Jitterbug

Jitterbug is a lively partner dance associated with swing music, popular in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Its name also became a broad label for energetic swing dancing.

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Swing dance: A family of partner and solo dances that developed alongside jazz and swing music. Jitterbug is often used as a broad name for dances within this family.
Savoy Ballroom: A Harlem ballroom that opened in 1926 and became a major venue for Black social dancing and big-band music. Its dancers and bands helped shape the swing styles later called jitterbug.
Hellzapoppin': A 1941 American comedy film featuring an extended Lindy Hop sequence by Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. Its explosive dance scene is a celebrated screen example of swing dancing often called jitterbug.
Boogie-woogie: A blues-based piano style and a partner dance characterized by lively, rhythmically driven steps. Its dance form shares swing-era energy but has a distinct musical and step vocabulary.
East Coast swing: A six-count swing dance characterized by a compact basic pattern and a circular partner connection. Its basic step is one common form associated with American jitterbug dancing.
Harlem Renaissance: A flourishing of African American literature, music, visual art, and intellectual life centered in Harlem during the 1920s and 1930s. Harlem’s cultural life formed part of the setting in which swing dancing developed.
A Day at the Races: A 1937 Marx Brothers comedy film featuring a dance sequence by Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. The sequence helped display Harlem swing dancing to mainstream film audiences.
Jive: A fast ballroom dance derived from African American swing dances and standardized for competition. Jive formalizes some swing-dance features that jitterbug leaves comparatively informal.
Lindy Hop: A partnered swing dance that developed in Harlem in the late 1920s and combines eight-count patterns with improvisation. Jitterbug is sometimes used for Lindy Hop and related energetic swing styles.
Whitey's Lindy Hoppers: A performance troupe of Harlem Lindy Hop dancers organized by Herbert White in the 1930s. Their performances brought an influential form of swing dancing to wider audiences.