What the Bunny Hop? How To Dance the 1950’s Bunny Hop

Have you ever done the Bunny Hop? This fun 1950’s conga line dance is hopping to a wedding near you. Join me as we learn how to dance the 1950’s Bunny hop.

History of the Bunny Hop

Where do new dance trends come from? Hip kids! Band leader Ray Anthony got wind of a new dance in San Francisco in 1952. He took a trip to Balboa High School to check out the conga line inspired bunny hop the kids were doing. This inspired him to write the song to fit their dance.

Bunny Hop on Air

Ray Anthony got the world a hoppin by featuring the bunny hop on his show in 1953. This was not the last time it aired on TV. It was in Family ties, Fresh Pince and Everybody Loves Raymond. My favorite is the version in “When Your and Addams” from the Addams Family Musical that I did a tutorial for.

Inspired by Bunny hop Dances

The bunny hop inspired other dances. In the 1960’s Finnish composer Erik Lindström wrote “Letkajenkka” (first recorded by The Adventurers) as a line dance schottische using the bunny hop but starting with the left foot. It was later renamed Letkiss. It 2014 Arabian weddings went viral with “rasqat al-batriq” or “Penguin Dance” featuring the bunny hop conga line steps. In the gaming world Fortnite created a emoji of the Bunny Hop with just a hop, hop, hop.

Bunny Hop:

RF heal out, toe in, heal out, stomp (1,2,3,4)

LF heal out, toe in, heal out, stomp (5,6,7,8)

hop forward (1,2)

hop back (3,4)

Three hops forward (1,2,3, hold 4)

Begin again until the end of the song

Lyrics

Put your right foot forward
Put your left foot out
Do the Bunny hop
Hop, hop, hop

Backdrop location.

Lakewood historic main street preserved as a park. I used my photo of the 88c Variety Store and Ethel’s Beauty Salon at Heritage Lakewood Park in Colorado. It was built in 1948 at a laundromat, and converted to a five-and-dime store in the 1950’s. It was converted into a beauty salon in the 1960’s by Gil and Ethel Gomez. You can see the original fixtures in this museum building to this day.

Holly Tomazin
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