Dancing with roses
How the Portland dance communities changed my life, and an invitation to join me in Corvallis
Portland changed my life in March 2008.
It was a Friday night. I found myself in a packed dance hall, and early jazz, from the Swing Era of American music, was filling the room. It could be heard, seen and felt everywhere.
Hundreds of people were on a hardwood dance floor, dancing with partners. Some wore suits, some dresses, others had plain shirts and tennis shoes. In every direction, smiling faces could be seen.
I watched as strangers became friends in the span of 3 minutes, the length of a song. I sat ten feet from a dancing couple as they performed what appeared to me as a silent, three-act play, improvised on the spot, set to music from the 1920s.
These same happy people were talking to me, asking me to join in their fun. This went on until midnight, when we walked across the street, to another dance hall, where much-needed food and rest was found. Sleep would have to wait, however, as dancing resumed soon afterward, and the joyful crowd stayed for another four hours, finally calling it “a night” at 5 a.m.
I had discovered a wonderful, secret, underground world. It was called the Portland Lindy Exchange.
I had started taking dance classes 6 months prior, and had picked up a few basic moves. In other words, I was terrified.
I came to the Lindy Exchange from Corvallis, an hour and a half drive from Portland. I arrived on my own, and my self-consciousness was prepared to keep me that way. Each time someone would ask me to dance, I would try to politely decline, and adjust my demeanor in an attempt to appear disinterested or too tired.
Miriam, from Spokane, was the first person to call me out. “You’ve been sitting here all night, so I’m going to sit here too until you want to dance,” she informed me.
She had come with a group. Samantha, Ben, Kelly, Maya, and Paul had carpooled over 350 miles, for five and a half hours, to dance in Portland for the weekend. For the moment, she was alone with me, at a table in the back.
We must have danced, though I don’t remember if we did, because suddenly I was wandering the streets of Portland with this group, looking for a place to eat, with the help of a paper map provided by the event organizers.
This group of strangers continued to encourage me throughout the weekend. They invited me to Camp Jitterbug, another dance festival in Seattle, three months away, with workshops taught by almost every famous swing dancer at the time. I had to go.
In Seattle, I shared a house with Justin Hill and about five other people. Justin and our other hosts made us breakfast, and drove us to the venues. I met dozens more at shared classes, an event picnic, and of course the dances. I was so caught up in meeting this new community, I forgot my jacket in a park.
After the Portland Lindy Exchange and Seattle’s Camp Jitterbug, I had made at least 20 new friends. I had to keep doing this, and I have been for the last six years.
When I started the Corvallis Swing Dance Society, one of my goals was to get as many people to the Portland Lindy Exchange as possible, to show our community the possibilities of a dance scene.
In 2013, we had 34 people from Corvallis at the Portland exchange. That’s more people than we’ve had at some of our dances, as recently as May 2012.
Last year, we had so many people that I stopped counting. Our group was able to start a spontaneous steal circle at the Saturday evening dance — clapping, to the beat of an uptempo song, around a dancing couple, while taking turns cutting in, stealing one of the dancers.
We’re proud of what we’ve made here in Corvallis. People have moved from other states to be a part of our dance scene. People have changed their life plans, found excuses to keep going to college, and found jobs in town, to stay in our community.
Without the Portland dance scene, I don’t think there would be a Corvallis Swing Dance Society.
We’ve had a lot of help and support from the Portland community. I’m thankful to Binky Dykstra and Josh McLaughlin, who traveled down on a Sunday afternoon, in the middle of winter, to teach to a packed house, and ensure our first dance was a success.
We are lucky to be near Bethany Powell, Coyle Parker, David D, Emily Ernst, Geoff Young, Jae Wilson, Jason Isbell, Rachael Ries, Sam Estrem, and Stefan Durham, who have crafted lessons or workshops for our scene, sharing their passion with Corvallis.
Our first live music event featured the Stolen Sweets, and Jen Bernard brought with them what is the largest crowd, still to this day, we have seen at our venues. Not only that, they put us in touch with the Company B Jazz Band, who have visited twice from Canada, and put us on the entertainment front page of the paper.
I wouldn’t know anything about Lindy hop, the base of modern swing dancing, if it weren’t for Larry Peacock, Mindy Barnhart, Russell Bruner, Desha Berney, and the organizers of the Portland Lindy Society.
