Who’s Yehoodi

The Story of a (Mostly) Online Dance Community

By Riki Panganiban, January 2024

CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. A Brief History

3. Friends We Made Along the Way

4. Community Support

5. Dancing Together!

6. Info Sharing & Coordination

7. Endless Discussions

…You Know What to Do

Notes

1. Introduction

It was January 1998. I was working as a nonprofit administrator in New York City. One day my work buddy Denise asked me if I would go with her to a dance class.

“Maybe?” I replied. “What kind of dancing?”

“Ummm… swing? Swing dancing,” she said, sheepishly. “I really don’t want to go without a partner.”

“Uh huh. I mean that’s not really my thing. But for you, I’ll go,” I said.

So on a Wednesday night, Denise and I took our first lindy hop class at the Sandra Cameron Dance Center in downtown Manhattan. Three hours later, we had signed up for a month of classes. We were hooked.

A few months later, I was the community manager of Yehoodi.com.

• • • •

This is the history of a (mostly) online community of thousands of weirdos who loved this one esoteric dance and went on to create something fun and silly and heart-breaking and inspiring together. And, if you played any part in Yehoodi over the past twenty-five years, this is your story.

In this essay, we begin by describing what Yehoodi was, which is surprisingly complicated. And then we spend the bulk of our time unpacking what Yehoodi meant to it’s thousands of “Yehoodites” over the years, including:

• Lifelong friendships
• A supportive community
• A place for dancing
• Information sharing and coordination
• Online chats that went on and on and on….

This paper was the result of several months of gathering information and anecdotes from friends of Yehoodi (ironically hosted on a Facebook group.) Our deep thanks to the hundreds of you for participating in this exercise. You did us a solid.

And while Yehoodi was run by a dedicated team of Yehoodistrators and many other friends are quoted here, I am solely responsible for assembling these pieces and weaving them together into a larger narrative. All errors, misstatements and goofs are my own. (More about me here.)

And now, on with the show…

2. A Brief History

Yehoodi was the brainchild of Manu Smith and Frank Dellario, two best friends who had recently started learning this dance called “lindy hop” at Dance Manhattan Studios in New York City. Frank and Manu – like so many people in that time – fell deeply in love with lindy hop. So the two of them decided to build a website dedicated to their new passion. Their original motivation was a selfish one: to create a site where their local dance friends could coordinate where to go out dancing each night.

This was NYC in 1998, which was in the midst of what some dubbed the “neo-swing” era. Swing was everywhere at that time – in bars and nightclubs, on Top-40 radio stations, in television and movies, and increasingly on this new thing called the Internet.

Web 2.0 had not quite hit its stride yet. Many people were still hand-coding websites on text editors. Email listservs were a big deal. And homegrown BBS (bulletin board systems) were the cutting edge tech that folks used to converse online with strangers.

And then came Yehoodi in all its orange and mustard glory.

Yehoodi, circa 2000

We weren’t the only or even the first website dedicated to lindy hop. Many New York dancers from that era remember Alan Sugarman’s website Swing Crazy. (Originally, Frank and Manu wanted to help Alan keep his site updated with more recent swing information, before striking out on their own.) There was our raunchier West Coast rival Jive Junction. Other sites like Savoy Style, WindyHop, Swingoutdc, Houston Swing Out, 23SkiDoo, Lindyhopper.ca, and Swing Monkey sprung up to support local and regional scenes all over.

Who’s Yehoodi?

Lots of folks have been confused by the website name. Its inspiration came from a Cab Calloway song entitled “Who’s Yehoodi?” released in 1940. Manu Smith was a big fan of Calloway’s music and thought the nonsensical name fit the off-kilter, fun energy of the site he wanted to create. The lyrics are so weird and catchy:

G-man Hoover's getting moody

Got his men on double duty

Trying to find out who's Yehoodi

Who's Yehoodi?

In the earliest versions of the site, Yehoodi featured an image of Cab Calloway as our logo.

Years later, we connected with Cab’s grandson Chris Calloway Brooks, who approved of us keeping Cab’s legacy alive.

The Boards

One of the things that set Yehoodi apart from other sites were our discussion forums, or, as they were typically referred to, “the boards.” At a time when engaging with strangers online was still a new concept, Yehoodi was a place where you could find hundreds and later thousands of folks just like you who were obsessed with swing dancing, swing music, and the culture of that era.

One of the big decisions for the site was whether or not we would provide a space for other conversations outside of dance- and music-related chat. I argued that if we really wanted to be a community site, that we should help people to get to know each other beyond the dance floor.  So that’s when we came up with the major sections of the forums:

• Swing Talk
• The Kitchen Sink
• Swing Events
• Swing Clubs
• Classes & Workshops
• Swing Bands / Music
• Sell & Buy

This made Yehoodi more than a place where you found out about where to take dance classes, what bands were playing where, or what shoes to buy. It became a hangout where you could  talk 24/7 with strangers about food, movies, dating, and politics. Since Yehoodi was based in NYC, the discussion “threads” had a particularly urban, East Coast edge to them. We’ll get back to that later in the story.

