For audience members, some 200 dancers from around the world, most of them white, Ms. Miller was a direct link to the Lindy Hop’s African-American history, a link she has been providing for more than 30 years. The still lively and salty-tongued Ms. Miller, who keeps her nails painted the signature red and white of her performance days, ended her lecture by jokingly, but sincerely, thanking white dancers for keeping the Lindy Hop alive.

Named after Charles Lindbergh, the Lindy Hop married swing music’s traditional eight count with the fast-paced, free-form movements of African-American dances at the time: spins, slides, thrilling flips and kicks — steps Ms. Miller mastered as a child.

Born in 1919, she grew up in an apartment building behind the Savoy Ballroom. In an interview here, Ms. Miller said she remembered hearing the big bands from the fire escape window every night and longing to be inside the club. In her 1984 memoir, “Swingin’ at the Savoy,” she wrote that her mother, a maid, held rent parties for extra cash. She and her sister would watch the guests dance and later practice their moves in the living room.

On Easter Sunday in 1932, one of the Savoy’s top dancers, Twistmouth George, saw the 12-year-old Ms. Miller dancing on the sidewalk outside the club and invited her inside to perform with him. That chance encounter jump-started her career.