SWING CLUB HOPS AT ELITE HALL
If it’s Saturday night and you ain’t got nobody, rest assured, there’s still a place in the valley where all the Hep cats jump, jive and wail.
Elite Hall, located at 83 W. Main in Hyrum, becomes home to swing dancing, hosted by the USU swing club, on the first and third Saturday of every month. According to current swing club president Justen Hansen, between 40 and 100 people come each time to the dance hall.
“I go to Elite Hall because the dancing is great,” said Susa Lindsay, a graduate student majoring in deaf education. “I usually know many people who are there. I get to meet new people who either love to dance or are wanting to learn. I am able to teach people or learn new moves from the people who are there.”
Elite Hall is a unique anomaly for dancing, because, while it was built nearly 90 years ago, the venue has a spring-loaded dance floor.
“I can dance for hours and not have my knees and ankles hurt,” Lindsay said. “The floor is the best in the state.”
Music at the dance is provided on an alternating basis by live bands and deejays. Hansen said the dancing is partner dancing and a lot of dancers that come are highly skilled, though skill is not a requirement.
“We try to dance to the [style of the] music, which makes every dance unique,” Hansen said. “[It’s] not like other forms of swing where you just try to pack as many tricks and lifts as possible into one dance.”
All students and community members are invited to the bi-monthly dances. From 7:30-8:30 p.m., the club offers dance instruction for beginning to intermediate level dancers.
“The swing lessons are taught by members of the club,” Hansen said. “Since those who attend are usually beginners, we teach basic East Coast (triple step) Swing. It’s kind of the pre-school for the Lindy Hop, [which is] our main focus.”
At 8:30 p.m., the floor opens up for dancing and the cost of entry is $3 per person. Most students dance a style called the Lindy Hop. According to Wikipedia.org, the style is a compilation of dance moves that originated in New York City during the 1920s. George Snowden, a famous dancer nicknamed “Shorty George,” named the dance style Lindy Hop after Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight in May 1927.
“The beautiful thing about Lindy Hop is that two people who understand the basic principles and that have never met before can dance for hours and never do the same move twice. It kind of like an “open-source” dance. You just do what the music tells you to do. Lindy Hop is an eight-lane freeway to having fun and meeting new people,” Hansen said. “It’s an excellent way for anybody that likes music or dance to find a new way to move to the beat.”
For more information, contact Hansen at justend@gmail.com.
-mattgo@cc.usu.edu