Swinging at Coney Island
Our regular gig at the Copacabanna was scrapped this week because it’s Memorial Day Weekend and the Copa is closed. So, to get in our dance fix we decided to branch out and try something new. It just so happened there was a big band performing at Coney Island last night and we thought it might be fun.
We weren’t sure what to expect, but we decided there was only one way to find out. When we arrived we found the Moonlite Pavilion pretty packed. There was a band dressed in military style khaki’s playing 30s and 40s swing and big band music and tables surrounding the dance area. And, there were a lot of people there, probably three or four hundred.
If you’re big into swing dancing or lindy hopping and like to really get wild with those types of dances, this would have been great for you. But, for ballroom dancers it wasn’t really ideal. All they played was East Coast Swing music with slow songs in between that were entirely undanceable. We danced to about 10 or 12 songs and by then had not only exhausted our swing repertoire, but even the stuff we could make up or try to remember from when Debi DJ’d a swing dance in Utah. We tried doing a Rumba to one of the slow dances but didn’t have any success. We pulled off one Foxtrot on a slow dance that was actually danceable, but otherwise we were done. Kind of a shame for $15.00 per person. But, I consider it an investment in knowledge.
On the plus side Debi ran into a co-worker who is a big time lindy-hopper/swing dancer. She and her husband were there and put on quite a show at one point. Anyway, a recommendation for any ballroom dancers – unless you really like swing dancing, you’ll probably not find this worthwhile.
