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Culture and Recreation

Dance

How did the jitterbug get started?

During the height of swing music’s popularity in the late 1930s and early 1940s, there were at least 50 dance bands with national reputations and significant followings. Dance styles such as the jitterbug were based on Big Band music, the dominant form of American musical entertainment during those decades. The dance itself is a variation of the two-step; couples swing and twirl in standardized patterns, which sometimes include acrobatics.