:20 Special - Swing Lessons and Dancing in San Francisco

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The 9:20 Special - Swing Lessons and Dancing in San Francisco

CLOSED UNTIL IT'S SAFE TO DANCE TOGETHER AGAIN. LOVE AND SWINGOUTS TO YOU ALL. Lindy Hop/Swing dan Not to mention, one of the best places to take classes as well!

The 9:20 Special is San Francisco's premiere swing dance venue that has been a staple of the San Francisco dance scene since 1998. Originally started by internationally renowned Lindy Hop instructors Paul and Sharon as a practice party for their students, The 9:20 quickly evolved into the most popular spot to go dancing in the Bay Area. Today The 9:20 Special regularly draws crowds of 150-200 danc

ers each week and is known as one of the most friendly, fun, and welcoming dances in the Bay Area. The 9:20 Special has nationally acclaimed DJs such as Allen Kerr and Jesse Miner as well as many other talented DJs from around the Bay Area and the nation spinning your favorite swing music. Class series start the first Thursday of each month:
Level 1 - Beginner
Level 2 - Pre-Intermediate
Level 3 - Intermediate
Level 4 - Advanced
Followed by a social dance in our big, beautiful ballroom

A team of amazingly talented people make The 9:20 Special a success each week:
Kirk Tarou - Manager / Co-Owner
Iris Dolowitz Tarou - Social [Media] Butterfly / Co-Owner
Manu Smith - Advisor / Co-Owner
Ann Mony - Education Coordinator
Allen Kerr - DJ Coordinator
Sam Jordan - Operations
Jim Thorpe - Videographer
Marissa Sonkin/James McGraw - Volunteer Coordinators
Laurie Caird - Designer

www.920special.com
2460 Sutter St, SF, CA, 94115 (at Divisadero)

See you Thursday!

04/16/2020

❤️ We’ve been having a blast virtually dancing with 70+ of you on Thursdays! To continue to bring you (and us) some joy, we're bringing you more dancing!
🥰Starting tonignt, April 16th, Hannah Mackenzie-Marguilies will teach the Tranky Doo. Another well-known (and super fun!) solo routine, created in the 40s and danced by Frankie Manning and other Lindy Hoppers of the time. The Tranky Doo is not as widespread as the Shim Sham but it is one of the "holy-trinity of the original swing-era jazz routines," as stated in this Swungover blog post about the mysterious history of the Tranky Doo.
💃🏻
Tranky Doo
8:00pm - 9:15pm
Thursday, April 16, 23, 30
All levels welcome

It's free.
✅ Register through the link in our Instagram profile or the link in the comments.

Drop-ins allowed every week (but you still need to register for the series). However, this will be a progressive series so we encourage you to attend all 3 weeks, especially if you've never learned the routine before.

✅ We will email the Zoom link to those who registered 1 hour before the start of class so be sure to register early.

🙏While the class is free, we're asking for donations to our PayPal account at [email protected] or Venmo at . The donations will go toward The 9:20 Special on-going operating costs, instructors, and local musicians. If you're unable to pay, it is 100% OK!
swing dance

03/23/2020

⭐ The Frankie Manning Foundation is preparing to launch an EMERGENCY SUPPORT PROGRAM in the coming days.

Support will be made available for full-time Lindy Hop professionals who show pressing financial need and who demonstrate a commitment to preserving and passing on the legacy of the Lindy Hop that originated in the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. ***Please standby for application details.

💠 We are asking for your financial contributions as part of a matching fund to help the global Lindy Hop community pull through this crisis. The will match every dollar raised by the community. We are starting with an initial goal of $20K with matching by FMF of an additional $20K.

