Think You're Special?

Some People Are Born to Dance (New study from the Science Channel): Feb. 21, 2006 — Professional dancers are born with at least two special genes that give them a leg up on the rest of us, according to a new study. Recent research also has suggested that intelligence, athletic ability and musical talent are linked to our genes and brain hard-wiring. With dancing added to the list, the evidence indicates that certain individuals are born with a predisposition to specific behaviors and talents, and that at least some of these qualities may represent evolved attributes. "I think that dancing is an evolved trait," said Richard Ebstein, who led the recent study, published in a recent Public Library of Science Genetics journal. "Animals have courtship dances and I think that human dancing represents the further development of a very ancient animal trait." Ebstein, a psychology professor at Hebrew University's Scheinfeld Center for Genetic Studies, said, "Also the fact that dancing is universal and existed in all human societies, even those communities of man separated geographically by tens of thousands of years (native Australians, native Americans, Africans, Eurasians) attests to the very early origin of dance in our evolution as a species." Ebstein, doctoral student Rachel Bachner-Melman and their colleagues examined the DNA of 85 currently performing dancers and their parents. They then did the same thing for 91 competitive athletes and 872 people who neither regularly dance nor often participate in sports. The scientists discovered that dancers tend to possess variants of two genes that are involved in the transmission of information between nerve cells. One of the identified genes is a transporter of serotonin, a brain transmitter that contributes to spiritual experience. The second is a receptor of the hormone vasopressin, which many studies suggest modulates social communication and human bonding. "People are born to dance," Ebstein told Discovery News. "They have (other) genes that partially contribute to musical talent, such as coordination, sense of rhythm. However, the genes we studied are more related to the emotional side of dancing — the need and ability to communicate with other people and a spiritual side to their natures that not only enable them to feel the music, but to communicate that feeling to others via dance." Ebstein believes some adults may possess the special gene variants, but they perhaps never nurtured the related skills or recognized their hidden talent. He said, "Many of us surely have the ability, but for a hundred reasons never exploited that particular talent." Ebstein explained that the identified genes seem to be linked to every form of dancing, from tap to hula, since all usually involve social communication and connecting to music or rhythms. Irving Gottesman, a senior fellow in psychology at the University of Minnesota and an emeritus professor from the University of Virginia, is one of the world's leading experts on genes as they relate to human behavior and psychology.

80th Birthday of the Savoy Where Feet Flew and the Lindy Hopped NY Times - March 12, 2006 By MANNY FERNANDEZ The night Frankie Manning flipped Frieda Washington over his back in a heels-over-the-head maneuver on the dance floor of the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, he was more than a little nervous. The year was 1935, the song was "Down South Camp Meeting" and the occasion was a swing dance contest that featured six pelvis-shaking couples. Mr. Manning, then 21, and his partner, Ms. Washington, were the last to compete. "I had to follow all them other teams that went out there and tore the floor," he said. "Shorty Snowden, who was the greatest dancer in the world as far as I was concerned, had just danced in front of me and I was saying, 'Man, I ain't going out there.' " But as Chick Webb and his band played, the couple locked arms, and Mr. Manning, his back to hers, bent over and catapulted Ms. Washington over him, a split-second feat they had rehearsed beforehand with his bedroom mattress close by, just in case. That move — the first Lindy Hop air step, according to the International Encyclopedia of Dance — did more than earn his team a victory that night. It helped make him a dancing legend. Over the years he would become a courtly ballroom ambassador, teaching the swing dance styles to eager couples from around the world. But for Mr. Manning — now a 91-year-old grandfather, retired postal worker and recent inductee into the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. — it was just another night at the Savoy. Dance halls come and go in New York City as quickly as fashion trends and pizza parlors. But nearly 50 years after its death, the Savoy has lived on, if only in revered memories. On Lenox Avenue between 140th and 141st Streets, the ballroom was a blocklong rhythm factory that set New York's jazz-fueled tempo in the 1930's and 1940's. On any given night, thousands packed the hardwood dance floor as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald or Count Basie supplied the tunes, inspiring the kind of moves that prompted someone — former patrons like saying it was Lana Turner — to call the place "the home of happy feet." This evening, the ballroom's birthday, Mr. Manning and more than 100 others who danced or played music at the Savoy are gathering to remember it, celebrate their youth and, naturally, dance. The Savoy — it opened March 12, 1926, and closed July 10, 1958 — was torn down and a housing complex called the Delano Village took its place. Some of the former musicians and dancers plan to meet at a plaque marking the spot at noon, attend panel discussions on the Savoy's influence on American dance history and then finish off the evening with a dinner and dance at the nearby Alhambra Ballroom. The event was organized by three men who never saw the Savoy Ballroom for themselves: Elliott Donnelley, who runs a production company based in San Francisco that sponsors Lindy Hop events; Chad Fasca, who directs the swing program at the Sandra Cameron Dance Center in Manhattan; and Terry Monaghan, a dance historian from London who operates a Web site about the Savoy, www.savoyballroom.com. During a revival of swing dancing to big-band music in the late 1980's and 90's, the Savoy's history enjoyed a resurgence of interest. A younger generation of dance enthusiasts looked upon it as a cultural phenomenon that inspired high-flying invention on the dance floor and brought blacks and whites together in a time of segregation. "The Savoy opened the doors for all people being together," said Norma Miller, 86, who along with Mr. Manning was an original member of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, top Savoy dancers assembled by Herbert White, a former ballroom bouncer who was known as Whitey. "We were the first people in the world who were integrated. We didn't have segregation at the Savoy." Mr. Manning said patrons were judged by their talent on the dance floor, not the color of their skin. Not even the celebrities received special treatment. One night, someone approached Mr. Manning and his friends. "Somebody came over and said, 'Hey man, Clark Gable just walked in the house.' Somebody else said, 'Oh, yeah, can he dance?' " Mr. Manning recalled. "All they wanted to know when you came into the Savoy was, do you dance?" In the spring of 1944, the dance floor at the Savoy was where Martha Hickson first met the man she later married. Ms. Hickson is white; her husband, Foster Hickson, was black. They were married nearly 50 years, until her husband's death in 2000. "He had a particular way he would lift his feet," said Ms. Hickson, 80, who planned to attend the celebration today. "He called it the Apple Jack. I don't even have to close my eyes. I can see him doing that right this minute." The Savoy's dance floor used to bounce with the force of all those happy feet, and few remember it better than Bill London. He was one of a group of neighborhood teenagers who helped clean the ballroom in the early morning hours, sweeping the dance floor and picking up trash. When he was older, on leave from the Army, he returned to dance. "I was going there to have fun and to get women," said Mr. London, 70. "I cannot lie. But you had to be able to dance."