It is a pleasant surprise to find yet another area of interest I share with
members of the HP community brought to light by a chance reference in one
of my postings to this list. I have been going to dances at Glen Echo Park
since 1986. I don't contra dance much, because I have too poor a short-term
memory for sequences, but I like the people who do. I have done a lot of
swing dancing, but I don't enjoy it as much now that it has become a sport
for teenagers. Makes those of us who have been doing it a while feel old.
Swing in DC originated in 1986 with the contra crowd and for the first few
years reflected that group's warm friendliness and openness. The waltz
dances (usually 1st and 3rd Sunday afternoons; there's one today), mostly
attended by people from that same group, have been more fun in the last
couple of years than swing dances which often are rather intense and
competitive. GE is about the only place I like for swing because it draws
such a diverse crowd that the dance Nazis have not been able to spoil it
completely. 

Those Friday and Sunday contra dances have been going more than 20 years.
We also had, for about 10 years, a vintage group (Capital Vintage Dance
Society) of which I was a member and eventually one of the organizers. It
is now moribund due to not being able to maintain enough of a base of
regular attendance to sustain our events. Vintage is essentially historical
ballroom dancing, starting with the 1844 Polka (the first worldwide dance
craze) and up to the ragtime era, with some extension before (Regency
quadrilles) and after (1920s and early Lindy). As my favorite kinds of
music are ragtime and early (pre-Swing) jazz, I was very supportive of
Vintage in DC and sad to see it go. It continues to thrive in some other
places, notably Cincinnati, and Hartford, and there is a big Vintage week
in Newport RI every August. When I am in CT visiting my parents, I
sometimes dance with vintage groups in the Hartford area. By DC standards I
am kind of a mid-level swing dancer, but I have been invited to be a
permanent member of two Vintage performance troupes if I care to move to
Connecticut--a thought rarely far from my mind. It is nice to be a swan
occasionally instead of an ugly duckling. 

Glen Echo Park (which would indeed be a great IPTW venue) is apparently
saved for now. The NPS had said a couple of years ago that they couldn't
afford to keep it going, and it is felt by some that the most drastic of
the 3 alternative proposed (raze the buildings) was a ploy intended to
produce the result that did happen--a movement to save the park and finding
money from other sources (State of MD and Montgomery County) to pay for it.
NPS can get money for places by showing utilization. Higher attendance =
more bucks. The plan chosen includes removing some of the less interesting
and more decrepit parts of the park, but saving most of it, including the
ballroom. I believe the plan can be seen on a web site somewhere, which is
probably linked via some of the dance web sites. Try www.wsdc.org for a
start. One of our concerns, however, has been to continue to have the use
of the ballroom after renovation. It is not heated or air-conditioned now
(never was) and this has been a frequent complaint. Yet everyone agrees
that if it is made too nice (a/c etc), we scruffy dancers (who have kept it
going all these years, including volunteer labor on the building itself)
will never see the inside of it, because it would become a place for VIP
groups, political fundraisers, big weddings, etc. One of the NPS
alternatives had been to have it run by a private company as a concession.
Having been on Skyline Drive, where the concessions are now all run by
Aramark, I don't think this would be an improvement--and the ballroom would
become yet another dance venue lost to the greed of private enterprise. We
have lost most of our other venues because they became too expensive. 

Another venue which really is threatened is Forest Glen Ballroom in Silver
Spring. It is part of a girls' school taht was one of many commandeered by
the US Govt in 1941 for military use (none of these places were given
back). The school is a real hodgepodge of architectural styles, bizarre,
eccentric and fascinating. Irene Castle attended the school, but before the
ballroom was built (in 1910), so she did not dance there. The US Army,
which calls this place the Walter Reed Annex, had signed an agreement in
1941 to "preserve" the buildings, but preserve in this case means another
coat of snot-green or shit-brown paint avery few years and hole the
buildings fall down so they can build something else. There have been
glimmers of hope from time to time. The community (the school was the
centerpiece of a 19c development, Forest Glen) wants it, the few remaning
alumni want to save it, and a group has been formed to try to buy it and
turnit into an arts and dace center. A few years ago it was on the list to
be decommissioned (post-cold-war cutbacks) but now of course we have
another war buildup. Our Vintage group used to use it when we could get it,
but that depended on the cooperation of the officer in charge, and every
time they got a new one, we had to start over. Also any Army-related
function could bump us, even on short notice. These included weddings and
wives' club casino nights. Once we were bumped the day before one of our
major events. We had to find a place, which cost more, and have people and
signs at Forest Glen directing attendees to the correct venue. We also used
to use Sternberg Auditorium on the main Walter Reed campus. The co-founder
of our group was a PHS officer, which was how we used to get in. 

When I first started dancing, I used to go to the Kennedy-Warren Ballroom,
but that hasn't been available for years except to well-heeled private
parties--another great dance venue victim of corporate greed. 

Don White

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