The Swing Calendars

From the beginning we hosted a swing calendar. This initially focused on just New York City, which was already a tall order since there were often several competing dance events happening each night all over the metropolis, from Harlem to Wall Street. For a short period, we expanded to hosting a Texas-focused calendar, based on some “connections” we had there.

Around 2002, we expanded to hosting a National calendar to cover big events like swing exchanges, camps, and competitions. And quixotically we decided we wanted to try and cover the whole dang country, with each state getting their own event calendar. That quickly became nearly impossible to maintain of course.

Streaming Swing Music

Early on, we featured a streaming music station on Yehoodi, where you could hear swing classics and music by newer artists, right from your web browser. It’s hard to appreciate now what a big deal that was, in a time before Spotify or Apple Music.

Back then, when you wanted to hear new swing music, you had to get out of your house, travel to a record store, head to the jazz section, find a CD from a band, purchase that CD, go home, then play it on your CD player.  Or if you were lucky, you had a friend with a CD burner who could make a mix CD for you, which you wrote “Swing mix 2001” on with a sharpie. Basically, the Dark Ages.

Our Shows

Yehoodi produced a number of online shows over the years, first as audio only, and later as video productions. Manu was always ahead of the curve on technology trends, and he made sure all our shows were well produced and looked and sounded great. I wrote the copy and tried to be a reasonably engaging co-host.

“The Yehoodi Talk Show”

The “Yehoodi Talk Show” was what started it all. YTS ran from 2004 to 2012, if you can believe it! What started as an audio podcast evolved into a video talk format. Most of it happened on Manu’s couch, from wherever he happened to be living at the time, with a rotating cast of hosts and guests over those eight years. Check out a clip from one of the shows.

“SwingNation”

“SwingNation” was a fancier version of the “Yehoodi Talk Show” that ran from 2012-2018. The hosts were Manu Smith, Nicole Zuckerman and myself. Our friend James Thorpe ran all the complicated production equipment behind the camera. Each episode was like a mini-television show, with online and in-person guests, multiple camera shots, b-roll footage, on-screen graphics, and our own catchy theme song. Here’s a retrospective on the show.

“Hey Mister Jesse”

Perhaps our most successful program, “Hey Mister Jesse” was a swing music podcast hosted by the incredibly knowledgeable and irrepressible Jesse Miner from 2006-2021. That’s fifteen years of “tasty talk about swingin' jazz and blues.” Hundreds of swing DJs from all over the world benefited from this incredible swing music resource created by Jesse and produced by Manu Smith. (You can still check out all the episodes on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.)

Swing News and Views

We did our best to keep our community abreast of all the major developments and news in lindy hop and swing music. In the beginning, we focused on announcing major events like dance camps and exchanges, shared dance contest results, and linked out to popular media about lindy hop.  Later we expanded to covering issues that we thought were most critical to the lindy hop community, such as:

• Sexual assault and violence against dancers

• Black representation in lindy hop
• LGBTQ visibility and inclusion in swing
• Creating safer, more inclusive spaces at our dance events

This was a responsibility that we took seriously, alongside all the other fun and silliness on the site.

Live Dance Events

Yehoodi was not just an online phenomenon. From the beginning, we hosted dance events, notably our anniversary dance parties and our weekly dance, the “Frim Fram Jam.”

The Yehoodi anniversary parties started way back in 1999 with a modest gathering at the Swing46 Supper Club in Times Square. These grew over the years in size and scope, from one night events to a weekend full of activities.

Y3A, 2001

Y6A, 2004

This reached its apex in 2004 with the Basie 100 Celebration and Yehoodi 6th Anniversary held at Columbia University that brought together a galaxy full of lindy hop and swing jazz luminaries.

The “Great Day in Lindy” photo from Basie 100, 2004

Yehoodi also started a local NYC dance we called the Frim Fram Jam in the fall of 2001. Originally conceived of by Manu Smith and David Graybill, Frim Fram had a number of homes over the years, from Swing46 to Jack Rose to its current home at You Should Be Dancing Studios. Now it’s own separate entity, Fram is a space that continues to make happy dance memories for thousands of people every year, thanks to co-organizers Heather Flock and Ryan Swift.

Live Online Broadcasts

Bringing together the real world and the online world, Yehoodi produced a number of live online broadcasts of dance events. Our main achievement was being the online broadcast partner of the International Lindy Hop Championships from 2012 to 2015. In true Manu fashion, Yehoodi didn’t just live stream those dance contests, we produced an entire Olympics-style broadcast. We had expert commentators, on-screen graphics, background segments, and even slo-mo breakdowns of iconic moments.

Jo Hoffberg and Nicole Zuckerman,  2014

Manu Smith and Riki Panganiban, 2015

We used that same technology to produce a live broadcast of the Frankie100 celebration in New York City in July of 2014, to commemorate the legacy of legendary dancer Frankie Manning. The highlight of the week was an incredible hour-long show at the Apollo Theater produced by Chester Whitmore and starring hundreds of the best lindy hoppers onstage.

• • • •

So that was a quick flyover of what Yehoodi produced over the years. (Okay, I left out a few things, like our live “chat room,” our brief experiment with Second Life, and our more adult-oriented podcasts “Beaver Lodge” and “Sausage Fest.”)

