I said yes, when my friend asked me if I wanted to go dancing at a downtown café in Denver. My friend assured me that there were lessons before hand, and you didn’t need a partner. I grew up listening to the greats, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, and Benny Goodman. But, until the night that I went dancing with my friend, I hadn’t fully appreciated what I loved listening too so much.
The cover charge was seven dollars, and that included an hour of east cost swing lessons, and a live big band performance following, where I practiced what I had just learned in the lesson.
It was a welcoming community of people those dancers. I met a few men that had been dancing for years, and said how exited they were that the young people were starting to really dance again. One gentleman in particular named Max, who, I noted, could kick his legs up higher than I could, and never seemed to tire. He danced every dance, and on that first night was pleased to dance with me at least twice. Not once did I sit a dance out that evening, there was always a gent who asked me if I would dance with them.
That night I fell in love. I walked out of that Denver Café with the biggest grin on my face and a little bounce in my dance step. I felt the high of a runner after a race. My excitement about dancing was beating hard upon my chest, and my mind danced the east cost swing over and over in my head, until I had the steps perfectly. Was this a taste of being perfectly romanced, I wondered.
After that night I bought a pair of dancing shoes, and a twirly skirt. I began to go dancing at the café three to four nights a week, I took Saturday dance work shops and looked for other places to dance as well.
I recalls a few times dancing at the café when I and a few of the guys would soon have a circle of watchers surrounding us, “it was like a dream, or something out of one of those old musical shows,” “you know the ones, where Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers have the dance floor all to themselves, and everyone else is in awe as they glide effortlessly across the dance floor.” “At the end there is an explosion of applause!”
The cover charge was seven dollars, and that included an hour of east cost swing lessons, and a live big band performance following, where I practiced what I had just learned in the lesson.
It was a welcoming community of people those dancers. I met a few men that had been dancing for years, and said how exited they were that the young people were starting to really dance again. One gentleman in particular named Max, who, I noted, could kick his legs up higher than I could, and never seemed to tire. He danced every dance, and on that first night was pleased to dance with me at least twice. Not once did I sit a dance out that evening, there was always a gent who asked me if I would dance with them.
That night I fell in love. I walked out of that Denver Café with the biggest grin on my face and a little bounce in my dance step. I felt the high of a runner after a race. My excitement about dancing was beating hard upon my chest, and my mind danced the east cost swing over and over in my head, until I had the steps perfectly. Was this a taste of being perfectly romanced, I wondered.
After that night I bought a pair of dancing shoes, and a twirly skirt. I began to go dancing at the café three to four nights a week, I took Saturday dance work shops and looked for other places to dance as well.
I recalls a few times dancing at the café when I and a few of the guys would soon have a circle of watchers surrounding us, “it was like a dream, or something out of one of those old musical shows,” “you know the ones, where Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers have the dance floor all to themselves, and everyone else is in awe as they glide effortlessly across the dance floor.” “At the end there is an explosion of applause!”
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