This is the fourth year the Swing Bridge Dance Club has been jazzing up Monday nights in Lethbridge.
Sheldon Klassen and Katherine Odland are original members. They say the club started with just 12 university students and since has exploded.
Drop-in classes can see anywhere from 30 to 70 dancers while social events, like the one on New Year’s Eve, had over 100 participants.
“The history of (swing dancing) is it’s very social,” Klassen said. “If you’re going to learn how to swing dance, it means how to become a part of a community.
“You can’t just take the skills and go home and tuck it away.”
Every drop-in class starts with a beginner lesson.
It’s good for Alice Kashman. She started swing dancing for the first time in these Monday classes.
“It’s been wonderful. I would do it over again in a minute… Like next week,” she said.
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During the lesson, partners are rotated, giving Kashman a chance to dance with other beginners as well as experienced dancers.
“I didn’t come with a partner and everyone just rotates, various partners, seasoned ones and beginners,” Kashman said. “It’s wonderful.”
Klassen hopes this year will bring more people into drop-in classes.
The group is also hosting a workshop with two international swing dancers in February.
“We see hundreds of people come through here in a course of a year and all of them learned here,” Klassen said. “All of them learned from us and that is pretty cool.”
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