Dancers Return to the Swing of Things--for Prizes and Fun

Carolinians Shag and Texans Push. In Boston, it’s called the Back Bay Shuffle, in New York the Lindy Hop, and in St. Louis the Imperial.

But here, people Swing.

Every year for the past decade, thousands of dancers have taken to the floor. Sequined contestants, from 6 to 76, vie for prizes and the title of U.S. Open Swing Dance Champion.

“The money is nice and I want the title, but what I really want is the acknowledgment,” says Abra Slater of Loomis. “This is the big competition. You kind of put your whole life on a three-minute routine.”

“Do it, Melinda!” “Show them how to do it, Chris!” the audience cheered as the contestants made their separate ways recently to the dance floor at Disneyland Hotel’s Grand Ballroom. This is the “Jack and Jill” contest where boy meets girl about 30 seconds before the music starts.

“Some of them have never danced together before or even spent the night together,” jokes emcee and deejay Kenny Wetzel who entertains the crowd while the judges’ score sheets are tallied.

“How about a hand for all the costume makers, teachers and choreographers?” he asks the audience. Then, plugging his Rebel’s Swing Dance Club Christmas bash, he says, “It’s free admission, but it will cost you 30 bucks to get out.”

After a steamy performance that has the crowd whistling and howling, Wetzel tells the female dancer, “Yolanda, you’ve got to learn to let yourself go out there.”

Swing has special meaning for Westside dance teachers Jamie and Gail Arias. Two years ago, Jamie asked Gail to swing dance at a nightclub. They married four weeks later. Now they continue to sweep each other off their feet in competition, doing aerials and flips.

“Usually I’m very nervous until the music starts,” admits Jamie. “During the performance, it seems like the longest three minutes of our life. When it’s over, it felt like the shortest three minutes. You just want to do it again.”

Like many U.S. Open contestants, the Ariases invest hours choreographing a program and thousands of dollars on costumes.

“It takes months to find just the right song that has a lot of breaks and different rhythms,” explains Gail. This year, they found that energy in “Stuff Like That There” from the film “For the Boys.”

With music in hand, the couple designed black velvet-and-silver-rhinestone costumes. According to Gail, recycling past outfits just isn’t done. “It’s too predictable,” she says. “The audience always appreciates when the competitors dress up.”

When the U.S. Open began 10 years ago, organizers had to push hard to get people to come. Not anymore. This year’s was sold out for weeks.

“The music is softening up, and young people have picked up swing,” says Annie Hirsch, who has been a den mother of sorts to contestants for the last 10 years. “When rock came out, I saw swing go down to a point where it was hard to find. We kind of went underground and met in small groups.”

Last weekend’s event was attended by a contingent in their 30s--like Brett Peters and Cathy Young, who competed in the Valley Swing Club’s team division.

What attracted them to swing?

“You meet lots of men,” Young teases, causing Peters to wince. “In the ‘60s and ‘70s, you were your own entity,” she explains. “But with swing, you’re interacting with your partner like our parents did. It’s the 1940s revisited.”

With hundreds in the audience clapping to the beat of “Caledonia,” five judges sit on the dance floor studying Olindo (Lee) Alo and his partner, Carol Werkmeister. One judge keeps time with his foot. Another claps a hand quietly on his clipboard.

“When it’s so intense that I feel the music, I have to catch myself and tell myself to concentrate,” says Olga Kallas, the sole female judge. “I’m not there to enjoy it. It’s their turn.”

Fred Tretta has been head judge for eight years and has the tie-breaking vote. “The most difficult thing in the world is to forget that you’ve seen a couple dance before,” he says. “It’s all showmanship. Besides timing and execution, we’re looking for how they carry themselves and how they walk on and off the floor.”

Couples are training more and looking for new ways to do each step. The result is fiercer competition. “These kids are so fantastic,” beams Tretta. “Hell, it’s as good as a Las Vegas show.”

Rome Michael Slater, 10 months, is already a veteran of swing conventions. He’s been to Dallas, Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Francisco. He’s not one to be left with the baby-sitter.

When the music comes on, Rome hits the dance floor atop father Mark’s shoulders, smiling and cooing.

In fact, the smile never left Rome’s face, even when his mother smacked lipstick on his forehead.

“He’s got a tux to match his dad’s for the finals,” explains Abra Slater. “Father and son will be in black-and-white striped pants, white tuxedo shirts, black-and-white saddle shoes and bowler hats.”

The crowd has formed a large circle on the center dance floor, and couples take turns doing the Balboa Shag, the Jam and the Shim Sham. The music shifts to Madonna’s “Vogue,” and people begin dancing the Electric Slide. Everyone is smiling. Couples hug as they walk off the dance floor.

While dances like the hulley gulley are on their last legs, swing has managed not only to survive but to stage a comeback.

West Coast swing is the official state dance of California. There are more than 200 swing clubs in the United States and Europe and about 30 annual conventions.

“With its freedom, swing kind of resembles what our country is all about,” says emcee Wetzel. “It was born in New Orleans and moved up the Mississippi to St. Louis and Chicago and found a home in Harlem.”

It’s that freedom that recently attracted professional dancer Jeannie Tucker of Arizona to swing competition. She has her own theory about the dance’s staying power.

“The most popular radio stations right now are country and oldies,” Tucker says. “When the times get tough, people gravitate to entertainment that makes you smile. That’s why swing is growing.”