Not bad for a ragtag band of volunteers with zero budget. But what difference did all that make? To find out, we asked our community. Here’s what they told us.

3. Friends We Made Along the Way

For many Yehoodites, the friendships they made through Yehoodi continue to be some of their longest standing relationships, even if they hung up their dancing shoes long ago. Several people described how thrilling it was to meet people online and then connect with them again in person at a dance event, exchange, or camp.

This is one of our favorite stories shared by Bob Marlowe:

In early 2000, after I collected my winnings from my appearance on “Wheel of Fortune,” I decided to take my best friend to NYC over the Memorial Day weekend, since she had never been there.  I had been there numerous times as a kid in addition to going to Frankie's 85th.  

In planning our weekend, I posted a question on Yehoodi asking which “authentic” deli in NYC was the best.  I got several replies, but the consensus seemed to be for Katz's Deli.  Both Effervescent and SwingE suggested it, so I invited them to join us for dinner.  

Eff showed up in his Miata, and we all had a great time eating pastrami sandwiches.  It was a great weekend.  We danced on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, where I hummed the tune to “New York, New York” since there was no other music. The first night, we went to a dance at St. Jean Baptiste Church where Eddie and Eva from the Rhythm Hot Shots were teaching a lesson and Peggy Cone's band were performing, and the next night, we attended the NYSDS dance at Irving Plaza.  

I've remained friends with Eff and SwingE after all these years.

And of course some of those friendships turned into something more. Holly Yang recounted how she met her partner Julius:

After I'd been dancing for a few years, I started traveling, with my net spread wider and wider in concentric circles each time. Yehoodi made me feel like anywhere I went for dancing, I walked in with automatic friends. No room was full of strangers, as long as Yehoodi was there.

After becoming comfortable on Yehoodi, I started joining message boards all over the country- home in Raleigh, then DC, Nashville, Chicago, LA, etc. I posted occasionally, but read everything. So even people I'd never talked to at all I felt I knew.

In 2005 I found myself leaning against the bar at the House of Blues in New Orleans, at Llndy Gras Friday late night. I was talking to Jeff Washington, whom I'd met both online and at various events. I was looking at the other side of the room, where a tall, skinny asian guy was dancing. “Who's that? I asked Jeff. He looked at me curiously. “Julius? you don't know Julius? Julius from LA? I mean everybody knows him.” And of course after hearing the name, I agreed. I did immediately know him. And yet not at all. We'd never met, never talked, never interacted in any way – lived on opposite sides of the country from one another. But Yehoodi (and Jive Junction, to a lesser degree) made me feel like I both knew him…  and wanted to know him. So I pushed off the bar, puffed up my big-fish-in-a-small-pond feathers, and said “well, he's going to know me.”

Eight months later we flew to Y7A for a truly magical weekend, full of our brand new romance.

Now, 18 years later, as I sit here in our home, surrounded by the life we have built, our two spectacular kids, and the full, loving community of other dancers and their families as well, I can honestly say Yehoodi made me richer than I ever imagined. Thank you seems a little inadequate for helping every dream come true.

Jullus Yang and Holly Yang, 2005

Lots of folks described the thrill of running into dancers they first knew on Yehoodi during their travels, at work events, or just sitting in a cafe surfing the internet. “Back in the day when we didn’t have Youtube, FaceBook or Instagram,” wrote Singaporean dancer Sing Lim. “We relied on forums and websites like Yehoodi to connect to the lindy communities around the world.”

On Yehoodi we’ve also mourned the passing of friends in our community, grieved together the tremendous losses resulting from Hurricane Katrina, and commiserated with folks over tragedies large and small. Asher Siegal described his unlikely friendship with another Yehoodite named Debra aka “Sublindy”:

Now I'm thinking about my good friend Sublindy/Debra SIlver. We had completely different political views but were good friends. I loved her. Sadly as a lot of you know she was murdered by a psycho stalker. She will be missed forever. I wish I had a dime for every time she was banned for at least a week or more for posts on Yehoodi. She was feisty, vital, exciting and always doing something vastly interesting! We miss you Debra!

4. Community Support

Yehoodi helped many dancers realize that we were part of a vast community, which had specific advantages and benefits. According to Serena May Calcagno “finding Yehoodi made me feel like I was really part of something bigger than my small college scene, no matter where in the world I found myself then and after.”

For swing organizer extraordinaire Tena Morales it was the ILHC live broadcast that brought it all together for her:

This was the very first time I felt like we were a true Global community in Lindy Hop and be able to experience the same thing at the same time. When I first talked to Manu I was telling him how I wanted it to be like the Olympics where everyone watches all the important stuff all at the same time. Even if it meant you had to get up in the wee hours to watch. When I saw all the pictures, it literally made me cry.

For Genevieve Elaine, Yehoodi helped her realize there was a national community of dancers:

I started dancing in Tampa/St Petersburg FL. The first night I went out I met Haley Scallon and her brother  Don Kruse. Pretty sure that they told me about Yehoodi that night. It was July 19th 2002. That weekend there was a dance weekend in St Pete …. I think…. It was the first time I became aware that there was a whole nation of people dancing and that they were all connected through Yehoodi. I’m forever grateful because it made moving to NYC in 2005 so much more fun and exciting.