➡️ Please follow the link in our Instagram bio to make a donation and share broadly! https://www.frankiemanningfoundation.org/emergency

03/20/2020

Last night well over 1,000 lindy hoppers from around the world came together virtually to listen, watch, and dance to the incredible swinging tunes of the . Thanks to technology for allowing this to happen! Musicians need all the help they can get right now. Speaking of which, TODAY, bandcamp.com is giving 100% to musicians when folks purchase their music. So, head over to bandcamp.com and make a purchase today! It’s a win win: you get amazing music and you support your favorite musicians. 🙌🎶
Hugs to you and your loved ones! We miss you IRL but are grateful to stay connected through technology.

03/11/2020

❤️For those who haven’t seen our announcement from Monday, please take note...

Dear 9:20 Special community,
Because of the recent recommendations from the Department of Public Health regarding COVID-19, we've decided The 9:20 Special will be on hiatus effective immediately. We feel it's important to do our part by not providing an opportunity for this virus to spread at our event.

On Friday, March 6th, The San Francisco Department of Public Health released a statement that recommended all non-essential large community events be canceled for the next two weeks. While our classes and dance may not meet the implied definition of a "large" event, we are planning to be closed the rest of March because our event involves close physical contact with others. We will continue to monitor the updates and re-evaluate toward the end of this month to determine if we can re-open in April.

Please read our recent newsletter which includes more details: https://conta.cc/2IzXr4m

Air hugs and jazz hands,
Iris and Kirk

03/03/2020

We can’t wait to kick off another month with you!

We are back to a regular 4-week month in March and are particularly excited for our Special Topics and Level 3 classes.

For Special Topics (8:30pm), Amanda Collins and Philippe Wilson are teaching Dips, Tricks, and Other Cool Sh$t.

For Level 3 (7:20pm), Hannah Howard and Kevin Weng are teaching a Musicality class to help you learn how to dance "in the pocket" - such an amazing feeling and skill to learn!

For all the class details, including our Level 1 and Level 2 classes, check out the recent newsletter linked in our Instagram profile.

See you Thursday!

03/01/2020

Last night at in was magical. We hope to see many of you again tonight! They’re selling dance tickets at the door!

02/25/2020

So many reasons we love this clip...
❤️Ramona’s joy is contagious, as usual 🥰
❤️ Her son is adorable
❤️ and her song choice is on point

SOUND ON!! ...It is One O’Clock Jump from Count Basie and his Orchestra. The album is Breakfast Dance and Barbecue.

🎶 In honor of Black History Month, we’ll be playing music this Thursday that focuses on Black musicians. Like the amazing Count Basie and so so many more.🎶

🤗Plus, Ramona will be teaching Level 3 and Advanced. You can drop-in to either or both (normal pre-reqs/experience apply).

✨Level 3: a focus on Charleston and how to infuse a similar energy in all of your dancing, specifically your Swingouts

✨Advanced: a full-on critique class! Where people dance and we talk about different things that come up as a class. We normalise the process of watching and being watched, using everyone’s dancing as an example for learning and inspiration.

with
・・・

02/23/2020

✨BLACK HISTORY MONTH SPOTLIGHT✨
Another fascinating excerpt from the Lindy Hop page on Wikipedia...

“As white people began going to Harlem to watch black dancers, according to Langston Hughes:

The lindy-hoppers at the Savoy even began to practice acrobatic routines, and to do absurd things for the entertainment of the whites, that probably never would have entered their heads to attempt for their own effortless amusement. Some of the lindy-hoppers had cards printed with their names on them and became dance professors teaching the tourists. Then Harlem nights became show nights for the Nordics.

Hughes's mocking statement reflects how the Harlem Renaissance Movement acknowledged the Lindy Hop which the movement considered part of "low culture", and thus not an important cultural achievement. According to Snowden, "When he finally offered to pay us, we went up and had a ball. All we wanted to do was dance anyway."

