The New Generation of Ballroom Dancers : The Young--and Some Not So Young--Are Again Falling in Step With the Rhythms That Were Popular About 30 Years Ago

Saturday night fever isn’t what it used to be.

For the last 30 years or more, a Saturday night out dancing has been defined by a rather loose interpretation of the word dance. Remember the jerk, the twist and the flop?--or just grinding away solo, with no particular style, to some rock ‘n’ roll hit? How about slam-dancing, the punk innovation wherein dancers ran full tilt at each other or at the walls to the accompaniment of frantic, ear-splitting, electronically generated music? Well, all that appears to be changing.

Thanks in part to the success of the recent movie “Dirty Dancing,” whose theme song “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” won an Oscar this year, there is a change afoot among young people who like to dance. Not sweepingly in one mass movement, the way the twist gyrated itself almost overnight onto the dance floors of the Western world, but slowly and surely young dancers, including many baby boomers who cut their musical teeth on rock ‘n’ roll and R&B;, are abandoning free-style dancing.

What are they doing instead? Believe it or not, many are learning to tango, waltz, cha-cha and fox trot. In other words, they are ballroom-dancing to big-band music--ragtime, jazz and swing--just like their parents and grandparents did, and the dance studio is fast becoming a popular socializing forum for young people--married and single.

Cause or Symptom?

But was “Dirty Dancing” a cause or a symptom?

Barney McClure, conductor of the big band High Society, says: “I first started noticing more young people showing up (at ballroom dances) in 1982. It really surprised me. We’d play a wedding reception or something, and young people would be listening to our music. Some of them even knew how to dance to it.”

It shouldn’t be surprising much longer.

Says ballroom dancing enthusiast Al Terrazas, 24, of Alhambra: “Kids my age are floating back to earlier (dancing) styles. The ‘70s were my era, but I didn’t enjoy it. And every chance I get, I go to big-band or swing dances.”

And Terrazas, a student at the Pasadena Ballroom Assn. in Glendale--one of the largest local dance studios--is not alone in his sentiments. Unprecedented numbers of hoofers between 25 and 40 are going back to studying practiced, choreographed ballroom dancing.

Proportionally, the majority of students attending ballroom dancing studios are still over 50 and married. Nevertheless, all the evidence indicates that a significant percentage of the 35-and-under population of single and married men and women is eschewing rock ‘n’ roll wriggling for traditional, “cheek to cheek” partners dancing. In fact, they’re turning out in record numbers.

Anna Christie, an instructor at the Beverly Hills Arthur Murray Dance Studio, says: “You’d be amazed right now at how many people we have in the baby boom bracket. I’d say that, as opposed to 10 years ago, younger people make up about 45% of our students. I think a lot of it has to do with (the movie) ‘Dirty Dancing’ and Brazilian dance music coming back (in).”

Tami and Erin Stevens of the Pasadena Ballroom Assn. also asserted that their 12 classes, which run from 70 to 100 students each, contain more young people “of the rock ‘n’ roll generation” now than ever before, many of them single--enough, in fact, to warrant “Singles Nights” dances.

And it’s not just a Southern California phenomenon. An informal telephone poll of Arthur Murray Dance Studios around the country, conducted by the Los Angeles Times, confirms that there has been a pronounced trend among younger people to sign up for fox trot, waltz and tango classes--before and since “Dirty Dancing.” In fact, an Arthur Murray studio in New York reports that nearly 90% of its students fall into the baby boomer-and-younger category.

The big question is why?

Leading the list of reasons for this renewed interest are responses such as the following, from dancers and big-band musicians:

British-born Ian Whitcomb, 47, long-time Southern California dance band leader, musician, author and radio host, says of the phenomenon: “I think of dancing as a most important index of social change. Dancing leads popular music--not the other way round. And we’ve certainly found more young people coming to our dances.

“Ballroom dancing is very formal; it’s like learning the right cutlery to use. And when times are as violent as they are right now, that’s when the formality comes in--a book of rules, so to speak. The liberalism and autonomy of the ‘60s threw the baby out with the bath water. So now, the middle class finds barbarians at the gate, and they want to protect themselves.

“Plus,” Whitcomb points out, “formal dancing is a very highly ritualized form of courtship. The sexuality is there, but it’s highly controlled and symbolic, not just a free-for-all orgy like dancing became in the ‘60s.”

Hillary C. Martick of Santa Monica, 35, echoes some of these assertions. A legal secretary and ballroom dance enthusiast, she credits the renewed interest in more formalized “safe” dancing--as opposed to the disco, one-night-stand scene--to, among other things, the prevailing fear of AIDS: “I think it has a lot to do with AIDS. You don’t have that sleazy feeling you do with the bar scene.