Jodi Mim mused about how Yehoodi came about during a particular time in her life:

Honestly, y'all, Yehoodi gave me my 20s. I moved to NYC from Jersey in early 2000, but I had already been dancing / on Yehoodi for a little less than a year when I did. Because of that I found places to live, friends that I'm still super close to to this day, and spent my 20s dancing all over the city. I lived on that board while I was supposed to be doing my design job, and I came in to work some days after not sleeping all night because we hit up the Hollywood Diner after Swing46 or some other dance shut down. That community was everything to me.

Amy Winn parlayed her connections to the Yehoodi community into an epic road trip she called the “Atalanta Freedom Tour”:

It might be slightly dramatic but it’s still entirely accurate to say that Yehoodi changed my life. Lindy hop was an activity, but Yehoodi was a community.

Yehoodi was part of my every day, for years. Yehoodi connected me to the national /  international network of lindy hoppers, which I sincerely believe is unique in all the world, even now. My daily contributions to Yehoodi helped me find my more authentic, less academic, writing voice, so people who had never met me felt they already knew me — and they were not far wrong. Yehoodi conversations sparked rich friendships that have lasted decades, and enabled memorable romances that lasted one day. There were extremely dumb fights and very smart arguments, but it was never, ever dull. Yehoodi allowed me to study others’ wisdom, offer my own advice, co-create comedy, and become a heckuva better dancer than I ever could have been without it.

Yehoodi also enabled me to truly and deeply see America, in the most literal sense.

I was not the first to go on what was called a “Lindy sojourn,” but I think I was one of the few who made it a full-time lifestyle for a while. Frustrated by my job, feeling stymied in my career, and itching for a major change, I had a premature midlife crisis at the ripe age of 29. I knew I needed to leave my hometown of Atlanta, but where would I go?

I decided: Everywhere. I’d go everywhere. And Yehoodi made that possible.

Yehoodi introduced me to people in cities I had never previously been interested in visiting, and compelled me to go there. Yehoodi opened literal doors, to homes across the country, with hosts who were eager to meet me or who were willing to accept me based entirely on a character reference from a mutual-virtual friend.

In early 2003 — I cannot believe it’s been over 20 years!!!! — I mapped out a rough road trip itinerary that not only crossed the country, but encircled it. I shared the plan with Yehoodi and the enthusiastic invitations and introductions started rolling in immediately. The “Atalanta Freedom Tour” became a true community event, and I was (am!) astonished how many people wanted to be part of it.

By the time I left home in mid-February (first stop: LindyGras in New Orleans!), the plan was to drive from Atlanta across to San Diego, all the way up the West Coast to Vancouver, down and across Washington, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, up to Detroit, dipping back into Canada from Windsor to Toronto, across New York State and then back down the East Coast home to Atlanta. The first segment grew to include more than 40 stops and I was continuously on the road for over four months, from February to June 2003.

In all those weeks, I rented hotel rooms for only three nights — there were no lindy hoppers or friends-of-lindy hoppers in Fort Stockton, Texas; Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; or Wyoming. All the rest of that time was hosted, sometimes by my “non-dancer” friends, but mostly by lindy hoppers and Yehoodites.

I plotted my travel around local dances, events and exchanges, where possible. I followed the warming sun as winter turned to summer. Occasionally, I took on a passenger to hop from one town to the next, but mostly my driving time was spent alone, which made me eager to interact with everyone each time I turned up somewhere new.

I was invited to observe Passover in Portland, and join an Earth Day festival in St. Louis. I drove the entire length of the Pacific Coast Highway and heard ice thawing in Yellowstone National Park. I saw deserts and mountains and plains, and both sides of Niagara Falls. I got robbed twice. (...by strangers, not Yehoodites!) I listened to a couple dozen books-on-tape, visited tourist sights and local favorites, talked with friends and strangers, and danced as often as possible. I took a lot of photos — they were all pretty bad.

I logged every leg of my travels on Yehoodi, of course. The thread spanned hundreds posts with Yehoodites from all over chiming in and cheering me on.

After that big initial segment, I kept going on shorter road trips for the rest of the year as I ostensibly job-hunted, visiting dozens of newsrooms nationwide. I couch-surfed constantly, still thanks to the community. Every so often, a business traveler offered me their empty apartment (heaven!). To stanch the bleeding from my savings, I did odd jobs and freelance writing assignments — they call it being a “digital nomad” now, and it’s a lot easier these days with universal wifi and smartphones than it was then, counting out my monthly allotment of daytime cell phone minutes and going from one Kinko’s and college computer lab to the next, paying for email access by the minute. I went into credit card debt, obviously, but that wasn’t scary to me in those days … mostly, I just fucked around and felt as free as anyone ever has. It was all very glorious even if I knew it wasn’t forever.

After exploring everywhere, and making repeat visits to several regions, I recognized that New York City was exactly the right place for me. I accepted a job in the Mid-Hudson Valley (it was close enough) and moved permanently in April 2004. The New York Yehoodites welcomed me warmly, embraced me as if they had been awaiting my arrival, and made me feel truly at home — which is no small thing, as any new New Yorker will attest.

