Dancing the Jive

BURNIN’ UP THE DANCE FLOOR

I consider myself very fortunate to have grown up in the era of ‘57 Chevs, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, white bucks, blue suede shoes and duck-tail haircuts. The dance back then was the jive and at the age of 13 my girlfriend and I burned up the dance floor. The jive evolved from the popular jitterbug dance, but lacked the partner lifts and acrobatic elements, but was usually a very fast and energy-consuming dance. In the late 1950s, dance hops were brought into Picton by Ted Curl who was host of Teenage Dance Party, broadcast over CKWS-TV in Kingston every weekend. My dancing partner and I danced the jive for at least four years and during that time, got to recognize each other’s signals and moves so well that we soon became quite an item on the dance floor. A quirky little custom back then when dancers with fancy and well timed moves stood out, the rest of the dancers on the floor, one by one, would stop dancing and all would gather in a circle around the two dancers, clapping loudly in time to the beat. My girlfriend and I were so absorbed in one song once that we hadn’t noticed this very thing was happening to us, and suddenly realized we were the only ones on the dance floor. A prouder moment was never felt by either of us and we absolutely beamed as we finished the dance to a song titled, ironically enough, “At the Hop,” a song made famous by Danny and the Juniors. Unlike today’s dancing, partners were connected during the jive. If we ever separated during a twirl, or a complicated move, it was for but a few seconds only and we quickly locked ourselves together again as we pondered the next move. As I walk around today on arthritic feet with the help of orthodics, I look back on those days with envy. I still have my bright red dancing shirt from those days, and I am amazed today that I was once that small!