Sherman Oaks : Swing Dance Contestants Step Back and Forth in Time

The atmosphere didn’t exactly have the feel of New York City’s Savoy Theater back in the late 1920s.

Then again, it didn’t much matter to more than two dozen couples who jumped, jived and flipped their way through a Sunday afternoon swing competition before hundreds of transfixed shoppers at the Fashion Square shopping mall.

Sixteen competitors squared off for the right to strut their stuff at the Hollywood Bowl’s “Great American Concert--Swing Night” Sept. 10 and 11.

Many of the swing dancers looked the part, in flying skirts, zoot suit pants and even one guy who resembled the boogie-woogie bugle boy of Company B.

With the band Red and the Red Hots providing the beat, the crowd was treated to dance moves known as helicopters, quick stops, pretzels and shim-shams. The ooohs and ahhhs kept coming all afternoon.

Judges scored the teams on their basic moves, degree of difficulty, musical interpretation and professionalism.

When it was done, the two winning couples--Alisia Embry and partner Mike Convertino, and Rachel Mahrup with Jeffrey Beauregard--had most in the crowd feeling they were tuning in to a time warp.

Contest organizers said swing dancing grew out of Harlem jazz clubs in the late 1920s and early ‘30s, then swept the nation during the Depression and through World War II.

Roscoe Farnsworth, a judge Sunday who also teaches swing at the Derby club in Hollywood, said basic East Coast swing dancing spawned other styles, including a West Coast incarnation and the Lindy hop, shag, jitterbug and Balboa. But with the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, it was clear that swing was no longer the thing.

Now, a new generation has discovered the dance, thanks to movies like “Swingers” and a popular Gap television ad featuring music by the Brian Setzer Orchestra.

Farnsworth said young people are showing up in droves for swing lessons. “It’s bringing different generations together,” Farnsworth said. “Grandparents can sit down and talk to their grandchildren about it. And they get it.”