Nick peterson
Professor Jitterbug
Photo taken when a student of mine from 2001 captured a national championship in 2022.
When Did you Start dancing?
September 12, 1998
How did you start dancing?
While I first went to my public swing dance in September of 1998, my love affair with Swing began a few months earlier when I was introduced to the album "Kings of Gangster Bop" by Royal Crown Revue. The next month, I was hired for my first job at an ice cream store, with the sole intention of purchasing two tickets to the Royal Crown Revue concert at The Joint on June 18, 1998.
A few months later, September 11, 1998, to exact, I was at my high school's "Welcome Dance", doing the terribly off-beat swing steps I had learned from my friend's mom & dad at a house party that summer, when a cute girl invited me to a dance that next night.
On that Saturday, September 12, 1998, I dressed up in my best Harris & Frank's "vintage" shirt and bowler hat to go dancing at Harrah's Carnival Court. Now, the space is a closed-off outdoor bar, but in the twentieth century, it was an open space with a large water feature in the middle, and uneven cobblestone on the floor. And six nights a week, a swing band played for free! To 16-year old me, this was heaven.
Well, that girl never showed up. In fact, there were no women there at all. Instead, my first public dancing was with the other 5 guys who were in attendance, who decided to show me my first Charleston steps. I went back the next day. And almost every day after that...until Ricky Martin ignited the Latin craze in late 1999.
After a few months of learning by doing, I took my first class in January of 1999.
A few months later, September 11, 1998, to exact, I was at my high school's "Welcome Dance", doing the terribly off-beat swing steps I had learned from my friend's mom & dad at a house party that summer, when a cute girl invited me to a dance that next night.
On that Saturday, September 12, 1998, I dressed up in my best Harris & Frank's "vintage" shirt and bowler hat to go dancing at Harrah's Carnival Court. Now, the space is a closed-off outdoor bar, but in the twentieth century, it was an open space with a large water feature in the middle, and uneven cobblestone on the floor. And six nights a week, a swing band played for free! To 16-year old me, this was heaven.
Well, that girl never showed up. In fact, there were no women there at all. Instead, my first public dancing was with the other 5 guys who were in attendance, who decided to show me my first Charleston steps. I went back the next day. And almost every day after that...until Ricky Martin ignited the Latin craze in late 1999.
After a few months of learning by doing, I took my first class in January of 1999.
What vintage or modern Swing dancer should everyone watch?
What swing artist do you recommend new dancers check out?
What is one swing album every dancer should listen to?
Kings of Gangster Bop - Royal Crown Revue (1991)
HOw about one song every one needs to dance to at least once?
"Sing, Sing, Sing (with a Swing)" by Benny Goodman and His Orchesta, Live at Carnegie Hall (1938)
The dance clip that all new dancers need to see is...:
The greatest example of Swing dancing ever recorded: "Hellzapoppin" (1941), featuring "Whitey's Lindy Hoppers"
Words of Wisdom
"If you dance like no one is watching, eventually, no one will be able to stop watching you."