A year and a half spent mostly on the road, seeing most of North America, expanded my understanding of what I could achieve by myself, and what more was possible with the support of a true community. The journey transformed me, yet made me more myself than anything else ever has.

For this reason but also so many others, and for so many people, Yehoodi was important. I will appreciate forever that it existed, vibrantly, for as long as it did.

Those connections made a difference during some of the lowest moments of people’s lives. One of the darkest times in Yehoodi’s – and our country’s – history was the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. But it was also a moment when we found out why community matters, including the lindy hop community. Tessa Auza shares her story of that difficult time:

I love telling people about the power of social media and the internet. All that, in combination with the connections and opportunities in the Lindy Hop scene gave me the best experiences in my life. And in this case, it helped me survive one of the worst times in my life.

After standing up at my English cousin's wedding, I was making my way back to the US. I planned to have an entire day and night in London before catching an early flight back to Chicago. I spent part of the day visiting a museum and walking around. I slowly realized that a lot of people are on their phones talking about a bomb in the US. And it was while I was in a street market that I realized a lot of people were standing beside a radio listening to the news. And I'd finally realized that this bomb people were talking about was planes flying into buildings in New York City. I could tell who the Americans were in this group.

After reaching my mother by telephone, we decided that I should go straight to Heathrow Airport and try to fly out of the UK as soon as possible. Little did I know that Heathrow would be my home for three days and three days nights.

Aside from the occasional long-distance phone call to my family and boyfriend, a little kiosk allotted 15-minute increments of internet time gave me the news and communication I would need for those days. Most of that time, on the internet, I would check on my friends and the news from America on Yehoodi. I relied on this national swing dance forum for news on what was going on in the US and to check in on my dance friends in New York City. Yehoodi gave me more information about the results of 9/11 outside of the chatter in the airport or the headlines I would read in the airport shops."

I imagined I would be sleeping on the floor of the Heathrow Terminal until I got home. But my lindy connections saved me. Through the Gwon siblings, whom I'd met during my lindy travels and later on Yehoodi, I was able to connect to their sister Shannon in London. Shannon took me in for a few days. I had a safe place to rest and a kind, generous person who took me around London.

At one point, we visited a memorial for 9/11. Another evening, Shannon took me out to the pubs where I got to speak with other internationals who gave me their perspective of the event while others could look at me with sad eyes and share their sympathy.

It was also on Yehoodi that I realized that George Gee was still going to be able to perform at the Willowbrook Ballroom and near Chicago around September 15. I got home just in time to see my friends on the dance floor and thank George for driving from New York City to play for us in Chicago. Knowing that I would be dancing with my friends to music that I love was such a beacon of hope during a time I was so scared and unsure. So thanks again, Yehoodi, for being there for me when I needed you.

5. Dancing Together!

What made the Yehoodi community different was that we had a shared activity that we all loved – lindy hop. And getting to dance with each other at Yehoodi anniversary parties really solidified what our community was every year.

Yehoodi anniversary parties were the main way that our community came together in the real world. We held a total of eleven anniversary parties between 1999 and 2010, some more intimate affairs and others major national events. Seeing and dancing with people you had only known from their posts on the discussion forums was such a huge thrill for folks.

Jelly Roll Productions was a sister organization that put on a series of incredible dance events in New York City in the early 2000s. Yehoodi was fortunate enough to partner with them on some of our best dance parties. Here’s how David Jacoby, one of the founders of Jelly Roll Productions, relates it:

Have you heard Junior Mance's version of “For Dancers Only”?  He takes this fast, big band Jimmie Lunceford tune and flips it on its head.  Slow, bluesy, heartfelt, yet still a swingin' rollercoaster ride.  What amazing ability to have the creativity to hear a song like that in a completely different way.

In 2002 I heard he was playing at Knickerbockers, an intimate restaurant near Washington Square.  I called Manu, and off we went to see him.  He blew our minds immediately.  We sheepishly said hi to him during the end of a set break and told him we're crazy about his version of “For Dancers Only.” Off he immediately went to the piano and started playing it!  Pure bliss, and such a sweet man.

So after his gig, I tell him we're lindy hoppers and we'd love for him to play for us sometime.  He looked at me kinda funny, but a little interested.  Then I told him what we could afford, and he looked at me very funny.  But I followed up and begged and pleaded and promised him it would be great, and he finally said yes, at the very least to shut me up.

That's how it all began: the Junior Mance Trio, January 9, 2003 at Jack Rose, sponsored by Jelly Roll Productions and Yehoodi.  Junior's bass player, Earl May, had such a fantastic time, that he insisted that his band, The Earl May Quintet, play for dancers.  That band included vocalist Catherine Russell (now a Grammy winner), and the legendary Benny Powell, who played in Basie's band for over a decade.  After that night, each of them insisted on their own gigs for dancers with their own bands!  And on and on it went, a spiraling avalanche of jazz greats - and some younger cats - excited to reconnect with dancers.  