“Ballroom dancing is an alternative to nightclubs. Personal contact is encouraged, but in an allowable, acceptable form. And it’s fun because it’s something new that you’re learning to do. It’s not at all like rock ‘n’ roll where you just get out there by yourself and do your own thing.”

On the other hand, Martick notes that there are some drawbacks for young, single hoofers interested in meeting interesting people as potential mates: “Single people are reluctant to go to the organized dances sometimes, because they’re really dances for partners--and a lot of them show up with their regular partners, so you wind up dancing with older people. It’s almost a studio-by-studio kind of breakdown (of participants).”

Dancers’ Guide Magazine

To try to correct this situation, Martick has begun writing articles, reviews and personal ads for the recently started Dancers’ Guide magazine, encouraging younger singles to send in data and photos of themselves so that they can link up at the dances.

Brainchild of a Glendale publisher, Eddie K. Kaler, who goes by the sobriquet Edkay, Dancers’ Guide began only two years ago as an informal one-page, photocopied information sheet for those who wanted to know where to ballroom-dance. The magazine now runs to 48 pages and has a circulation of 7,000.

If the nature of ballroom dancing presents problems for some young singles, it evidently presents opportunities too--of a different nature.

Another Pasadena Ballroom Assn. student, 48-year-old Paul Gardner, a patent attorney from Sherman Oaks who remembers ballroom dancing in the ‘50s, notes that “The clean, fun atmosphere . . . encourages older and younger people to mingle. For the first time since I was in college--even high school--I’ve developed real friendships with people in their 20s and younger.”

Other students of local dance studios who were interviewed--most of them in their late 20s to late 30s--consistently mentioned the lack of alcohol and cigarettes or drugs as inducements to attend ballroom dancing classes.

Robert Thomas, 31, a single real estate broker: “It’s not like the normal social thing where you go to a bar . . . it’s a wholesome situation.”

Not Much Drinking

Mike Johnson, 27, a single mechanical engineer: “It’s fun because you have a partner to talk to . . . structured exercise . . . nice crowd . . . not much drinking.”

Jocelyn Kerr, 33, a single bank employee: “. . . More wholesome than going to a bar or nightclub. It’s a nice social experience where everybody has a good time. You meet a lot of people with common interests.”

Wholesome was the word most commonly used to describe ballroom dancing by those interviewed.

In fact, interviewing young ballroom dancers--and some of the older ones--around the Southland one could almost get the feeling that they were all coached in their responses. Certainly their reasons for participating were very much the same. The zealousness of the dancers seems to lend credence to bandleader Whitcomb’s observations about young people’s need for safe fun and social regimen.

Whitcomb says it’s “ironic that the origins of (big band, ragtime and swing) music were in the black brothels and gin rooms of the Deep South. That’s really where ragtime and jazz got started. But the people who like it now, and dance to it, are puritans!”

Certainly the trend toward ballroom dancing seems to run hand in hand with a number of other changes in attitude about values and habits in the late ‘80s: smoking, drinking, drugs, casual sex, gang violence are out. Yuppiedom is most definitely in--at least with the typical young ballroom dance enthusiast.

Ah, but who is the “typical” young denizen of the old-fashioned dance room? Most conform to the 25- to 35-year-old, white and white-collared, upper-middle-class examples quoted above. Most of them, of both sexes, seem to be deeply concerned about what they perceive to be the detrimental legacy of the last 30 years of rock ‘n’ roll culture and its attendant life style.

And so they’ve reverted to something safe--”dirty” dancing.

The monthly Dancers’ Guide provides coverage of dancing events throughout the Southland, plus a daily calendar showing establishments that offer ballroom dancing. For information, write Dancers’ Guide Magazine, P.O. Box 11035, Glendale, Calif. 91206-7035, or call (818) 241-3675

A few of the more popular dance clubs in the Los Angeles area that provide big-band music, either live or taped, are:

Stefanino’s, 9229 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (213) 550-1544. Ballroom dancing Sundays and Wednesdays from 9 p.m. till 2 a.m.

Alpine Inn, 833 W. Torrance Blvd., Torrance, (213) 323-6520. Ballroom dancing to live bands Monday and Wednesday nights beginning at 8 p.m.

Elk’s Lodge, 400 E. Colorado St., Pasadena, (818) 449-6010. Bands (4-18 pieces) every Friday night; open to the public.

Hacienda Hotel, 525 N. Sepulveda Blvd., El Segundo. Bob Keane and his band will return to play Friday nights at the ballroom sometime in May. Information: (213) 615-0015.

Arthur Murray’s Dance Studio, 6363 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys, (818) 785-5433. Singles Night dancing every Saturday night at 9:30, with complimentary lessons beginning at 8:30 p.m.

Pasadena Ballroom Assn., Fellowship Hall, Trinity Lutheran Church, 997 E. Walnut St., Pasadena, (818) 799-5689. Sponsors weekly and monthly ballroom events.