Dancers fill Beacon’s Memorial Building
The first thing that stands out at a swing dance is the smiles on the Lindy Hoppers’ faces. Next would be polka dot dresses and vertically striped shirts.
Sometimes, there’s a Flapper-worthy shiny sequin dress, like the one worn by Beacon resident Rachel Hutami, who danced with an infectious joie de vivre at the first Hudson Valley Swing Dance soiree held in Beacon on Oct. 5 at the Veterans Memorial Building.
Kelly O’Connor, 32, who lives in Mahopac, co-founded the group, which rents venues from New York City to Poughkeepsie. “This is our expansion into Beacon,” said O’Connor, who discovered swing as an undergraduate at SUNY New Paltz.
“Swing ticks off so many boxes, I don’t know where to begin,” she said. “It’s social, emotional, mental, athletic, joyful and connection-based. That dynamic with the band also exchanges a lot of energy. You can even do it solo.”
Gung Katatikarn is the Beacon-based fan who made it happen. “I vote here [at the Memorial Building] and always thought it would be a good place to fill with dancers,” she said. “I’ve run into people in New York who I danced with in Paris and Hong Kong.”
She hopes to host a quarterly party — the next one is planned for February — although Emily Murnane of Beacon, 29, who wore a polka dot dress, said she would prefer to have them every month and avoid the drives to Kingston and Westchester County.
At the Memorial Building, old swayed with young and partners rotated around the room. Swinging like Babe Ruth, the six-piece Bottoms Up Jazz Band played Dixieland, turning the clock back to the Roaring ’20s as about 100 people got lost in the music and movement.
During the final number, “When the Saints Go Marching In,” one of the trumpet players led a conga line. “I felt like I was in New Orleans,” said Katatikarn. “I still get chills thinking about it.”
At one point, after a spontaneous jam circle formed, couples took their turns in the center. As “Bill Bailey” wrapped up, a gaggle paid homage to the band by hoisting their hands above their heads and shaking them like reeds in the wind.
Some dancers dove into it, others went through the motions, but everyone had fun under the disco ball. Several attendees knew that rotating mirror balls in dance halls date to at least the 1920s.
Swing dancing accompanied early jazz and symbolized freedom, a departure from stiff, formal European styles. There are basic steps, but the moves, executed with kicking and hip shaking, are largely improvised, like the music.
Extreme Lindy Hopping emerged during the Big Band era, crystallized by the dance scene in the 1941 film Hellzapoppin’, which featured Frankie Manning in one of the most exuberant routines ever captured on camera. Men throw the women over their shoulders and through their legs as the dances edge into high-watt gymnastics territory.
The fad faded in the 1950s and Manning took a job at the post office. But in 1998, a television commercial for The Gap, “Khaki Swing,” set to “Jump, Jive and Wail” by Louis Prima, sparked a revival, said O’Connor.
At the Beacon event, some participants rose from their chairs and entered the dance floor while executing low-key steps rather than walking into the crowd and breaking into the moves. One woman wore cowboy boots.
To avoid injuries, no one is tossed in the air and acrobatic moves are limited. Liability insurance, which is required for these types of events, represented Katatikarn’s largest expense.
One energetic stepper, Kathy Nigro, said she considered any dance within an hour of her home in Hyde Park to be part of the circuit. “When you’re out on the floor, the world just melts away and everything is copacetic,” she said
