She insisted on taking the music seriously, and from the start, as a habitué of the swing ballrooms, she distinguished herself from the jitterbuggers by watching from the sidelines.
On the other hand, the rise of television was keeping people at home, the old swing ballrooms that had housed roaring Saturday-night big bands playing to jitterbugging dancers were closing fast, and the sound of rock'n'roll – which would soon displace jazz as America's, and the world's, popular music – was beginning to advance across the country.
Then came sock hops, swing and ballroom, and Mr. Ferrante became a regular on Catskills dance floors.
David performed with the country western dance team at his high school, the swing and ballroom dance clubs in college, and on a hip-hop dance team in graduate school.
This year, the lessons, and the bands, will address Lindy, shim sham, tango, salsa, salsa dura (serious salsa), the hustle, ballroom, swing, jitterbug, hand dancing, and collegiate shag.
But the recent, meticulous restoration of Philipsburgh Hall -- a crumbling but impressive historic building -- has been attracting people with concerts and lessons in swing, salsa and ballroom dancing.
If you want to impress your date, take her swing dancing, not ballroom dancing.
At 11 40 p.m., Mr. Mondale, who had swung through the ballroom of the Radisson Riverfront hotel downtown here to shake hands before any precincts had reported, returned to the pulsing crowd of 1,000 with a message similar to his opponent's.
From the stage, Arda pointed to me said "Welcome Mike!" into the microphone, whereupon the whole ballroom swung around to see me standing there with my luggage.
He practices meditation, the Japanese Zen flute and African drumming, and dance: ballroom, tango, swing.
