Casey Kelley can’t describe what dancing looks like, but he will tell anyone how it makes him feel.
“Swing calls to me; it’s fun, and it’s engaging,” Kelley, a University student, said. “It’s not overly complicated to learn, and it doesn’t take too long before you get to the meat of the material. The music is invigorating; the rhymes are fast-paced. I just love swing.”
Last term, Kelley did some research and found that the previous swing club on campus — U-Lindy — had all but disappeared.
“I thought of reviving the club and changing the name, but it was just one of those spur of the moment things,” Kelley said.
That spur of the moment has now turned into a large gathering of students, all hoping to learn the art of swing dance through the University Swing Club.
In the fall of 2003, U-Lindy was founded by six University students — all of whom went on to create ELLA, a local swing dance club. In 2007, they passed the club to Donia Rose.
After Rose graduated, the group began to die out and membership dwindled, University alumna Catherina Erfurth said.
“There are a lot more people in Casey’s club than when I joined,” Erfurth said. “In 2007, we had 30 to 40 people on a good night and five or six on a bad night. “
Erfurth and her partner Drew Laiche are now part of the Eugene Lindy Lovers Association — ELLA — and are donating their time each Thursday to the swing club to teach their area of expertise: the Lindy Hop.
The new series, which started at the beginning of last term, will cover the eight-count dance, a traditional swing from the 1930s and ’40s. The dance is often associated with the jazz musician Duke Ellington and is considered the “godfather” of all swing dances by Kelley.
Erfurth calls it a “big dance,” commonly recognized by its basic step, the swingout. But their dancing is only as big as the space they practice in.
“One of complaints I get is that people are tired of kicking things,” Kelley said. “And I haven’t even taught them the three-kick step!”
As in 2007, the Swing Club resides in the EMU’s Buzz Cafe, hardly allowing the 40-member club to all jump and jive at once.
“It’s hard trying to allow 30 people to swing at the same,” Kelley said.
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deally, Kelley is looking for a larger space with no carpeted floors that will be able to hold the ever-expanding club membership.
“We are trying to keep costs down and (look for) venues without rent,” Kelley said. “Some spots on campus cost $400 a day, or $35 to $45 an hour, and then there’s the cost of the lessons that last an hour, and members have to pay fees for all of that.”
But the University Swing Club is free.
“People enjoy dancing more if they have no kind of pressure to spend their hard-earned money,” University sophomore Charlotte Cleary said. “If they have to go somewhere and spend money, they might feel like they are bound to have fun, but they can come and go whenever they want. This doesn’t have that obligatorily feeling.”
Kelley teaches the group new dance moves every Thursday that they meet, but when you ask Kelley what he studies, you wouldn’t expect him to start talking business.
“(Dancing) is something I’ve considered for the future, but I am currently in business school, taking classes for finance, hopefully to open a dance studio and have my own business,” Kelley said. “I never knew people would enjoy my teaching so much.”
Lane Community College student Jonah Price didn’t realize he would either.
“It took coming a few times to learn that Casey didn’t do this regularly. I thought he was a (graduate teaching fellow) of some sort,” Price said. “But he’s just a business major who
likes dancing.”
Kelley started dancing at LCC under the instruction of current dance instructor Larry Robbins about six years ago. But it wasn’t until he took a break from dance when he realized it was more than just fun exercise.
“I became really grumpy and pissed off, and my feet kept moving and dancing,” Kelley said. “That’s when I knew I loved dance.”
Kelley has seemed to spread that love around the dance floor.
“It has become the highlight of my week,” Price said. “I came into it as an outsider with the mindset of being an outsider, and now I feel like I’m a part
of everything.”
“I think it’s addictive,” Cleary said. “Number one, it’s a workout, but you meet the most amazing people, and it’s a new adventure for everyone.”
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