The State from Columbia, South Carolina • 10

A10 MONDAY, JULY 28, 2003 THE STATE, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA. WWW.THESTATE.COM FROM PAGE DUE DANCE FROM PAGE A1 annual festival spotlighting black history. The organizers hope to attract at least a few surviving Big Apple dancers to the historic club. "We would like whoever we locate to trade some steps," Breedlove said. Headlining the event will be: a Lucretia Cayruth, one of the original black Big Apple dancers Betty Wood, a white dancer who gave a demonstration at the Roxy Theater in New York, igniting the craze Choreographer and dancer Frankie Manning, who refined the dance, took it uptown a and introduced it to the nation.

"They represent the evolution of the dance," Durlach said. "It will be the first time the three will all be in the same room." Roger Poston, executive director of Historic Columbia, said the Big Apple was more than a dance craze. Like jazz, it helped bridge the divide between white and black America. "It was a rich example of blending those two heritages," he said. 'SHINE THE In 1936, calls of "Rock the baby!" or "Do your thing!" or "Shine the apple!" would ring out most Saturday nights from the old House of Peace Synagogue on Park Street in Columbia.

The former Jewish house of worship had been converted into a black nightclub. And Columbia's black teenagers and young adults were creating something special. The calls were dance steps, each unique. Couples would take turns in the middle of the circle showcasing their own creations. In the balcony, white USC students would watch the dancers, then mimic the moves at their own parties.

That white students were in a black club at all was a unique cultural phenomenon of the Big Apple Club. The building formerly housed an Orthodox Jewish congregation, where women worshipped from the balcony. That made it easy for white kids to get in and see what was happening. "If it wasn't for that balcony, who knows how all this would have turned out," Durlach said. Some white students later gave a demonstration at the Roxy Theater in New York.

The dance was picked up by Manning and other black choreographers. And famous big-band songwriter Tommy Dorsey penned "The Big Apple Swing." Arthur Murray began teaching the new dance, and he expanded his dance studios from one to a string of studios across the nation: NAME GAME The dance also set off a discussion that lives to this day: Did New York's nickname, the Big Apple, derive from the dance? In 1988, the origins of the name made national news when former Columbia Mayor Patton Adams related the story in a New York Times article. As a result, Adams bet thenNew York Mayor Ed Koch some South Carolina barbecue against Hizzoner's New York-style pizza that the dance spawned the nickname. Koch argued Walter Winchell Winds slow fire's advance The Associated Press WEST GLACIER, Mont. Light winds Sunday slowed the advance of a wildfire threatening Glacier National Park headquarters and more than 500 homes and cabins outside the park.

Plans called for defensive burning of 5,000 acres along the Middie Fork and North Fork of the Flathead River, which form the western and southern boundaries of the park, fire information officer Andy Williams said. "It'll essentially pinch the fire off on its eastern flank and prevent it from going further east to the West Glacier and Apgar area," two villages inside the national park, Williams said. Officials said the fire was miles from both towns. Evacuation plans were prepared for residents of the park entrance town of West Glacier and for remaining workers at Glacier National Park's headquarters. OFFICE CHAIRS 100s IN STOCK COF THE LARGEST AND FURNITURE OLDEST WAREHOUSE SHOWROOM IN SC COF 1835 GERVAIS AT GREGG 254-2701 25844 WWW.COFOFFICEFURNITURE.COM ICE COLD SPECIAL TO THE STATE A couple dances the Big Apple in the club in 1936 or 1937, showing off their used the name in a 1927 magazine about Broadway, a full decade before the dance made the migration to Harlem.

The back-and-forth even made David Letterman's late-night talk BIG APPLE NIGHT CLUB ALL KINDS SANDWICHE DOUBLE COLA converted from the House of Peace Jewish Synagogue on Park Street. SPECIAL Big Apple owner 'Fat' Sam poses in front of the club in 1936 or 1937. The club NIKE for him her AT ATHLETIC SHOES RUNNING "Xccellerator" His: in trail grey. Sizes 8-12, 13M. Hers: in trail grey.

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