Lindy hop in the context of "Closed position"

Jazz Dance is a performance dance and style that arose in the United States in the early 20th century. Jazz Dance may allude to vernacular Jazz, Broadway or dramatic Jazz. The two types expand on African American vernacular styles of dance that arose with Jazz Music. Vernacular dance refers to dance forms that emerge from everyday life and cultural practices of a specific community, often reflecting the social, cultural, and historical contexts of that community. In the context of African American culture, vernacular dance encompasses styles that developed organically within African American communities, influenced by African traditions, European dance forms, and the unique experiences of African Americans in the United States.

Vernacular Jazz Dance incorporates ragtime moves, Charleston, Lindy hop and mambo. Popular vernacular Jazz Dance performers include The Whitman Sisters, Florence Mills, Ethel Waters, Al Minns and Leon James, Frankie Manning, Norma Miller, Dawn Hampton, and Katherine Dunham. Dramatic Jazz Dance performed on the show stage was promoted by Jack Cole, Bob Fosse, Eugene Louis Faccuito, and Gus Giordano.

Norma Adele Miller (December 2, 1919 – May 5, 2019) was an American Lindy hop dancer, choreographer, actress, author, and comedian known as the "Queen of Swing".

The terms hipster or hepcat, as used in the 1940s, referred to aficionados of jump blues and jazz, in particular bebop, which became popular in the early 1940s. The hipster subculture adopted the lifestyle of the jazz musician, including some or all of the following features: Conk hairstyles, loose fitting or oversize suits with loud colors, jive talk slang, use of tobacco, cannabis, and other recreational drugs, relaxed attitude, love for jazz or jump blues music, and styles of swing dancing, especially Lindy hop.

The zoot suit was the popular style amongst hepcats. It incorporated baggy or oversize suits sometimes with loud colors, thick chalk stripes, floppy hats, and long watch chains. Many zoot suiters would often wear a fedora or pork pie hat, color-coordinated with the suit. Occasionally, they would have a long feather on the fedora or pork pie hat as decoration.

Jitterbug is a generalized term used to describe swing dancing. It is often synonymous with the lindy hop dance but might include elements of the jive, east coast swing, collegiate shag, charleston, balboa and other swing dances.

Swing dancing originated in the African-American communities of New York City in the early 20th century. Many nightclubs had a whites-only or blacks-only policy due to racial segregation, however the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem had a no-discrimination policy which allowed whites and blacks to dance together and it was there that the Lindy Hop dance flourished, started by dancers such as George Snowden and Frank Manning. The term jitterbug was originally a ridicule used by black patrons to describe whites who started to dance the Lindy Hop, as they were dancing faster and jumpier than was intended, like "jittering bugs", although it quickly lost its negative connotation as the more erratic version caught on. Both the Lindy Hop and the "jitterbug" became popular outside Harlem when the dance was featured in Hollywood films and Broadway theatre, starring the performance group Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.