Swing Kids Step Back to Classiness at Birraporetti’s

It’s been the same routine nearly every Monday evening for the last two years.

Douglas Sinclair, a 24-year-old with a love for a generation other than his own, stands before a mirror in his Fountain Valley home and parts his short, dark hair down the middle and slicks it back gingerly. This, combined with his antique-looking, gold-wire framed glasses perched high on his nose, makes him look pure retro, pre-TV.

A clean dress shirt is pressed, a care reserved for these nights. Cuff links are positioned, and a necktie is carefully knotted and tucked under the waistcoat.

The final touch is a pocket-watch chain Sinclair extends from a waistcoat button to inside a pocket. But the timepiece is missing. It could, he says, fly out in the midst of some untamed moves on the dance floor.

Sinclair and a couple dozen others are the Swing Kids everyone buzzes about on Mondays at Birraporetti’s, an Irish bar and Italian restaurant at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.

Those nights, the 13-piece Don Miller Orchestra works up the packed house, but the big band finishes the party early enough for the dancers to go home and catch Letterman.

The restaurant’s dark wood and brass touches are among the reasons those twentyish and younger Swing Kids prefer this place to other, trendier nightclubs. There are no abrasive strobes or obnoxious beer banners. It’s what you might call a classy joint. Which is why they forgo their usual casual and contemporary garb for a retro look.

“I dress in tribute to an era that was clean-cut and definitely glamorous,” Sinclair says.

Yeah, well, his girlfriend and dance partner Suzie Batchelder, a 23-year-old from Garden Grove who works with Sinclair at Disneyland as a pageant helper, has her reasons for wanting to see him and the other guys suited up. “They look a lot sexier dressed like this,” she says.

Batchelder, like many of the other women, tends not to dress in vintage duds, opting for new items that recall the ‘40s. On this evening she’s in a short, silky wrap skirt and black and white patent leather shoes.

What lures the Swing Kids back weekly are the live covers composed by Benny Goodman, Harry James, Glenn Miller and Louis Prima--the inventors of classic American music.

The Don Miller Orchestra opts for numbers with a jumpin’ tempo, which is why the Swing Kids prefer it to the bands that play Saturday at Disneyland’s Carnation Gardens, one of the few other places in the county that regularly features a live big band.

The other weekly ballroom events are designed mostly as social hours for the senior set. Those folks tend to prefer the fox trot or waltzes, notes Erik Robison, 19, of Montclair, a friend and co-worker of Batchelder and Sinclair. “And it’s a real meat market at those places.”

To the Swing Kids it’s about the music--not finding a mate. It’s a horn section that sings to them better than any electronically assisted pop diva. It’s a real, breathing drummer who deftly beats a sequence that each time varies slightly instead of the monotonous, synthesized beat of contemporary dance music.

It’s a passion for a music that requires old-fashioned skill, they say. Nowadays, adds Robison, you have to be an electrician with the knowledge of manipulating sounds on a computer to compose music.

“I think a lot of people are unsure if the music is meant for the older patrons,” says says Kenny Treseder, pianist for the Don Miller Orchestra. At 31, he remembers growing up during the ‘70s and ‘80s with the “great stigma attached to swing music as if it were our parents’ or grandparents’ music.”

The Swing Kids, whom Treseder considers loyal to the band, “liberate everyone of any age to join them on the floor.”

They’ve also proven great for business, according to Birraporetti’s general manager, Willie Carroll. “They provide a very good ambience along with the band. The customers love watching them.”

Birraporetti’s parquet dance floor is too small--it would be even if the place wasn’t so popular--and it overflows with couples during much of the band’s three sets.

To make matters worse, not everyone has a clue about personal space, admonishes Sinclair. They extend their arms too much or constantly bump into other couples. Especially guilty are the newest Swing Kids to hit the scene, he mutters like some jaded old timer.

Still, Sinclair, Batchelder, Robison and girlfriend Josie Say can be spotted out on the side patio giving tips or walking other Swing Kids through East Coast or Lindy Hop steps. It’s there that most of them hang out in between sets or during some of the slower, unfamiliar songs.

While one couple shows a small group the basics of a particular turn, a pretty, twentyish woman watching from a table nearby gripes about her hubby, who whines that he’s too hurt from Sunday’s baseball game to come. Forget him, she cracks, he can’t dance anyway.

Not that any one in this crew could win any accolades from the competitive dance circuit. A few have taken classes. The six Lindy Hop sessions Robison and Say took apparently helped--and led to romance. They are among the best to watch. Part of the kick, though, is watching Robison’s tall, lanky frame hovering over Say’s petite, Kewpie-doll one.

“I always wanted to learn how to swing, do the Lindy,” Say, a sophomore at Orange Coast College, manages to huff in between songs. “And I really wanted to do the flips. When the movie came out, that was it.”

The Movie. It’s how they all refer to the 1993 film “Swing Kids,” about teens in Nazi Germany who rebel against Hitler through American dance and music. Don’t dismay. It’s the dance sequences--not the story line--that appeals to this crowd.

“We’ll be watching it, freeze-frame a part and practice it over and over again until Erik drops me,” Say, 20, continues. “Then we go back to watch some more.”

But to 18-year-old Mark Vukadinovich of Fountain Valley and his fellow swingsters, it’s more about spirit than technique. Their enthusiasm, in fact, generally outweighs any momentary lack of timing or imperfect steps.

Vukadinovich, an Orange Coast College freshman and one of the sharpest dressers of the bunch, fronts a big band he put together with high school buddies a couple of years ago, Duke Diamond & the Gemtones.

For almost a year, he showed up Mondays at Birraporetti’s just to watch the band, but three months ago he finally dared to venture out on the floor. But he still spends much of the evening acquiring new moves outside on the patio.

In June, the successful Pasadena Ballroom Dance Assn. will hold a weekend of swing, Lindy Hop and other ballroom dance lessons on Catalina Island, complete with a big band and instructors from the United States and Europe, where it’s trendy.

But this is one youthful fad that these Swing Kids say they won’t outgrow. Sinclair figures dancing is the fountain of youth, which will keep him vibrant and strong for the rest of his birthdays. He only dreams now of making swing more integral in his life as a big-band leader.

“Swing and the big band era represent America’s finest hour of music, style and dance,” Sinclair adds. “It’s in my blood.”