Post #323685 by Tiki-Atari on Mon, Aug 6, 2007 8:18 PM

Some history and a question.

I imagine there are some snickers out there about "Shaggin'". After you get those out of your system (hell, why bother. Keep laughin'.) I'm just curious. My folks are from central North Carolina, and I grew up in South Carolina. Now, there is a dance that everyone I knew learned as a kid, and that was shag dancing. You learned it in SCHOOL. It was the state dance. It was immortalized in SHAG: The Movie, which I watched being filmed. When I moved to Georgia 10 years ago, I brought the knowledge of how to dance the shag with me. And BOY was I surprised to learn not a soul had ever heard of it. Evidently knowledge of it halves for every 50 miles you go from Ocean Drive SC. The beach music bands I thought were huge hits? Regional bands only. The motown hits I thought I knew (Coasters, Drifters, Platters, Four Tops, Temptations, etc)? All the music sounded tinny and too fast (fun fact, shag djs will slow favorite songs down or speed them up slightly so they hit that perfect shaggin' beat...; so everytime I heard this old music it sounded slightly off. When I decided to teach my fiancee how to dance it, I had to send back to my daddy to find a video and a cd of beach music; everything I found in GA in the 'beach music' section was California surf.

So here's the question; does anyone else out there know this dance? To me it is a nice natural companion for an evening of cocktails and Tiki (it's meant to be danced on the beach barefood for cryin out loud). I'm just curious. For that matter, anyone out there in TC-land live in GA and wanna get together for some shag dancing?