Swing time
Swing dancers of all ages and skill levels took to the dance floor in the Moses Lake High School commons Friday night at the Jazz Bands' annual swing dance event.
Ty Ballinger shares a laugh with his dance partner, Leslie Brown, during the Moses Lake High School Jazz Bands' swing dance event Friday evening.
MOSES LAKE — Local businessman and swing dance aficionado Ty Ballinger says one reason swing dancing is great for everyone is “you don’t have to worry about your feet.”
If that isn’t music to the ears of the clumsy-footed, then the music performed by Moses Lake High School’s three jazz bands Friday night certainly was. The MLHS Jazz Bands presented their annual swing dance event, drawing a crowd of more than 100 people to take in the music and try their hands (and feet) at swing dancing.
Jill Pearce, a band booster club member, said the annual event serves as a fundraiser for the jazz bands to help pay for jazz clinics and festivals they like to attend throughout the year. The amount raised Friday was not available by press time.
Ballinger kicked off the event by providing the crowd with some tips and basic steps for swing dancing, as a refresher for some and a first lesson for others. Ballinger has been volunteering to provide short tutorials at the annual event since its inceptions five or six years ago, he said.
“I grew up in the Midwest and I’m 83 years old, so I grew up with the swing dance,” Ballinger said. “I never really did much of this until I kind of semi-retired.”
Ballinger said swing dancing is “really simple” and fun for a number of reasons. Perhaps the fact that swing dancing is simple is the most important reason of all, he said, because couples who are not dance experts can enjoy it together.
“You know what happens with most couples – they get married and the wife wants to dance, so he says, ‘OK, let’s go,’” Ballinger said. “So they start dancing and he’s kind of clumsy. And after about three or four times … they never dance again.
“That’s one thing the wife would rather do more. I would say 90 percent of the time, she would love that more than anything else.”
Add that to the list of what makes swing dancing so great – women love it, Ballinger said, so it’s a great way to make a social connection.
“If you talk to 10 men, only one of us will dance. Most of them are afraid of it. They’re a bit embarrassed or something,” he said. “If you talk to 10 women, nine want to dance. And once you swing dance with a woman, they will come running. They enjoy it that much.”
It’s also not an objectionable form of dancing, Ballinger said – “a woman will know immediately if you have the wrong thoughts when you’re dancing.”
But most importantly, Ballinger said, swing dancing is fun.
“Each year we do something a little bit different, but we want them to have fun. That’s what it’s all about,” he said. “Just keeping time for music is all. And really, you can’t make a mistake swing dancing.”
Attendance was about on par at Friday’s event, with between 100 and 150 people making their way through the doors, Ballinger said. Many show up to sit back and take in the jazz music presented by the high school’s three jazz bands. Others tentatively test the swing dancing waters or eagerly pull a dance partner to the floor.
The structure of the event is flawless in that the dancers and audience members aren’t the only ones enjoying themselves – the bands are too. Pearce said while the swing dance festival is a fundraiser, it also offers the jazz band students an opportunity to play some more upbeat jazz they prefer.
“It gives them a chance to play more of the music they like,” Pearce said. “At the concerts, they play music that is more classical jazz. It’s the kind you sit down and listen to, where a lot of jazz is meant to get up and dance to. So it just gives them more of an opportunity to perform what they have been practicing and working on all year.”
Ryan Minnerly can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.