The Frankie Project

The Frankie Project is a multimedia art show celebrating the first one hundred years of the Lindy Hop and honouring one of its most legendary fathers — Frankie Manning. From the first Swing Era of the 1920s to the revival that began in the 1980s, the show traces the dance's story in paint, film and photographs, as the Lindy Hop's centennial years lead up to 2028.

Who Was Frankie Manning?

Frankie Manning was one of the most significant innovators and choreographers of vernacular jazz in the Swing Era — the dancer who helped catapult Lindy Hop from the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem onto the world stage. He performed for King George VI in 1939 and alongside jazz greats including Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Cab Calloway. He danced in and choreographed for seven films, from Hellzapoppin' to Spike Lee's Malcolm X, won the 1989 Tony Award for best choreography for the Broadway show Black and Blue, and received two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. When new generations embraced Swing afresh in the 1980s, Frankie was at the epicentre of the revival — teaching, performing and telling his stories until his passing in 2009.

A Personal History

For Denise, this is personal. She knew Frankie for many years as friend, mentor and dance partner — he was her teacher for over fifteen years, and in 1994 he asked her to start teaching Lindy. The show gathers the paintings she has made of Frankie and her circle of dance friends from the 1990s and early 2000s, the articles she wrote for dance magazines, memorabilia and photographs, clips from her personal film library of Frankie and Denise teaching and performing together, and a book about Frankie now in progress. It is a memoir of the rebirth of the Lindy, as she lived it.

Swing is in Denise's blood. Her grandmother was a 1920s flapper who taught her the Charleston; her mother, born in 1925 and raised on Big Band music, taught her to swing dance in the kitchen. When Denise discovered the "Lindy Hop" in the early 1990s, the name was new but the feeling wasn't — she had come home.

The signature art piece of the project is Savoy Lindy, available as a fine art print, framed or unframed.

Follow the Project

The show is a work in progress, and patrons make it possible. On Patreon you get an insider's look as it develops: exclusive monthly dance clips from Denise's personal film library — learn from masters like Frankie, Chazz Young, Lennart Westerlund, Betty Wood, Lance Benishek and Jean Foreman, much of it never released publicly — paintings coming to life, first excerpts from the Frankie book, Frankie's own stories, and historical gems you won't find anywhere else. Become a patron of the Frankie Project and help bring it to fruition.

As the show tours, Denise would love to collaborate with local talent for live performances and workshops that help promote your scene. To bring the Frankie Project to your dance community, or to support the project with a one-time donation, contact thefrankie100project@gmail.com.

"Ah one, ah two, you know what to do!"