What’s more exciting than a photo of Lindy Hoppers in full swing out?! You can feel the flow and stretch between partners, their energetic body movements, and the happiness pouring out of them.

Slap on some vintage clothing and I could watch action shots of Lindy all. day. long. I know I’m not alone because shots like this one pop up on websites and Facebook events regularly:



click any picture for larger view

There’s just one tiiiiiny problem…

That’s not Lindy Hop.

The classic moment

29 March 1960

Durban, South Africa

A young woman in a print maxi dress swivels her hips and smiles bright while a young man in a cream-white zoot suit and impossibly shiny shoes laughs. They each hold a hand, the other waving in the air, their bodies stretching away from each other.

People in the background look on, equally enraptured by their movements. On second thought, no, it doesn’t appear possible to be happier than the two people in the center of attention. Their joy of dancing and connecting with another person seem to radiate from that photograph!

Meanwhile…

21 March 1960 — one week earlier

Sharpeville, South Africa

Sharpeville was a town established to move black and coloured people further away from white areas of Vereeniging.

Here, Black Africans staged a protest by burning their ‘pass books’ – the identity cards used to restrict employment and even travel into zones based on ethnicity. During this event, 69 protesters were killed with another 180 injured in what came to be known as the Sharpeville Massacre.

Another region in South Africa that was part of the government’s ‘relocation program’ and is directly related to our dance photo is….

‘Mkhumbane’

23 January 1960 — two months earlier

Cato Manor, a section of Durban

In 1950 there were 6,000 shacks in the Cato Manor area which housed up to 50,000 people. Home brewed beer was a popular way to make a living for the largely black African inhabitants who started moving there during the 1920s for the cheap rent from Indian landlords.

But the end of the decade, the residents began strongly resisting the forced relocation program entitled “Group Areas Act” and other racial restrictions.

Tensions built until 23 January when they boiled over and a mob killed 4 white and 5 black policemen.

The government of South Africa had seen enough and accelerated the aggressive relocation plan until, on 31 August 1964, the last shack in Cato Manor was demolished.

It became a ghost town. Deserted.

This was the original town of Cato Manor. Or as the people who lived there called it, Mkhumbane.

The dancing couple



29 March 1960 — where we started

Durban City Hall

There’s a band playing a blend of Mbqaanga and Jazz which came to symbolize the ‘Durban sound’ of the 60s. [YouTube: African Music of 60-70s]

We see that young woman we met in the beginning twirling and jumping across the stage, lead by that same young man wearing a square top hat. Around them, a cast comprised of actual residents from Mkhumbane is transfixed.

It’s the debut of an ambitious musical named ‘Mkhumbane’.

Before the show started, a narrator informed the audience they were about to witness ‘a day in the lives’ of the people living in Mkhumbane— and he wasn’t kidding. In the play, a robbery leads to racial strife, racial strife gives way to laughter, laughter gives way to fighting, fighting gives way to dance, and when the dancing stops people go back to work their government jobs.

Every act is filled with folk music and dances; from traditional Zulu, to Cabaret, to Blues numbers. A melting pot of history and newness — just like South Africa itself.

The show’s official Mkhumbane Souvenir Programme [PDF] pays note to the social strife of the time with the opening lines of its Foreward:

We can only love what we know. And God knows what need there is of love, and therefore of knowledge, in our beloved, beautiful, broken, heartless, heartsore South Africa — ashamed of its Cato Manors, evading the questions they pose and frightened of the ultimate answers.”

Okay, what dance IS it?

These photos are all from a set of publicity stills by Indian-South African photographer G.R. Naidoo. The actors were posing for images to be used in newspapers and other advertising.

As they’re for a stage production, and are posed, they’re not necessarily demonstrative of the social dances of the time. Think about this: how many of today’s depictions of dance are factually accurate?



On the next episode of So You Think You Can…Not Vomit

But what if it was representative?

Well then, the popular social dance closest to Lindy Hop in South Africa was Jive, or the more localized version, Township Jive. ‘Localized’ (specific to one region) is the key word here.

Although today we might think of dance as being singular (“This is the Cakewalk,” or “This is the Mooche.”) we only perceive that because of our modern media, travel, and culture with their combined homogenizing effect.

This wasn’t the case in South Africa at the time; not only was travel tightly restricted and the intermingling of white people with people of colour discouraged or illegal; even television hadn’t been introduced. (It didn’t appear until 1971, and then not into the main cities until 1975, and not nationwide until 1976.) The sharing of information from one region to another posed difficulties …let alone from Harlem, NY to Durban, South Africa.

So how did Jazz, American dances, and clothing styles reach South Africa? There are a variety of direct and indirect methods that enabled imitation to spread, such as Traveling Medicine Shows (see headline Cocaine and Story Tellers) and musical revues or dance troupes passing through the country, which were widely advertised in newspapers of the day.

Jazz swept South Africa by storm and is still popular nowadays. A country already rich with history, both the music and dances were incorporated by the people into something unique to themselves.

All that to say: this is definitely not Lindy Hop. It would be a form of – or inspired by – Township Jive.

But it is still a fantastic image, showing what happens when you blend American Jazz culture and South African black culture.

Now you know more about the history of South Africa, which in some ways parallels the struggles of black Americans in the 1900s. Turbulent times can create explosions of creativity. Cultural melting pots can fuse into something more than the sum of their part. And the community of Mkhumbane was no different.

So really, to me this classic photograph is about the ability of humans to coexist. That’s why the last line of the show’s Souvenir Programme reads:

We are grateful for an event that proclaims South Africa’s ability to rise above its divisions and distill a moment of artistic truth from the wealth of what is now considered South Africa’s insoluble problem but what one day we hope will be its greatest asset: the rich variety of its human resources .”

One day after the debut of ‘Mkhumbane’, 30 March 1960, a state of emergency was declared in South Africa and widespread arrests began. Later that same day, 30,000 black South Africans marched to protest the arrest of black leaders, the pass books, the Sharpeville massacre, and other injustices. It was another 31 years until the end of apartheid.