They kept swing dancing alive in Portland while it was all but dead in Corvallis. They hosted weekly venues at quality dance halls. Each week, while I was dancing to maybe four swing songs in Corvallis, they were making over 12 hours of swing dancing available to the general public.
In October of 2008 they brought in world-famous dancers Peter Strom and Naomi Uyama to teach a workshop, and I was able to attend. A week after teaching in Portland, Peter and Naomi won first place at the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown, swing dancing’s biggest event at the time.
The Portland dance community is diverse, and Lindy hop isn’t the only game in town. Portland’s West Coast swing scene has had a big influence on Corvallis. Many Oregon State University graduates, after moving to Portland, travel back to our town, to dance, help host dance competitions, and encourage students to travel up to Portland once per week, and Corvallis is richer because of it.
Bridgetown Swing, a weekend dance festival held in Portland in September, has inspired many people in Corvallis to pursue West Coast swing in ways similar to how the Portland Lindy Exchange has inspired me to pursue Lindy hop.
Of course that’s not all. Portland has been home to a thriving blues dance scene for the better part of a decade.
When Dustin Henwood moved from Portland to Corvallis, he had already played a key role in the Portland blues community, from organizing house parties to recording instructional videos. So when he and Kristin Pugmire started a blues club at Oregon State, the university in town, people took notice.
The Portland community, channeled through Dustin and Kristin, inspired us. Erik Larsen and Denis Lemeshenko took up blues dancing as their passion in Corvallis, and now serve on the Portland Blues and Jazz Society’s board of directors.
At first, Michelle Jordan, co-founder of Corvallis Swing, and I were skeptical of the dance. From the outside, blues dancing seemed painfully slow. Swing dancing was fast, and it had well-known rules I could fall back upon when I didn’t know what to do. Blues dancing didn’t seem to have any moves, besides staying close to your partner, and I wasn’t comfortable with that. It was all of my anxiety in a single dance, wrapped in a bow, and I didn’t know what to do.
After meeting the Corvallis blues community, our skepticism dissolved. The dance was simple when Dustin broke it down, and it fully complimented Lindy hop. And everyone was just so damn nice. Maybe the form of the dance cultivated empathy. Whatever it was, I felt welcome.
Michelle and I decided to partner with Dustin, Kristin, and the scene they put together over the past year. We would host a monthly Saturday swing and blues dance; swing would start the evening, and blues would follow.
The next year, Dustin, Kristin and I became housemates in a 19th-century, Victorian house, complete with hardwood floors, two fireplaces, and room for dancing.
With the extra room, we were able to host Justin Riley, founder of The Recess Events, when he taught a workshop in town, and opened a door to the alt-blues-dance world that has stayed open in Corvallis since.
Our housing situation was representative of the relationship between the Corvallis swing and blues communities. We shared sound equipment, speakers, and sound boards. We shared the calendar, and coordinated our weekly dances, sharing Friday evenings, hosting swing dances one week and blues dances the next.
We encouraged as much interaction between our communities as we could. Dustin and I were the music coordinators in our scenes, and we arranged it so our DJs played at both venues. We shared material between the dance lessons we taught.
Soon after our time living together, the Corvallis swing and blues groups decided to host their first weekend-long dance event, the Swing and Blues Weekend of 2013.
The weekend was our dance festival, our chance to give back to the communities that had given so much to us. It was our chance to help our town discover a wonderful, secret, underground world of social dancing.
It was a huge success. We asked our community how it went, and they demanded we do it again. So we did. The next year, over 40 people volunteered to make the second weekend happen. Our friends traveled across the country to be with us, both on and off the dance floor, and again our event was a success.
This year, we are hosting Swing and Blues Weekend for a third time, and I am volunteering to help with the event. It will likely be my last time on the event committee.
What we accomplished in Corvallis was special. People have told me that dancing here, and being a part of this group, was the most important thing they’ve done. I myself would not be in this town if it weren’t for my closest friends, the people of the Corvallis Swing Dance Society.
I’m here to tell you this: We wouldn’t be here without you. Let us thank you.
Come be with us, dance with us, and let us be your hosts while you visit our town. If you need a place to stay, we are opening up our homes. If you need a ride, we are putting together carpools. If you just don’t have the cash, let’s talk about it. The important thing is to come visit, be a part of the Oregon community, and celebrate what we have, while we’re still here.
Come to the Swing and Blues Weekend in 2015, January 23, 24 and 25, in Corvallis, Oregon. Share your dancing adventure, what changed your life, and be with all of us.
