Lizzie Batten’s friends call her the mayor.
Most of the 20-year-old’s best memories dance through the streets of North Myrtle Beach—literally.
One and two. Three and four. Five. Six.
And when she brings friends that she meets while attending the University of South Carolina to her hometown, paved with rich dancing history and generations of jitterbugs frequenting the Main Street beachside bars, her friends are shocked at just how many people know her, hence them nicknaming her the mayor.
Batten is a junior shagger.
And she comes from a family of shaggers.
Once when she brought some friends she met at college to her home in North Myrtle Beach, Batten said she was only gone for a few minutes when she returned to catch her mom teaching her friends shag basics out on the deck.
It wasn’t surprising to her, though, just funny and characteristic of a Batten.
And a Duke.
Batten’s grandma, Judy Duke, is in the Shag Hall of Fame.
Duke instilled in Batten that even though the guy traditionally leads in the shag dance, that the girl still has just as much to bring.
“My grandma was the one who really told me to quit letting the guy have all the fun,” she said. “She really pioneered that for me.”
Batten said that learning how to walk and learning how to shag happened at about the same time and that most young shaggers have that experience.
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The Shag was made the official state dance of South Carolina in 1984, according to the state house website.
It’s mostly done to beach music at 120 to 140 beats per minute.
Sam Cooke, Earl Bostic and Dominoes are among some popular shag music artists. This kind of music is sometimes called beach music.
Norfleet Jones, a long-time shagger living in the Grand Strand, said that North Myrtle Beach is the mecca of shag.
Also called the Carolina Shag, the dance originated in the African American community during the early to mid-twentieth century, according to Discover South Carolina.
Now, the dance is popular spanning as far north as Virginia to as far south as Florida, but it’s growing and could soon no longer just be an East Coast jig.
When Jones, now 81, first judged a junior shagging contest around 40 years ago in Wilmington, North Carolina, he said he was not very excited about it, but after seeing them all dance, he said, “I wanted to buy them all a house. It was just beautiful.”
“I saw the freedom and the lack of fear, and their knees didn’t hurt, and they were dancing for the right reason because they were just having fun,” he said.
The Carolina Shag is more popular nowadays than when Jones was young. He said that’s because there was just not a lot of places for young people to shag and meet other shaggers.
There were dances after football or basketball games and the occasional sock hop at the Young Women's Christian Association, but other than that, there were not really any organized shag events like there are today.
The prevalence of shagging competitions helps keep the dance alive, too, Jones said, but that’s not the only thing keeping the beach music playing.
“I don’t think the dance itself is popular. I think it’s the lifestyle and the friendships that are made,” he said.
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Much like Batten, 13-year-old Connor Sanders learned to walk and shag at the same time, too.
His family’s shagging legacy has set this young man apart from most other teenage boys. His grandmother, Renee Scott, and his mother, Autumn Jones, made sure he grew up on the dance floor. He’s confident, well-spoken and has moves.
Like the ankle breaker and the matrix, just to name a few.
And each move only took him around 20 minutes to learn, he said.
Sanders' friends outside of the shagging world, however, don’t really get it until they see him dance in person.
“They never really understand what I’m saying. It's like sometimes they think it's like tango or something no matter how much I explain it,” he said. “They just don't really get it until they come and see exactly what I’m doing.”
Both Sanders and Batten said they often find themselves teaching their friends to shag, and hardly upon their own accord. Most of the time, their friends ask them to.
“They think it’s so cool,” Sanders said.
He agrees with Norfleet Jones’s sentiment that it’s the lifestyle and friendships that keep young dancers coming back, and the competitions, too, Sanders said.
It’s the clothes, the personalities, the family legacies, the favorite hangout spots and the traveling to competitions that make shagging a lifestyle, or even its own world.
Durable loafers, the perfect dress that allows lots of movement, the ability to chat while dancing, incidentally meeting your friends’ grandparents before you even meet your friends, frequenting Fat Harold’s on Main Street and telling stories of faraway contests, as far off as Australia, like one was for Batten, and faring with relentless scheduling conflicts between shag and school are only some of the staples of a North Myrtle Beach young shagger’s life.
“You meet people, and you have fun,” Sanders said.
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Batten and Sanders, because of their age difference, have not danced together a lot, but they grew up in the same world. They each know each other’s families and have a mutual understanding of the demands of a young shagger’s life.
An outsider seeing them dance together would likely not know the two have not been partnered before. They know shag. They get it. So, they look like dance partners, and they said that’s usually the case when two shaggers of about the same skill level are paired up regardless of their history with one another.
“That’s got to be junior shaggers,” said Sherri Vincent who was sunbathing on the beach in North Myrtle Beach when she saw Batten and Sanders dance for the camera. “I hope you never lose the desire to do what you’re doing.”
The two juniors smiled and chatted with Vincent. They’re used to seeing people a part of their shagging world out and about. They said they get that a lot—folks in the community approaching at random and engaging in conversation, especially if they too are involved in their world.
“There really is more places for [junior shaggers] to go,” Vincent said. “But, you know, when nine o’clock, ten o’clock hits, a lot of the drinking comes out for older people and that gives a lot of people the liquid courage to do what [Batten and Sanders] are doing, but these two don’t need a drink to do what they’re doing, thank God.”
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Vincent said that she’s looking forward to seeing Batten and Sanders at the Junior Society of Stranders event in July.
Junior SOS is an annual event where young shaggers from all around travel to North Myrtle Beach to do three things, according to Norfleet Jones—socialize, compete and learn.
“It’s not unusual to see three generations at Junior SOS—a grandparent, a parent and a child,” he said. “Junior SOS is a combination of social and competition and education.”
The event will take place at the Ocean Drive Pavilion in North Myrtle Beach from July 11 to July 16.
“Today, many, many more young people shag,” Jones said. “They will have 500 at Junior SOS and there wasn’t 500 jitterbugs young, old and in between [when I was young].”
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