"SUGAR" SULLIVAN
by Sally Sommers
(Article originally published in the VILLAGE VOICE April 1-7, 1981.)

Sugar and George Sullivan with dancers of the Jiving Lindy Hoppers

A desultory night at Roseland with a lethargic Woody Herman band: a supposed highlight was an exhibition dance by a couple from Arthur Murray's Dance Studio. Hopes were high that things might begin to swing. Hopes were dashed. As the crowd got more phlegmatic, George Lloyd announced, "There's some Savoy Lindy Hoppers here." Lloyd and Sugar Sullivan were standing at the edge of the stage in the crowd, and given the chance, they would have gone and torn it up. The chance passed. Too bad for Woody Herman.

But Sugar Sullivan was prepped, and when the band finally broke into fast rhythm, Sullivan and Lloyd moved out on the floor. That was the highlight of the evening. A crowd gathered around them and inside that magic circle dancing happened, the fast sassy Lindy Hop of Harlem's Savoy Ballroom. The Savoy is gone, but the dance survives in the muscles and memories of dancers like Sugar Sullivan.

When she dances she scoops you up and carries you along into the real world of dance: exciting, fast, dazzling movement done with complete control - and complete abandon. More than anything, this is pleasure-dancing, free and wild, riding the edge of an exuberance that obliterates everything except itself. Sullivan dances low, knees bent, twisting in and out on the balls of her feet, sashaying her lips, flickering out fast kicks, focusing on Lloyd for those lightning-quick catches, then throwing her head back, free hand waving and truckin'. But no matter how fast and darting, the overall impression is one of lithe smoothness, of creating difficult manoeuvres so casually that you fantasize you could do it too.

I first saw her dance on film, a petite thin young women ("I was only 84 pounds") dressed in a 1950's white full-circle skirt and short-sleeved blouse that she was always tucking in, wearing flat little nothing shoes ("I could wear through the soles in one night"). She did everything from the frenetic Arial Lindy of Whitey and Snowden, to a rhythmically complex Mambo Lindy, to bebop time to Ballroom Blues. "I always wore a ponytail, bangs over the side. I loved to toss that hair, to feel it swinging around." Sullivan is 50 years old and beautiful, looks like she's 35, and dances like she's 18 ("but no more aerials"). It's not only the speed and control, it's the fearless letting go, proving that freedom is impossible.

One of the things I like best about her is just saying her name, Sugar. Esther Guillroy was going to call her baby Sugarfoot, which would have been perfect too, because the feet are sweet and fast. But it got shortened, and Ruth, her given name, got lost in the shuffle. She learned to dance at home when she was three from the best. Her mother was a dancer "known as Lady Esther, a fabulous Shake dancer." If Lady Esther wasn't teaching her, then some other well-known dancer was, like tap dancer Buster Brown and his partner Silvester Luke of the Three Speed Kings, or Redd Foxx. Mrs. Guillroy's apartment was near that Apollo Theatre and show business people hung out there. Besides dancing, Sugar's mother was a vibrant women and a good cook who could throw a generous spread on a few moment's notice, and she was, according to her daughter, "a great poker-player."

Sullivan got seduced by the Lindy hop when she was 14, and by 1955 she was the Lindy champion of the Harvest Moon Ball. From then on, she was a professional, dancing all day, every day, six days a week, "and I loved it!" Later she joined a revue, Sonny Allen and the Rockets, touring for 12 years in theatres, clubs, with TV gigs thrown in - and raised a family.

Besides being discovered at some random night at Roseland, she's also been discovered by dance historians as the quintessential performer of one of our most beautiful and difficult popular dances. Hopefully, with the resurgence of interest in the music of those eras, there will be a rediscovery of necessary other half - the dancing that the music was for, and the extraordinary and joyful performances who gave it life.

by Sheryl Sullivan