From 2003 - 2008, Jelly Roll Productions and Yehoodi teamed up for live music lindy events which included Junior Mance, Ray Bryant, Ernestine Anderson, Barbara Morrison, Clark Terry, Benny Powell, Frank Wess, Art Baron, Houston Person, Kim Nalley, Dave Glasser, Laverne Butler, Paul Tillotson, Wycliffe Gordon, John Bunch, Johnny Blowers, Ruth Brisbane, and tons more.

Little did I know Junior was a regular at Knickerbockers and other local joints, so I got to see him dozens of times.  After a gig one night in 2003, Earl May comes up to me and says, "Hey David, did you know that next year is Count Basie's 100th Birthday?  We should do something."  So I asked if he knew any players who used to play with Basie, and I struck gold!  He was close friends with Frank Foster, Basie's longtime saxophone player, who also wrote many songs, including one of Frankie Manning's favorites, “Shiny Stockings.”  

Long story short, Earl connects me with Frank, and I paint the vision of a grand ballroom with as many living Basie alumni as we can get, and Frank couldn't have been more, well, jazzed.  He calls all his Basie buddies, including Frank Wess, Benny Powell, Joe Wilder, Clark Terry, Dennis Rowland, and others, and they all show up for a grand event filled with countless musicians who played with Count Basie, October 9th, 2004: Yehoodi's 6th Anniversary, also known as The Basie Centennial Ball (or even "Basie 100").

There are so many amazing memories of live music events, and it is all because of the enthusiasm of the lindy community, especially the New York City community.  Time and again, musicians were floored by the reception they received.  They had gotten used to snobby jazz clubs with a large cover and two-drink minimum and people sitting in their chairs.  But now they were connecting with dancers, feeling the energy and vibrating floor during the song, and hearing the hooting and hollering afterwards.  This was a high that they had forgotten about, and for some, had never experienced.  

Lindy hoppers always talk about the importance of the connection with the music and musicians.  With Yehoodi's anniversary parties and other events, for the musicians, the feeling was always mutual.  All they wanted to do was play for dancers only.

6. Info Sharing and Coordination

One of the first functions of Yehoodi, as we said, was to help people to find their friends and dance together. The individual dance threads on the boards were a way of extending the fun of a dance event into the online world. I remember rushing home from a dance party, eagerly anticipating spending at least the next hour up late on Yehoodi chatting with people I had just seen in person, and probably the next day “at work.”

Leah wrote, “I loved the event threads! Getting to check and see who was going to the events you were at made it exciting. And seeing who was going to events you couldn't make it to made you want to be there.”

Meg agreed ”Oh dang, event threads were The Best! And then all the post-event thank you posts and inside jokes.” “And hunting to see if your new dance crush ‘mentioned you’” Chelsea added.

Later, as we became a more nationwide site, it became where you went to find out where to dance anywhere in the US, and beyond. Anne-Marie Kavulla wrote:

Between work (which was dance related) and lindy hop, I got to travel all over the U.S. and beyond - it was such a great time. I remember being in Scotland and telling my co-workers that I was heading out dancing. They were shocked that I was going alone - but it was swing dancing and the venue was listed on Yehoodi so off I went. (Knowing full well that there was a heated discussion posted about the style of dancing they did - was it even lindy hop? 🤨🤔 That seemed more controversial than me going by myself) I had a great time!

Michelle DeCastro had a similar account:

In the early-mid 2000’s I traveled a lot for work and moved a lot. Based out of KY for a while, I used Yehoodi to find out where to go on weekends (up to an 8 hr drive) and connect with potential hosts during peak lindy exchange era, and find dances and people to connect with during business trips across the world. It also helped me get settled and make friends in NYC. Yehoodi did a lot for me. Once everyone moved over to Facebook and “private” groups, it became a lot harder to connect and network with people and meet new people. I really felt a loss of greater community.

Serena May Calcagno related what Yehoodi’s information sharing meant to her as a young lindy hopper:

When I went to Minnesota for college and started Lindy Hopping in 2013, Yehoodi was my gateway to the National and International discourse around dance. I read Frankie’s autobiography, read tons of Yehoodi blog posts, and even listened to Hey Mister Jesse, which I didn’t realize was part of Yehoodi until far later.

When the ILHC live broadcasts came on, we all gathered around a huge TV in the dance studio at St. Olaf to witness it. As I started DJing swing music at my college’s dances and on the school radio station, Hey Mister Jesse introduced me to new music, and made me appreciate the deeper cuts - especially how creativity on the part of different bands could make the same swing song feel totally different.

Singaporean dancer Sing Lim shared how unique Yehoodi was at the time for her and her local scene:

Back in the day when we didn't have youtube, FaceBook or IG, we relied on forums and websites like Yehoodi to connect to the lindy communities around the world.  Being in Singapore, we were so curious to know what it was like dancing in the big cities like New York or Chicago or San Francisco!  We were also desperate to let people know that we were swinging it out way over here in the East. ( i called it the Far East Coast Swing)

Yehoodi was a great way for us to lurk on the chats and find out what the "trends" and "wars" were. and also, how to suede a Ked!

