Big Apple Art Event

This is a picture of the Big Apple in Columbia, South Carolina.

The shag is done to music that is a 4/4 count, but the person dancing to the shag does so to a 6 count. The dancer would count 1and 2 - 3 and 4 - 5 6.

 The Big Apple was originally known as the House of Peace synagogue.  The Big Apple of today was a house of worship which was destroyed by a fire in1915.  21 years later, the congregation was to big for the building and had to sell and move to a new location.  This happened in 1936.  That same year the property became reincarnated as the Big Apple Night Club.  This is where the dance craze from the summer of 1937 was born.  The Big Apple dance moved to New York by way of USC students.  This dance gained the attention of dance instructor Arthur Murray and Tommy Dorsey who wrote “The Big Apple Swing”. The Big Apple Club was closed and the dance was no longer popular by 1938. The former club was moved from its original location to the corner of Hampton and Park Street. The Big Apple still has original architecture and can even be rented out today for special occasions.  The Big Apple is a two story wooden building and has a metal roof.  The building was built for mostly Polish and Russian immigrants, so it is an example of Eastern Jewish architecture. The entrance has a large arch with stained glass windows surrounding it.  Both sides of the building have five windows with horseshoe arches.  The interior has a central recessed dome.  The dome has neon lights in the shape of a crescent moon and shooting stars.  There is also a balcony which was used as a spectator’s gallery during the time that the building was a night club.

The dance known as the shag did not evolve overnight.  The shag is a combination of the Big Apple, Varsity Drag, The Big Bottom, The Lindy Hop, and Jitterbug which led to the era of Swing dancing.  This eventually led to the birth of the Shag.  In North Myrtle Beach during the 1940’s, teenagers developed their own style of Sing that became known as the Shag.  Shag is slower than the West Coast Swing where the dancers do not bounce or hop. This dance is done in 4/4 time.  Billy Jeffers and Chicken Hicks are credited for developing the Shag that we know today. They slowed down the early fast swing tempo into a loose and easy dance.  In 1984, the South Carolina General Assemble made the Shag the official state dance.  There is a National Shage Dance Championship in Myrtle Beach annually.