Boldly Getting Into Full Swing

It took awhile for me to get hooked.

But looking back I wonder why. The subtle signs of the swing subculture lurking just beneath the surface of this placid beach town were everywhere. I’d been living in Ventura for less than a month when I saw the movie “Swingers.” A week later I heard a rumor that members of the supercool band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy--who performed the music in that supercool movie--lived only a few doors from me.

Then I spotted a man on our street wearing some stylish shoes: They were black-and-white, with leather soles, apparently broken in by a dancer. They were swing shoes.

I complimented him on his fine taste, and he said a member of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy gave them to him. Aha!

Months passed, but I saw and heard nothing.

Occasionally I would see some swing dancers bopping into Nicholby’s, or maybe doing their sassy Charleston moves over at Alexander’s. I longed to try it. But I was scared.

I took a class at the Derby in Los Angeles and got in a fight with my boyfriend. He had no rhythm.

I took a class in San Francisco with a man in a dress. However, I never followed through.

Then, in January, I got to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at the Ventura Theatre.

The place was packed--and the floor was jammed with swing dancers. The men were wearing suspenders, dancing shoes and spiffy hats. Some wore zoot suits. The women wore cute short skirts that whirled out when they danced. They spun and jumped.

Ardhas Khalsa, one of the theater managers--notorious for his ample wardrobe of tie-died shirts--marveled at the crowd. “We’ve got people here age 13 to 70,” he chortled. “The only other place you see crowds like this is at [a] Dead concert.”

The band played, and the crowd danced. And what a show it was. It was the hometown band, playing to its hometown audience.

My dancing lust increased, but I had no outlet, no in.

But the concert prodded me to take a first tentative step.

I bought the new Big Bad Voodoo Daddy CD and threw back martinis in the kitchen of my tiny bungalow, dreaming that one day I, too, could dance with a man wearing suspenders and a spiffy hat.

Then, fate led me into the swingers’ midst.

It was a sunny March afternoon, and I had a hankering for Joannafina’s special: the supercalorific, heavier-than-lead El Macho.

I waltzed into the downtown restaurant, and there, sitting at the table, was Scott, a man I had met once in a place far from Ventura. But I knew the most important thing there is to know about him. He is a swing-dancing fanatic.

I ran up and shouted his name. He looked confused.

“Are you a dance contestant?” he asked.

Oh, joy. Did I move like a swing dancer?

It turned out that he, along with hundreds of others in Ventura that sunny afternoon, were swing-dancing aficionados who had converged on our city from as far as Austin, Texas, and Boulder, Colo., for the annual Monsters of Swing weekend at Nicholby’s.

I listened, fascinated, as he discussed swing dancing with his companion.

“My partner hit someone last night,” his friend confessed.

“Well, that’s your fault,” my acquaintance said. I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “It’s never a woman’s fault,” he explained. “It’s a man’s job to control his partner.”

I could feel my feminist hackles rise, but I kind of liked his take-charge attitude.

The two had to rush back to class, but they encouraged me to come watch the finals that night.

I knew this was my chance. The Gods of Swing Dancing had not sent this dancing maniac into my path for no reason at all!

So I popped the question to this man I barely knew. “If I come, do you promise to dance with me?” I asked.

He promised. I grew bolder.

“I don’t mean one dance. I mean teach me to dance,” I said. He agreed.

I went. We danced. I was hooked.

I danced with Jeremy, a dance contestant from Santa Cruz. I danced with Fred, a dance contestant from Burbank. I danced with my friend Scott, who whirled and twirled me like a dervish. They dipped me, spun me and looked deep into my eyes.

Three days later I signed up for swing-dancing classes.

Walking down that long hallway into Nicholby’s, I could not recall a time I had felt so awkward. Why was I doing this? Why would I pay $5 to publicly humiliate myself in front of people I barely even knew on a well-lit dance floor?

But then, I reasoned, I am living here in a swing-dancing mecca of sorts--the home of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, with a chance to take lessons from teachers who appear in MTV videos and win $1,000 dance contests in L.A. How can I not do this? I watched the teachers, Terry and Lee, who move like a single greased machine, joyful, beautiful, synchronized, smooth. I watched the hard-core swingers, boogieing down to Louis Prima. And I sat primly on the sidelines, nervously sipping my Sierra Nevada beer.

But three weeks later, that swing sound is seeping into my soul. I Lindy hop in my dreams, and do East Coast swing in my bedroom at night. I go to classes Monday and Wednesday nights. And in a rash of enthusiasm, I even signed up for a four-day swing camp on Catalina Island. (I’m on the waiting list.)

Like so many Venturans before me (some of them are probably your neighbors), I have become a swing-dance addict.

I feel like there is a new zing in my life, and a new swing to my step.

I hate to admit it, but I guess it’s just like those irritating bumper stickers you see all over town say:

“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.”

Hilary E. MacGregor is a Times staff writer.