I remember being so excited to post our events like SEA Jam in the "Events" forum and hope that somehow it would reach a traveler that would visit. ( and it really did!)

I also "met" so many interesting people through the forums and chats.  It was such a great thrill when I finally met up face to face with the famous Rik Panganiban 🙂

Yehoodi was such an important resource to us!

Perhaps Yehoodi’s finest hour was helping get the word out about Frankie Manning’s autobiography Ambassador of Lindy Hop.  Here’s how Frankie’s collaborator /co-author Cynthia Millman tells it:

Soon after Yehoodi was started in 1998, Stuart Math (who created the first Frankie Manning birthday film for Frankie’s 80th at Can’t Top the Lindy Hop), told me about this new-fangled thing called Yehoodi. I found it online, and was blown away by the connectivity if immediately afforded swing dancers. For instance, before Yehoodi if you wanted to explore options for buying a pair of dance shoes, you could ask around at an event. If you were lucky, you found someone in the know. If not, important information went untapped. Post Yehoodi, you could get advice from dancers around the world within days . . . or minutes.

Young dancers who have grown up with this sort of access to information are probably rolling their eyes. But mark my words, sonny boy (shaking my cane), it was revolutionary at the time.

Yehoodi played a big role in the journey of Frankie Manning’s memoir in so many ways:

Frankie and I spent over ten years working on the book without knowing if we’d get a publisher. I worried about this a lot. Around year seven, during the cocktail hour at Margaret Batiuchok’s wedding, Frank Dellario assured me that if we couldn’t find a publisher Yehoodi would help us self-publish. (Keep in mind that this was a much less developed and more expensive process then.) My stress level went down immediately. At least I knew Frankie’s story would be shared. Eventually, Norma Miller’s book paved the way for a contract with Temple University Press, but I’ve always been grateful to Frank and Yehoodi for the support they offered at a time of need.

From the time I met him, I was fascinated by the details of Frankie’s life. But he felt that, with only a few exceptions, most dancers didn’t share this level of  interest. During our years-long interview process, I dug for details. Frankie answered my questions, but wasn’t always onboard with including the material. One day, I printed out a Yehoodi thread that asked the question, “What should the follower do on count five of a swing out?” The answers filled thirteen pages, and counting. I gave it to Frankie saying, “Look, here’s this long discussion about what happens on one beat of a swing out. I think these people are into details.” He said nothing, folded it up, and put it in his coat pocket. But moving forward, and with additional encouragement from long-time partner Judy Pritchett, he was more open to including these smaller stories as we built the book.

Yehoodi offered to sponsor a publishing party for Ambassador of Lindy Hop, and collaborated with Temple University Press, The Jazz Museum in Harlem, and Riverside Church on this project. David Jacoby and Riki Panganiban met with Frankie, me, and reps from Temple to discuss details, then worked tirelessly for months to pull things together. The result was a wonderful celebration that included an interview with the authors in Riverside’s theater, followed by a dance party with the Loren Schoenberg Jazz Band in one of the church’s grand meeting halls.

As if that wasn’t enough, Yehoodi initiated a campaign to boost sales on the book’s release date. (I’d had a minor but very real panic attack when I realized I couldn’t meet the original deadline for a Fall 2006 release, thus breaking the terms of our contract with Temple. But this turned out to be a great example of things working out.) The May 26th, 2007 publication allowed Lindy hoppers around the world to buy the book en masse on Frankie’s 93rd birthday, an idea suggested by David and masterminded by Riki. Using an ancient technique called viral email, Riki orchestrated the sale with the intent of bumping the book into Amazon’s top ten. The Yehoodi team applied their talents. David lobbied musicians, dance studios and venues to donate incentives. Manu created a cool video. Ryan Swift designed banners and buttons to post on other sites. And it worked!! After a thrilling 24-hour climb, we hit #7 by day’s end on the East Coast. I later heard that we hit #6 by midnight on the West Coast.

I went to sleep happily overwhelmed by this incredible show of support and unity. As one dancer wrote on Yehoodi, where everyone was roll-calling in all day, “All I did was buy a book, but it felt so good.” Huge thanks to everyone who participated, and to Yehoodi for this incredible experience.

Frankie Manning signing books at the Herrang Dance Camp in Sweden, 2007

7. The Endless Discussions

Yehoodi could have just been a place where people went to connect with others about lindy hop. Which would have been fine. But the real magic of the site in its heyday was it became a place people came to just to hang out and shoot the shit with people that they liked. Most of whom they had never met in real life.

It was at its height a national chat room where 24/7 people were conversing about all sorts of inanity.

Neal “Effervescent” Blangiardo and I had the impossible job of attempting to moderate what seemed like thousands of conversations happening at the same time. Stomping out flame wars. Issuing warnings. Banning trolls and spammers. Welcoming newbies. Fixing tech issues. It was one of the hardest jobs that we loved.

Here’s how Neal found Yehoodi:

Back in the pre-Gap commercial '90s, I remember being confused about how certain key dancers always seemed to know each and every upcoming dance venue/event. I learned to touch base with them (just a handful of folks) before leaving venues like The Cotton Club, Louisiana, and Sandra Cameron studios dance parties.

