Who's Who in Swing Dance

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my children Virginia Lee Raper and Paul Leon Raper who thought their Dad was a little goofy out dancing contests all the time when they were young children. I sometimes think they would have preferred a normal Dad.

Special Acknowledgments

I must give credit to a very special person without whose help this work would not have been possible. Shirley Fietsam is an outstanding swing dancer and a swing dance historian who has spent over 17 years researching and collecting all kinds of information on swing dance. So, I say thank you Shirley for all your hard work and contributions to the art and science of swing dance and thank you for your many hours spent providing me with information and proof reading this work.

I also wish to thank Frankie Manning and Pepsi Bethel for their great help in the area of Lindy Hop and thanks to the authors Marshall & Jean Stearns for their great book "Jazz Dance" The Story of American Vernacular Dance - an outstanding work on the history of dance. And last but not least, thanks to those many other people too numerous to mention who I drove nuts trying to obtain information for the book.

Another special acknowlegement goes to Chris Mayer who has provided some great pictures of Swing Dancers on his "Washington D.C. Swing Dance Server". We provide links from the Who's Who in Swing Dance to some of the pictures on his web site.