In the early Twentieth century, Swing dancing came to be which in turn gave birth to multiple dance styles. One unique dance born of the Swing is the “Jitterbug”. It rose to fame in the United States and the catchy dance spread to the international stages during World War II and from then on has captured the minds and hearts of audiences of each generation passed.
Well at Camp Hollywood’s National Jitterbug Competition, these two dancers held nothing back with an amazing performance true to the spirit of Swing.
Chandrae “Chanzie” Roettig Gomez and Stephen Edward Slayer set the stage on fire with a stunning routine.
With their backs turned to the audience, They take turns jumping in a full circle to face their fans, Stephen first then Chandrae, and begin shaking their bodies as if being grounded by a current of electricity. Jitterbug it is as they begin a high-energy sequence of jumps while shifting their weight from left to right.
They mimic and mirror each other’s moves constantly smiling at the audience and each other. The way they move you would think they drank a couple of Red Bull’s before this. Wouldn’t be a surprise if they did though.
Sayer spins Gomez twice to which the energetic lady does a couple of splits much to the audience’s delight. Both dancers enjoyed that too by the looks of it. There is an apparent difference in height but the towering Sayer doesn’t seem too out of place ripping the dance floor with his much smaller dance partner.
But it’s not so much the spins and splits as it is both Gomez’s and Sayer’s footwork that is arresting to watch.
They catch the crowd’s breaths with a slower, backward walk with the matching shoulder action. All it took was attitude. They have lots of that. Even though the tempo is quick and jittery (yeah okay) there is a rhythm to their routine that gets you bopping and smiling all at once.
Perhaps it’s how they manage to stay with the beat? Whatever it is, Chandrae and Stephen are very entertaining. Crowd seems to agree too. Cheers and screams fill the air whenever these two pull out a stunning visual display of moves.
The movements are sharp, precise, and snazzy. The music is “Land of 1000 dances” by Wilson Pickett which, don’t know about you, seem to capture what Gomez and Slayer are all about.
The energy is electric and both Stephen and Chandrae don’t even break a sweat.
They smile all the way to the end looking as cool as when they started even though the dance was fire. It was like every few seconds the crowd went wild for one of their snappy spins or kicks.
The last few parts looked to be just a fun time for these two. Back to back, throwing their hands in the air, all the while shaking their bodies to the upbeat tune then going for the eyes closed and hand in the air as if praising in the spirit.
And as the music died down, they each went to their knees, eyes closed and seemingly screaming their lungs out along with the song as if slowly running out of energy. Yeah right, guys. Now get up, smile, and bow.
Check out Gomez and Sayer’s electrifying dance in the video below
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Source: YouTube, Camp Hollywood