Read the entire Wikipedia history by visiting the link in our Instagram bio or go here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Hop

Screenshot from a video: “Shorty” George Snowden and “Big Bea” 1937

02/19/2020

‼️Reminder: we are closed this week (Feb 20th). Here’s a little inspiration for you in the meantime. 🤩 OMG these two!! We can’t wait to have Ramona teaching Level 3 and Advanced when we’re back next week on the 27th! Check out the link in our Instagram profile for all the upcoming event details in the recent Special Edition newsletter. Or, click here if you’re not reading this on Instagram: https://conta.cc/39LXjul
・・・
Remy Kouakou Kouame & Ramona Staffeld | Invitational Strictly Lindy Final at ILHC 2019 . .

with

02/18/2020

✨Black History Month Spotlight✨
A fascinating excerpt from Wikipedia about the specific relationship between Black dancers and Savoy-Style Lindy Hop (aka the original Lindy Hop)....we encourage you to read the full Wikipedia post by searching “Lindy Hop.”

“Perhaps the most useful employment of the term 'Savoy-style Lindy Hop' lies in the association of the Savoy Ballroom (and dancers who were associated with it, particularly those of the Whitey's Lindy Hoppers) and ethnicity. Despite the differences noted above, there are marked tropes in African American and African dances which are present in the Lindy Hop of these dancers in this period. These may include:

✅clear angles at the ankle - between leg and foot - and often at the wrist and/or elbow

✅wide-legged stances for both women and men, particularly in the follower's swivel

✅Frankie Manning's characteristically 'athletic' stance - like a runner spread out in motion, parallel to the ground - echoes African dance

✅particular 'variations' or jazz steps associated with Savoy-style date back to the African communities from which African American slaves were taken (and are discussed in the History of slavery in the United States article), including the move "the itch" which then moved on to white communities and across to the west coast of America with dancers like Dean Collins.

These associations between African American Lindy Hoppers and a particular dance style are important as Lindy Hop developed in a close relationship with jazz, in particular swing. Both are African American vernacular art forms.”
📸 This photo: Willa Mae Ricker and Leon James, original Lindy Hop dancers in iconic Life magazine photograph, 1943

02/11/2020

✨Black History Month Spotlight✨
We sure hope you’ve seen the Hellzapoppin’ dance clip! It’s arguably the best footage of Lindy Hop from those who helped create the dance.
And while it’s an amazing clip of dancing, it’s also very important to understand the context.
✨
Yahoodi wrote-up a wonderful post that shares “7 things you should know about Hellzapoppin.” Number 7 is most important, as a reminder of how far we’ve come (and how far we still have to go).
✨
Number 7:
Not Shown to All Audiences because of Racism
✨
The dance scene is completely superfluous to the rest of the film. The dancers appear in no other scenes. In fact there is only one tiny sequence where a Black person and white person appear in the same shot, for a throwaway joke about the standing bass.

That segregation is intentional and was common practice in Hollywood at that time. Black people performing or speaking in scenes was still controversial or even scandalous to certain white audiences, particularly in the American south. So those scenes were shot in such a way that they could easily be omitted in certain theaters.

This is particularly upsetting since this was clearly the standout dance number of the entire movie, which is about putting on a stage production. And yet, this routine is not included in the actual show.”
✨
Check out the full yahoodi post linked in our Instagram profile or

http://www.yehoodi.com/blog/2018/7/23/seven-things-you-should-know-about-hellzapoppin

02/09/2020

As part of Black History Month, we’ll be sharing some photos and history to help spread the love 💕 and gratitude 🙏 we have for the dancers who created this dance we all get to enjoy today.

📷 This photo:
Whyte’s Hopping Maniacs performing with “Le Cotton Club de New York” at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, summer 1937.
✨
(left to right) Naomi Waller and Frankie Manning, Lucille Middleton and Jerome Williams, Mildred Cruse and Billy Williams.
✨
Photo credit: studio c. bracken
✨
Thank you Frankie Manning Foundation
for this photo and description.

Address

2460 Sutter Street
San Francisco, CA
94115

Opening Hours

7:20pm - 11:59pm

Telephone

+14157222772

Website

http://www.920special.com/

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