Club teaches swing dancing

Tim Orendorff/Senior Photographer STEP BY STEP: Kyle Rollins, a freshman in the School of Management, and Liz Kent, a sophomore in the School of Management, learn how to swing dance with the Purdue Night Train Dance Club Tuesday night at the Stewart Center.

By Anna Herkamp
Senior Writer

Two concentric circles of people dressed in jeans, khakis, baggy sweaters and T-shirts step and sway in time to jazz music as they learn the basic swing dancing moves.

The scene certainly didn't bring to mind images of the movie "Swing Kids," but most of the dancers are only beginners.

Tuesday night, the Purdue Night Train Dance Club gave its first lessons of the semester to new and returning members. At 7 p.m. on Friday they will offer free lessons and coaching on the Elliott Hall of Music stage. The club is only a little over a year old, but its popularity suggests otherwise.

Paul Rodibaugh, president of the Purdue Night Train Dance Club and a junior in the School of Science, said the club started in 1999 when the founding members met at a ballroom dance.

The members realized they all had a passion for dancing and liked swing, so they informally began to meet in a Shreve Hall lounge to "dance and have fun," said Rodibaugh.

"We didn't know much, but we taught ourselves and went to workshops. It got into motion in the fall of '99 and by 2000 we had a club," said Rodibaugh.

Rodibaugh said he and a couple other members had a little dance experience before college, when swing dancing was a fad.

As the group of friends hung out more and got to know one another, they started going to Chicago to dance.

"We went several places…there were a lot of really incredible dancers from Java Jive, the University of Chicago's swing dance club. On average, we went probably every other weekend," said Josh Borneman, one of the founding members of the club.

Nicky Maddox, outreach officer for the club and a sophomore in the School of Technology, said when she came to Purdue from Texas last year, she really had no idea what she wanted to do with her free time. She went to the callout because it looked fun, and immediately decided she liked swing dancing, so she accompanied the founding members on their excursions to Chicago to go dancing.

When she first started, she said she had no idea how to dance, but Rodibaugh and Borneman would help her and would sit out with her, show her the basic moves and would tell her to just get out onto the floor and "have fun with it."

Though there are several dance clubs on campus, Rodibaugh says the swing dance club emphasizes social dancing. "It's not to compete or look better than others. We treat everyone the same. We just want to be laid-back…we're all on one level. We like to have a good time," he said.

The two forms of dancing the club emphasizes are lindy hop and east coast, styles that people can perform with any partner. The club does not teach aerials, the showcase moves of swing dance, which involve any move where the male dance partner lifts the female dance partner or pushes her into the air. The reason they don't, Maddox said, is because they try to keep things social so that everyone can learn what to do without the fear of injury.

Another thing that sets swing dance apart from other forms of dance is its pure American root in the music and culture. This semester, Maddox said the club will do more activities where the members will learn about the music and its origins.

Jazz, she said, is one of the most purely American music forms because it started and developed in New Orleans.

This semester the club will also host several workshops, including one in which championship dancer Peter Strom will teach March 2-3.

"In Indiana," said Rodibaugh, "swing dancing isn't something people really do. It has history and culture behind it. It's not just going out and dancing. It has some backing to it."

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