I arrive at the CU Swing Dance Club’s weekly social dance intending to get a couple interviews and head home. Due to room scheduling conflicts, the club is meeting in a classroom in Benson Earth Sciences, a considerably smaller room than their usual meeting place, UMC 235. Due to my own scheduling conflicts, I arrive after their free beginners and intermediate lessons and walk into a room full of dancers in full swing with the evening’s social dance underway.
The classroom’s desks are all pushed against the walls, and every inch of the room’s space is filled with the sound of old-school swing standards and the sight of swing dancing duos gliding across the classroom’s carpeted floor. As I stand against a wall and try my best to blend in, my efforts work a bit too well and I’m soon asked to dance.
Adrianna is wearing a tight white cotton shirt, black yoga pants and red and blue bowling shoes with black number sevens on both of her heels. She also wears a determined expression that tells me she won’t take no for an answer, and I find myself on the dance floor breaking the news to my partner that I have no idea how to swing dance and we’re going to have to start from scratch.
Thankfully, Adrianna is a patient teacher, and by the end of the song I feel like I’m somewhat holding my own despite the limitations of my waterproof L.L. Bean boots. Adrianna was kind enough to show me the basics, but she also provided further evidence to my sneaking suspicion that was already building after my initial interviews with club members; everyone at CU Swing is really nice.
The origins of swing dancing date back to the early 20th century, when it began as a type of dancing to go along with jazz music. It has evolved in the decades since to become an umbrella term for a number of dances, including the Lindy Hop (a specialty of the CU Swing Club) and the West Coast Swing.
CU Swing’s origins as a club can be traced back to some devoted swing dancers at CU a few years back who decided to form a club for their passion. The club’s president, Sarah Hillson, admits that the initial meetings for CU Swing were little more than “10 people in a basement,” but since then the club has expanded to hosting as many as 150 people at their Wednesday night social dances. Many of those participants joined the club in a similar fashion to Hillson, a junior at CU who, as a freshman, joined the club on a whim with no prior experience.
“I wanted something that would get me out of my comfort zone a little bit, but also just be a little bit more fun,” Hillson says. “As soon as I started swing dancing I fell in love with it, and now it’s definitely a passion.”
Hillson is among a number of club members who are also a part of the club’s competitive team, the Jitterbuffs. The team took home first place last April in Denver’s Intercollegiate Swing Battle, but, even when dominating competition from schools around the West, you get the sense that the Jitterbuffs were pretty nice about it.
“It is competitive, but everybody has a really good community vibe,” says Brandon Laine, a senior at CU who is coaching the team this year. “We all have fun and we make tons of friends.”
Laine also had no experience with swing dancing before he started at the club, but he says that he “fell in love with it” the first time he came to the club as a freshman and has been a regular ever since. Laine attributes the club’s overall friendly disposition to people’s willingness to open up when they learn to swing dance.
“I think vulnerability really gets people out of their shell, and that’s what gets them there,” he says.
“I think it’s all about welcoming everyone and anyone that wants to try it,” says CU sophomore and fellow Jitterbuff Rylee Schauer. “It’s something that as a club we try really hard to make it inviting for every person that comes in, so we just want it to be really inclusive.”
The swing dance look is another defining aspect of CU Swing, the club definitely likes to dress the part. Hillson and Schauer both describe a “vintage” ’40s look that the club aspires to, while the club’s treasurer Lisa Kieefer likes to think the club has a style of their own.
“There’s this great idea of preserving what we love from the past while putting our new spin on it,” says Kieefer. “When you dress up a bit for an event like this it does make it a little more special.”
“It makes it more fun” says Schauer. “A lot of people are really into fashion, so if they like vintage clothing they might be attracted to swing dance.”
The club likes to note that coming with a partner is not necessary, and people are welcome to come alone. Indeed it would be a rarity to dance with the same partner all night, and Hillson estimates that in an average night “you basically have three to four minute conversations with 20 to 30 people.” With this much interaction between the opposite sexes, there is bound to be some budding romances, or “swing flings,” right?
“I think it is what attracts a lot of people,” Kieefer says of the chance for romance at a social dance, “but that it’s not necessarily what makes them stay.”
None of the CU Swing members I talk to have any notable stories of love found on the swing dance floor, and Laine tells me he doesn’t see it much, but that “usually you make a lot of close friends.” For a club with an engaged and welcoming community that was described to me at points as “super inclusive,” “super friendly” and “judgment free,” close friendships seem to be a given.
So, while college kids across the nation continue to work on staying ahead of the curve in fashions and culture, the CU Swing Club is content with hanging on to their blast from the past. For them, in the words of Duke Ellington, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
Contact CU Independent Assistant Sports Editor Sam Routhier at Samuel.Routhier@Colorado.edu
