Skippy Blair, whose birth name is Maybelle Stewart, was born in 1924 in Pleasantville, New Jersey and was introduced to performing early in life. By the age of eight, she was already singing and dancing at the famous Steel Pier in the review “Daddy Dave’s Kiddies Review.” In 1953, she went to work as a trainee at an Arthur Murray studio in Long Beach, California and claims that Cha-Cha was her favorite dance at that time. By 1958, Skippy owned and operated her own dance studio, which stayed open for twenty-five years.
Skippy has now been teaching dance for over fifty years, and continues to lecture to audiences who train in her "intensive" classes. As the founder of the Golden State Dance Teacher’s Association and co-founder of the World Swing Dance Council, the author of several published dance technique books, an inductee into the National Swing Dance Hall of Fame, and the creator of the Universal Unit System, Skippy Blair is an important part of the history of the development of Ballroom, Swing, and Latin dancing, especially in America.
The “Universal Unit System” (1978) is Blair’s innovative and enlightening analysis of musicality and body movement and how the two relate to each other and are executed properly. It is Blair who observed“that only 1 in 500 dancers has that natural quality that ‘simply takes your breathe away’” and has studied each and every movement that a dancer must perform correctly before looking polished and poised on the dance floor. With her Universal Unit System, Blair has elucidated simple and comprehensive definitions and explanations of the individual, basic elements that are the bases of the many techniques, movements, and partnering skills that are required to be a good social dancer. Her years in pursuit of her Ph.D. in Philosophy (1981) were no doubt a major contributing factor in her ability to achieve this depth of understanding. Unit cards, each containing an individual lesson about a certain movement or technique, can be purchased from Skippy to use on lessons. An example of a typical lecture/lesson in dance technique by Dr. Blair can be seen in the video below.
Today, Blair is an adjudicator of many styles of dancing and performing arts competitions, and she continues to teach dance lessons and give lectures on technique. She is the person who coined the term “anchor step” in the West Coast Swing (now the state dance of California), to replace the former “Coaster Step” (StreetSwing.com). She is also considered a major force in the renaming of the former dance name of “Western Swing” (adopted by Arthur Murray Studios) to “West Coast Swing” (ithacaswingdance.com) in order to differentiate it from the Western Swing music that became popular in the mid-twentieth century by Southwestern music groups such as Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Furthermore, her Universal Unit System is still used today by dancers across the nation today as a guide to teaching students how to be better dancers.
Skippy Blair, often referred to as "The First Lady of Swing" and "the teacher's teacher," now teaches dance in California and also keeps a blogsite that contains various topics that involve dance, including posting her lectures and lessons, and making comments about DWTS. She also has a Facebook page where she posts her class announcements, and there is a nice biography about her life and achievements here.
1963 - Founded the Golden State Dance Teachers Association®
1978 - American Dancers Hall Of Fame Award from Terpsichore
1981 - Ph.D. in Philosophy from Golden State University, Glendale, CA
1989 - Rebels Club "Legends of Swing" Award from Kenny Wetzel
1991 - California Swing Dance Hall of Fame recognition
1992 - "Feather Award” Recipient - as the person who most influenced couples dancing" in the U.S.
1993 - Co-Founded the "World Swing Dance Council"
1993 - The prestigious US Open “Humanitarian Award” from Jack and Mary Ann Bridges
1994 - National Swing Dance Hall of Fame Inductee
1996 - California Swing Dance Hall of Fame Gold Medal Award
2004 - Voted USA Swing Dance Network "Person of the Year”
Sources
http://www.ithacaswingdance.com/f_Link15_wcs.html
http://www.streetswing.com/histmai2/d2skippy.htm
http://www.swingdancecouncil.com/halloffame4.html
http://www.swingworld.com/default.htm
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