The Day When Balboa Island Swings and Sways

As a young man, Dutch-born Peter Christiaan learned that a passion for swing dancing came with a price in his Nazi-controlled homeland.

“We were prevented by the Nazis from any singing or dancing, especially swing [music], because it came from America,” said Christiaan, 82. “So we listened and danced in the basement of our homes. If we were caught, they would have sent us to a concentration camp.”

On Sunday, Christiaan was still dancing, this time jitterbugging in the eighth annual Balboa Island Day Parade.

For Jennifer Loomis, one of the organizers, Christiaan was a welcome addition to the parade.

“We started the parade with Pearl Harbor survivors, and way at the end of the parade we had him dancing with this swing group,” Loomis said. “That’s a nice touch, I think.”

Police said more than 5,000 spectators lined Marine Avenue as the parade snaked its way from a staging area on Bayside Drive, made a right on Marine, and marched over the bridge to Balboa Island.

“This is our eighth year with the parade,” said Jack Callahan, a spokesman for the Balboa Island Improvement Assn. and master of ceremonies. “It’s a local parade that started in celebration of the new fire station on Balboa.”

Though small, the parade has grown to include half a dozen high school and university marching bands, dance troupes and many vintage cars.

Christiaan, who lives in Anaheim, has become a hero of sorts for local swing dancers like Anne Lemen, a member of Christiaan’s swing-dance team.

“Do you remember the movie ‘Swing Kids’?” she said. “It was based on a true story, and Peter’s one of the survivors from that era. He just loves swing music.”

“Swing Kids” was released in 1993 and did brisk box-office business. Critics liked the premise of German adolescents unwilling to join the Hitler Youth and, instead, listening to “decadent” music in basements. But the critics didn’t like the film.

For Jordan Potash of Newport Beach, a member of Christiaan’s dance troupe, the death threats for listening or dancing to a tune are “a touch of our past, our recent past, and how fortunate that we don’t have to go through that today.”