A while ago I came across this video of Swedish students doing a line dance version of the "jenka" ("jenkka" in Finnish) and noticed how similar the dance is to the American novelty dance, the bunny hop.
So I started looking around for more information. The bunny hop Wikepedia entry links to an article in TIME magazine that claims that the bunny hopwas started in 1952 at Balboa High School in San Francisco and has its roots in the conga. The conga entry has a link to the polonaise entry — which, of course, touches on Swedish polska. But I digress.
The bunny hop entry also includes this information:
The Finnish dance style called "jenka" has essentially the same steps. Originating from the 19th century, jenka is actually the same dance style as the German low-tempo polka called schottische or rheinländer. It is characterised by three quick steps and a hop and is danced to music in 2/4 time. Finnjenka, also known as letkajenkka and letkis, is one of the many variations of jenka. Typical to it is that all the people dancing form a line and hold on to the one in front by the waist.
Now this introduces yet another twist. I believe that the translation of "letkajenkka" and "letkis" means "Latvia jenkka" or "Latvian". Does this indicate that the line dance known as jenkka actually derives from a dance in Latvia? (It wouldn't be the first time, the Norwegian "streksbuksepolka (Stretch Pants Polka)" is actually a Latvian polka that also shares some similarities with Finnjenkka.
There's no doubt that the line dance jenkka pre-dates the bunny hop and is, to put it mildly, remarkably similar. The major difference is that the jenkka starts on the left foot while the bunny hop starts on the right.
Which still leaves the question unanswered about how the bunny hop got started at a high school in the Bay area in the 1950s. Were there students of Latvian or Finnish heritage who knew the dance, perhaps from weddings, who moved it into the teenage mania it became? Perhaps we'll never know.
And, in case you're wondering, you can apparently have the "real" thing in Second Life — jenka done by rabbits, truly a virtual "bunny hop"!
