By MELISSA KAREN SANCES
For the Advocate
As snow mingles with rain this Tuesday evening, the door to Spare Time Northampton is cool to the touch. But inside the bowling alley’s City Sports Grille, the cracks of falling pins fade into the warm pulse of swing music.
The Lindy League of Western Massachusetts’ weekly swing dance is well underway, and the small dance floor is packed with pairs of dancers riffing on the Lindy Hop, a type of swing dance that originated in the late 1920s in Harlem, New York. Around the perimeter of the dance space, a handful of spectators tap their feet to the beat. One man shuffles silently in his socks. It is impossible not to move.
“I’ve always said I thought dancing is the answer to world peace,” says Christine LeBel, one of the league’s founders. “It doesn’t matter what you bring to the dance floor — you can work it out.” Over the course of the evening, I will hear from several people — new and experienced, young and old — that swing dancing is a universal, entirely physical language. And that even among strangers on the dance floor, the common experience is joy.
Swing dancers participate in a weekly dance organized by the Lindy League of Western Massachusetts at Spare Time Northampton and City Sports Grille on Tuesday, November 21, 2023. Photo by Christopher Evans
“It’s a way to play as an adult,” says Greg Perham, a Northampton resident who learned to Lindy Hop from LeBel and her husband Mark Page 16 years ago. And, says Pelham, it’s a low-stakes way of making friends, because unlike meeting people at a bar or a similar venue, there is no expectation of conversation. The dance is the conversation.
When LeBel and Page started the league in 2006 with the help of 2 couples, they saw themselves as stewards of swing. At the same time, they wanted to honor the Lindy Hop’s history. The dance originated in Harlem, New York in the 1920s, uniting Black and white dancers decades before the Civil Rights movement. Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom was the first integrated ballroom in the country.
Northampton resident Joey Newlin, left, dances with Anna Leschen-Lindell of Montague during a weekly swing dance organized by the Lindy League of Western Massachusetts at Spare Time Northampton and City Sports Grille on Tuesday, November 21, 2023. Photo by Christopher Evans
“If you think of the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s in America, those were not happy times” says LeBel. “But here was this happy music and a way to express joy.”
That joy is a timeless reprieve. “I think it’s what the world needs right now,” says Laura Quayle, who started following the Lindy League right before COVID-19 shuttered people in their homes. When the league started holding weekly dances last year, she was happy to return. “We’re living in our own little boxes and connecting through virtual spaces, and this is a way to feel something meaningful and physical.”
Northampton resident Johannah Hetherington shares a laugh with her dance partner during a weekly swing dance organized by the Lindy League of Western Massachusetts at Spare Time Northampton and City Sports Grille on Tuesday, November 21, 2023. Photo by Christopher Evans
The Lindy League offers a weekly deejayed dance at Spare Time, as well as a dance with a live band on the last Sunday of the month in Greenfield and the third Friday of the month in Montague. Each dance starts with an optional, 45-minute lesson, as well as a 15-minute “Lindy bite” of a more advanced move. LeBel likes to weave in a little history, and offers QR codes for those who want to learn more.
In the early days of the league, the group invited Frankie Manning, one of the original Lindy Hoppers in Harlem, to teach workshops in western Massachusetts. This September, the Lindy League participated in the Northampton Jazz Festival, where LeBel and Page taught a free swing lesson in Pulaski Park. As a two-person volunteer operation, they hope to continue to grow as people become more comfortable with being social again.
Amherst resident Marita Banda, left, dances with Northampton resident Josue San Emeterio during a weekly swing dance organized by the Lindy League of Western Massachusetts at Spare Time Northampton and City Sports Grille on Tuesday, November 21, 2023. Photo by Christopher Evans
On this chilly Tuesday evening, the dancers range in age from 12 to 76. When each song ends, people change partners. Twelve-year-old Clementine Sentenn Lindy Hops with her mother and whirls around the dance floor. Two middle-aged men take turns twirling each other.
While taking a dance break, Eva Moynihan, a self-proclaimed “clumsy person” who inherited the trait from her mother, tells me that thanks to the supportive community, she has come to love swing dancing. “If I miss a dance,” she says, “it doesn’t feel like my week is complete.”
“The Lindy League tag line is ‘Learn, Dance, Connect,’ and that connection piece is meant both literally and figuratively,” says LeBel. “We couldn’t see each other or be near each other for 3 years. Part of my joy of being a steward is wanting to be part of the fix that America needs.”
Instructors Christine LeBel and Mark Page teach an east coast swing dance class for the public gathered at Pulaski Park during the Northampton Jazz Festival on Saturday afternoon.
For more information on the Lindy League, visit www.lindyleague.org.
Melissa Karen Sances lives in Easthampton, where she’s working on a memoir and writing stories about incredible people. Reach her at melissaksances@gmail.com.
