Swing your partner

The Hacienda Hotel doesn’t look like much from the outside — just another reasonably priced hotel near LAX. But what most drivers stopped at the traffic light on Sepulveda and Mariposa don’t know is that the unassuming commuter hotel is a nationally known hot spot for sexy, soulful West Coast Swing dancing.

West Coast Swing is California’s official state dance, and jumped into the American spotlight in 2006 when West Coast Swing champion Benji Schwimmer took the top prize on “So You Think You Can Dance.” But thanks in large part to the Hacienda Hotel, WCS has been a lively scene for years.

On every day of the week, dancers ranging from total beginners to national champions crowd the dance floor at the Double H Club, the country-western bar adjacent to the Hacienda’s attractive Spanish-style courtyard. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays feature West Coast Swing, nightclub two-step and country two-step lessons, with open dancing following most lessons. Wednesdays are reserved for hustle dancing, and Sundays feature dance workshops. Most lessons don’t require a partner, and open dancing is always free to attend. At least six different teachers give lessons each week.

Thursday nights are the most popular, with champions and dance instructors coming from miles away to dance with old friends, socialize and show off a little. Late at night, when the dance floor clears a bit, you might see a bit of “Dancing with the Stars”-type action as elite dancers perform their flashier moves.

Every year in February, dancers take over the entire hotel — ballrooms, too — for a competition weekend that attracts contestants from all over the country.

Al Lerner, a spry, fit, 75-year-old who has danced, taught and choreographed West Coast Swing since 1950 and used to compete four nights a week in L.A., met his new bride, Lupe Perez, while swing dancing. Together, they drive from Malibu every Thursday to strut their stuff at the Hacienda, and their dance convention schedule this year includes trips to Phoenix, Anaheim and the U.S. Open.

“Now, there’s so many young dancers who are incredible, and I thought I was good,” Lerner laughed. “Thursday night here is the biggest in L.A., and there’s people in Orange County who are trying to compete with the Hacienda.”

Perez, 56, said dancing is a great way to get in shape. “We stopped for a while, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I’m gaining weight,’” she said. “Plus, you are really visible on the dance floor, so it’s huge motivation to look good.” There’s romantic potential, too. “Three-quarters of these people have dated each other. Once you start dancing, this is your world.”

Lanny Ganz, a longtime dancer who has a WCS e-mail event list, said, “If you want to see the top dancers in L.A., this is the place to go.” Dancers have been known to drive from Oxnard, Palm Springs and San Diego to dance at the Hacienda, carpooling in minivans and getting lunches packed at the Hacienda’s restaurant for work the following Friday. Champion dancers like Martin Parker, Phil Adams, Eric Meyers and Robert Cardena are often seen taking to the dance floor.

Fifteen years ago, Esther Schmidt, the food and beverage purchaser for the Hacienda Hotel, and her daughter, Anne Mortensen, had the original vision for this hotbed of dance. They began taking country-western dance lessons with their husbands, and realized they could reinvent Schmidt’s workplace as a dance bar.

It took six months for Schmidt to convince the management that she could fill the bar regularly with dancers. When she did, she put in hardwood floors, the better to spin on. Eventually, the crowds got so big that she had to knock down a wall, giving the Double H Club its three dance floors. Mortensen and her husband were the original DJs; Mortensen continues to DJ three nights a week. “I know how to do all these dances, so it’s easy to pick songs that fit,” she says. Unlike big band swing, West Coast Swing fits R&B and snappy four-count songs like Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack.”

Dance instructor Doug Endo, the first to bring WCS to the Double H Club, said, “The Hacienda has done well because it’s not just a bar, it’s a hotel and restaurant too, so it had other sources of revenue to survive.” Line-dancing venues like Denim and Diamonds, he said, closed during the mid-1990s (a combination of a fading cowboy trend and a bad economy). “There weren’t any places doing lead-follow dances as much, until we started changing over to West Coast Swing,” which has remained popular.

Of dancing, Schmidt said, “It’s fun … stress relief. It’s exercise where you’re not holding a piece of equipment that you have to move. When the European visitors stay in the hotel, they are so happy to see Americans having fun and dancing they way they do in Europe. It’s so different from they way they see Americans on TV — lazy, demanding, complaining.” Many Hacienda dancers enjoy educating gawking hotel guests about West Coast Swing dancing.

The friendships on the floor do indeed blossom into love. Schmidt knows of at least five or six couples who met while dancing at the Hacienda and got married; three of them had their weddings at the hotel.

Dancer Jean Sadrpour perhaps said it best. “I wouldn’t feel fulfilled unless I came here every Thursday. I feel most creatively free here. It’s like home.”

The Hacienda is located at 525 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Dancing begins at 7:30 p.m. every night.