Category: Shag Dancing
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S.O.S. Origins
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Gene Laughter, an ex-lifeguard from the Fifties—nicknamed “Swink,” was a mischievous and creative man. He used to entertain his family on summer vacations by writing notes and putting them into…
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Hard-Core Cadre
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SOS is in full swing in Myrtle Beach. The faithful and hardcore come together to dance. The crowds pack a six-block area of North Myrtle Beach. The Shag joints are…
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Cool Sip
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The Jitterbug, like the Shag, was a social dance. It served no religious or ritualistic function. However, through its performers, the patterns of the dances reflected the overall environment of…
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Bring Your Feet – SOS Fall Migration
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SOS is September 15 – 24, 2017 at the beach this year. What do you get dancing the shag at SOS? Everybody gets what they come for. That’s my impression. I…
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Pertinent Points
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“Dancing is a vertical expression of horizontal desire,” said Robert Frost, maybe America’s most famous poet. The first time I heard that line quoted I wondered who said it first.…
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Florentine Patio
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Among the originators of the Shag was a bright-eyed kid from Florence, South Carolina, the night owl, Billy Jeffers. Billy had trouble with asthma as a kid. He grew up…
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Rosy Red Magic Box
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There were only a few hundred thousand jukeboxes scattered around the United States prior to World War II. In North and South Carolina they were few and far between. They…
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Society of Stranders
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Nostalgia for the Shag took root in the early Seventies. Competitive dancing rescued the art from oblivion. In 1980, an old lifeguard from Richmond, Virginia, Gene Laughter, thought he’d throw…
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Wild Peacocks
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In the late Thirties and early Forties, the Shag was performed to swing music, the jazzy sound of the big bands. As the Swing Era waned, the Shag continued to…