Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third in a series on student social clubs.
There’s no denying Grand Canyon University students love to dance – anytime, anyplace, anywhere – at basketball games, Chapel, campus events or just walking to class.
When students started a country swing and line dance club two years ago called American Kids, named after the Kenny Chesney song, even dance-happy organizers underestimated the interest. They held it in a classroom – until several hundred showed up.
They moved it to the big, open-air Riverbed at the east campus’s Rivers complex this year. The club averages 200 students every Monday night, part of an increase in social clubs among the 115 student clubs offered at GCU.
“I think it’s the rise of country music, and also, social media has made it big. Influencers are competing in line-dancing and swing-dancing competitions,” said student and lead instructor Ashley Boomershine. “I think Arizona is big for it; there’s a really big swing dancing community outside GCU.
“They can come here and don’t have to drive anywhere – no commitment, no cost – and learn, and they feel more confident going out to the different dance places.”
American Kids President Kyndal Downing was checking in waves of students arriving in boots and skirts, sweats and ballcaps, Western shirts or, like one young man, a pink dress shirt and purple bow tie. It’s come as you are, no matter who you are, whether you know how to dance or not.
She said it’s also a taste of home for a lot of freshmen who grew up with country dancing and for those who love watching others dance as much as doing it.
“It brings all kinds of people here,” said instructor Riley Kollbaum. “We got sports bros – I’m a nerd engineer – we got science majors, psychology majors, all under the branch of dancing. If you got two feet, you can dance. I love the openness, the inclusivity.”
The night starts with a line dance instruction. They break it down, piece by piece – visual learning to show each movement on each beat.
One, two, heel, heel, five six, heel, heel, triple step, rock recover, triple step, rock recover …
The music starts, a noncountry offering with a steady beat, Kesha’s “Take it Off,” and boots stomp on the cement floor of the Riverbed as students move in unison, or try to.
Angelo Luciani is hesitant and has concentration on his face – but keeps up.
“I was trying the triple step. I have no idea what that means, so I was just trying to follow people so I can move to it without getting lost,” he said. “But if you are following someone that doesn’t know what they are doing, you get lost with them.”
He first came in October with friends “just messing around,” when he spotted Madison Conover in the crowd. Now they attend weekly.
“It’s more fun when you mess up. When you’re doing something you’ve never done before, it’s more of an experience,” he said. “I’m just trying to keep up with her.”
Conover humbly smiled. “I’m better at line dancing, and he’s better at swing dancing, so we balance each other.”
Dancing is expressing joy together, and people meet.
“Dancing is a really good social outlet,” Boomershine said. “It’s not just every day you go up to people and ask them to talk, but you can go up to people and ask them to dance and make new friends.”
Kollbaum quickly added: “Women love men who can dance. You can write that down. Men come to learn, and girls bring their guys to learn.”
The swing dance instruction begins. Instructors had a bit of a time describing just what kind of swing dancing this is, there are so many varieties. Overall, it's country swing dancing, but with a little of the flowy West Coast swing – country coast anyone?
It’s more beats-based, in and out.
“It’s like a washing machine, a lot of arms, interchanging places and back and forth,” said Kollbaum, adding his engineer description. ”You use each other for momentum and use each other’s momentum to do the moves. It’s physics.”
Add pressure here, like a high five. You are going to spin her. You are going to put pressure on the hand, and she is going to spin around you.
Students try it slowly, again and again, practicing with one another to the side. “She is spinning?” asks a young man. “What?”
After a round of swing dancing, the students gather in a "steal circle" to watch those with birthdays solo with alternating partners in a swing dance. Sophomore Mckenna Tidwell, wearing cowboy boots, shorts and a Texas Longhorns shirt, had a dry mouth from nerves but did some serious swing to the howling crowd singing along to Dustin Lynch’s country song “Small Town Boy.”
“My main community has come from it – a lot of my best friends do it,” she said, slightly out of breath after the dance.
“You have to commit to it, because the more you do it, the better you get and the more fun it gets. I did it three, four times a week at the beginning because I have an obsessive personality. I do it until I’m good. I don’t like being bad at stuff.”
Dozens hang on for open dancing for the last hour, dipping, stepping and yeehawing. Some are really quite good – good enough for competitions the club holds periodically with prizes for winners.
“It’s a great form of cardio and takes my mind off my homework,” Kollbaum said, “and it’s just a fun way to express yourself, an art form.”
The bright Riverbed has become a dance hall, couples spinning and stepping, or are off to the side slowing it down step by step, dancing toward the goal of unified flow, of togetherness.
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
GCU Clubs
GCU has 115 student clubs this year in the following categories: academic and honor societies; career and preprofessional; community and volunteer; cultural; ministry; outreach/governmental; performance and visual arts; social. To check out clubs or to create a new one (requires signatures from 50 students for approval), get more information here or check out Instagram here.
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