I found swing dancing in February 2013, when, new to San Francisco, I wandered into Amnesia on gypsy jazz night. A clarinet and an accordion howled onstage while a couple danced below. I gaped at their flying limbs and mad smiles, at a dance that was goofier, bigger and sweatier than any other dance I’d seen before.
Trust me, I’m not a dancer. In the fourth grade, I willed myself into a 101-degree fever to get out of a ribbon performance to a song by the Cranberries. In college, I wandered around dance parties with my hands in my pockets.
Despite this, the structure of swing dance seemed attainable. Upon Googling “how to swing dance,” I learned that there are basic steps and moves, and ways to knit them together. During my first lesson, I put on a name tag and stood in a big circle among 40 partnered strangers. The teachers yelled as we shuffled across the floor. “Hold your partner like you’re giving them a hug,” they said. Every few minutes we rotated partners. “Keep a bounce in your body.”
After the lesson, the social dance started, and the Keds flooded in. One woman swiveled like she was shooting lasers off her hips. Another guy mimed hula-hooping, a move called “the messaround.” One couple bobbed their heads back and forth in a dance known as the “chicken walk.” Each dance was an improvised cartoon between the lead, the follow and the song.
And thus my infatuation began. I bought bike shorts to wear under twirling skirts. I put duct tape on the bottom of my shoes. I kept Altoids and travel-size deodorant in my purse. I learned the difference between the Lindy Hop, the Charleston and West Coast Swing. I bruised myself trying to practice in my 300-square-foot studio.
If any of this interests you, listen up: there are places to swing-dance all over town. Most of them start with beginning and intermediate lessons, followed by a dance with a DJ or a live band.
There are Tuesday nights at the Verdi Club, with its vintage neon sign and carpeted bar and ladies lounge. Horn players in high-waisted plaid pants play the same set every week, songs from their new record that’s 10 years old.
There are Thursday nights at the 9:20 Special, a grand old hall with velvet curtains, a balcony and a disco ball. Electric fans and paper cups line the perimeter.
There’s the occasional Saturday night at Club Deluxe, the original site of the swing revival of the 1990s, with its red lights and linoleum floor, fresh squeezed Greyhounds and pizza on paper plates.
And then there are Sunday afternoons in Golden Gate Park, with runners and parades streaming by as dancers sweat through khakis and sundresses. The DJ plays the first last song, the fifth last song and the last last song, and then groups break off for brunch.
For swing dancers, this is our Sunday church. You chat with the regulars, you sing to the music, and you stand next to the lady fanning herself. You dance with people who are 80 and people who are 15. You leave feeling like you’re part of a community.
The swing scene is also about aesthetics and manners. People dress up in saddle shoes and suspenders, red lipstick and party dresses. They say “please” and “thank you” after every song. They bring changes of shirts so partners don’t have to lay a hand on a sweaty back.
A few months ago, a friend brought me to Bootie SF. I hadn’t been to a normal club since starting to swing-dance. People in skinny jeans thrashed to Kanye mashups and sloshed vodka tonics in the air. A guy started grinding behind me. “Did you ask if you could do that?” I said, turning around. He shrugged and moved onto the next person.
When I tell people I swing-dance, many say they had no idea you could do that here. Come see for yourself. Put on a fedora, order a Sazerac, and hear the trumpet players trade eights. Dance until your foot goes numb. See a version of old San Francisco that hasn’t slipped away.
San Francisco is a city of reinvention. But for me, that meant reinventing myself into someone on a dance floor from 80 years ago, listening to Sinatra, a flower pinned in my hair.
