Getting in the swing of things

Saturday, Feb. 10, 2001 | 10:05 a.m.

Swing dancers have waltzed into the 21st century.

The popular dance that was born in the Roarin' '20s will never disappear as long as clubs such as the Movers and Groovers of Las Vegas are around for fans who think the dance style is almost as important as food and water.

"My sister and I learned to jitterbug together when we were in high school in Chicago," Marie Pelliccioni, 72, said.

Pelliccioni used to dance seven nights a week, but since becoming head of Movers and Groovers two years ago, she is so busy she has reduced it to two or three nights.

Last month the club moved its weekly dance session to the Cellar lounge and restaurant, 3601 W. Sahara Ave., where members groove starting at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays. The public is invited to the dance sessions, to which admission is free (though annual dues for club members is $20).

Over the years Movers and Groovers has used many locations, among them Skinny Dugan's Pub, the Silver Saddle and, most recently, Gilley's at the New Frontier.

In October the club's 85 members boogied out of Gilley's and were homeless until the new owners of the Cellar, Russ Davies and Dave Smith, invited them in.

Bob Dolph, 68, started Movers and Groovers 18 years ago. Back then it was called the Matinee Swing Dance Club because it met on Sunday afternoons. Later Dolph turned the club over to Pelliccioni, who changed its name.

"Matinee didn't make any sense. We meet at night," she said.

Dolph (who also helped start the Swing Dance Club of Las Vegas) noted that the Movers may have had one of the most unusual beginnings of any dance club -- one based in intrigue, conspiracy and murder.

"The wife of the man who owned the Keyboard Lounge (at Vegas Valley Drive and South Maryland Parkway) in 1983 hired a hit man to kill him," Dolph recalled. "Her attorneys took over the lounge as payment, and the manager called me up and asked me to come down and start a swing dance club."

The notoriety didn't deter dancers. Dolph said there was a time when the club had 250 members, and most of them would attend the weekly sessions.

"You had to arrive two hours early to have a place to sit," he said.

Not that there is a lot of sitting going on at swing dance club meetings.

Interest in swing music and dancing has been helped by the popular 1996 movie "Swingers," which follows an out-of-work actor who frequents Los Angeles nightclubs, where a retro-swing scene is in full bloom.

Among some of the top swing music groups are the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the Cherry Poppin' Daddies. Swing music by the late Louis Prima, meanwhile, has popped up in television commercials.

Still, it's difficult to get all of the Movers and Groovers together.

"There is always something to do in Las Vegas. You can never get everyone in one place at the same time," Pelliccioni said.

Meanwhile, she said, ballroom dancing (which includes such dances as the tango, waltz, foxtrot, cha cha and rumba) is growing more popular than swing.

"Ballroom dancers would rather do a greater variety (of dances) than what we do," Pelliccioni said.

Not that there isn't variety in swing dancing, which is the state dance of California.

Leon Raper, who has a website called Raper's Swing Dance Corner (swingdance.com), identifies several types of swing, including West Coast, East Coast, get down, bop, whip, push, jive, retro, Balboa, shag and the Lindy. All of them grew out of jitterbug.

"There are hundreds of variations to the steps," Pelliccioni said.

East Coast and West Coast swing, however, are the two most popular.

East Coast swing involves mostly six-beat step patterns (with some eight-beats thrown in), and couples move around the floor more. West Coast swing uses a greater mix of eight-beat patterns and couples "slot" dance, moving back and forth in a straight line.

But those are pretty tame moves for many of the younger swing dancers.

"Young kids like to move more," Lynn Martinez, 52, said. "They bring in country and Latin (to swing), adding their own style and techniques. They do body rolls and waves. They understand music a lot better. They know it's not just in the footwork."

Martinez is a member of the Movers and Groovers, most of whom are in their 50s and 60s. She also owns a dance studio and choreographs local stage productions as well as shows on cruise ships. When she isn't dancing professionally or teaching others to dance, she is dancing for fun.

The hoofer spends her spare time kicking up her heels at such places as Texas Station (where there are live, big-band sounds on Sundays), Boulder Station (which also offers live music, on Thursdays) and Dylan's (for country music). She loves country-and-Western dancing as well as swing.

Actually, there aren't many dances she doesn't do. "I've been dancing since I was 8 years old," Martinez said.

She taught her two adult sons to dance when they were 10 and 13. "We go into (a nightclub) and the girls line up to dance with them." Now she is teaching her grandchildren (ages 8-14) to dance.

Movers and Groovers club member Darlene Anderson, 61, has never had a dance lesson, but that didn't keep her from becoming a showgirl after moving to Las Vegas in 1960 from her native Ohio.

"They just showed me the moves and I did them," she said.

The former model's first dance gig was with "The Minsky Follies" show at the now-defunct Dunes. During her nine years performing on local stages, she danced for such entertainers as Tony Bennett, Patti Page and Rowan and Martin (before they hit it big with the television variety show "Laugh-In").

Today she is a cocktail waitress -- and a good example of how dancing can help keep a person physically fit. Anderson, who dances several nights a week, said she's kept the figure that less-active people only dream about.

"Swing dancing is great exercise and a wonderful way to meet people," Pelliccioni said, noting that most members of her club are single.

"There's an unwritten law in the club that if a lady asks you to dance, you dance."