So, one day, I asked. And was told, "Yehoodi."

"What's Yehoodi?"

"A new website."

"Wait. There is a website for swing dancing?"

Yehoodi was just a few months old at that point and became my go-to instantly. Dial-up was still king in those days. Cell phones had no way to access the Internet and wouldn't for years. Later (as a Yehoodistrator), had my employers known just how much time I spent on the Boards, I likely would have been instantly canned. It became a huge part of my life.

Leslie Thompson and Neal Blangiardo, 2001

Yehoodites shared some their favorite “threads” on the discussion boards over the years, which gives you some idea of the nonsense that we were up to:

• Advice for parents from the childless  
• WMDs or no WMDs?
• Shaving 🪒 your chest hair…
• Eight count mafia  
• Videos of people dancing "The Swing"
• Jessie Babcock is a Slut.
• Online dating morons
• Ask your questions about bass flute here
• You really shouldn’t be in pictures
• Fly Balloon Fly (keep this thread on top)
• Florida Weirdness
• Inappropriate sexy halloween costumes
• Swing Memes

While many of these threads have been lost to previous iterations of the boards, a few can still be found lurking on the Wayback Machine. Here’s some excerpts from a couple of memorable threads from the past.

TITLE: Unexpectedly cool stuff that happened 2 u 2day

TITLE: Ask Frankie Manning a Question!

TITLE: Collegiate Shag, the Forgotton Bad Ass Dance ???

So much nonsense posted by so many people! It was inspired madness, which never failed to amaze me with the creativity, humor, and sheer volume of content you all produced. (And yes, CultofMarcus is still perma-banned.)

…You Know What to Do

“Back in the early 2000’s, Yehoodi always kept us up to date with who was playing where.”

“We relied on forums and websites like Yehoodi to connect to the lindy communities around the world.”

“I hosted a few dancers who reached out on Yehoodi - it was so much fun meeting new people! And I was hosted a bunch of times too.“

“We were able to connect and commiserate after 9/11 in a way that was meaningful.”

“Basie 100 was great! It was the only time I got to see Clark Terry perform.”

• • • •

Yehoodi came on the scene at the perfect time.

Yehoodi grew up in the heyday of “Web2.0” but before the ascendance of social media. Looking back, it all looks a bit innocent and naive, before DOXing, identity theft, deep fakes, and Russian bots. “We posted everything on there,” explained Angemala Heard. “Names, phone numbers, addresses... We didn't care who in the lindy world knew our information.”

Yehoodi also came around right at the start of the swing “resurgence” in America. (Of course, Black folks had been keeping lindy hop alive from the 1950s to today, but few noticed.) There were other websites devoted to lindy hop besides Yehoodi, as we described at the beginning of our story. But few were as poised to ride the “neo-swing” craze as Yehoodi was.

It would be easy to say that something like Yehoodi could never happen again. And perhaps that is true. Certainly not in the exact way that the Yehoodi community emerged.

To sum up, Yehoodi succeeded because of a unique set of historical, technological, and cultural forces that a small team of people were able to harness for something good. It was both the big societal changes and specific individual choices that made Yehoodi happen. And that can make something else beautiful happen in the future.

So while the time of Yehoodi may have passed, all those things that Yehoodi brought to peoples’ lives – friendships, community, opportunities, dancing to great music – are still things that people need. So what can you create that can fill those needs?

“Ah, one, two, you know what to do… ”

NOTES

Special Thanks

Hundreds of folks participated in our online call for anecdotes and memories of Yehoodi. We are grateful for everyone’s contributions, even if we couldn’t fit every one of them in. A special thanks to those who shared longer stories with us that really fleshed out this history, including:

• Tessa Auza
• Neal Blangiardo
• Serena May Calcagno
• David Jacoby
• Bob Marlowe
• Cynthia Millman
• Amy Winn
• Holly Yang

About Riki Panganiban

I have worn a lot of hats at Yehoodi over the years. I served as the community manager / co-moderator of the discussion forums for most of the site’s history (until Facebook killed them.) I was also the editor-in-chief of the news section of the site, covering developing stories, writing articles, and curating content. I helped produce the “Yehoodi Talk Show” and “SwingNation,” creating episode outlines, writing scripts, and co-hosting. I led the creation of a brochure about the history of lindy hop that has been printed and distributed around the world and has been translated into Chinese, Korean and French. I still don’t know how to do the “Big Apple.”

The Yehoodistrators

The Yehoodi staff (aka the “Yehoodistrators”) have grown and changed over the years. But here’s all the folks that served on the core team at various points:

• Frank “Frankyboy” Dellario - co-founder
• Manu “Spuds” Smith - co-founder
• Neal “Effervescent” Blangiardo
• Heather “Lilieblue” Flock
• David “Shorty Dave” Jacoby
• Larry Kang
• Riki “rikomatic” Panganiban
• Leslie “Lindygirl” Thompson

Neal Blangiardo, Frank Dellario, Manu Smith. Christine Tse, Jesse Miner, David Jacoby and Rik Panganiban, 2005

Rik Panganiban, David Jacoby, Heather Flock, and Neal Blangiardo, 2008?