Looking for a fun, low-pressure way to dance, meet new people and enjoy campus life?
Minnesota State’s Swing Dance Club offers the perfect opportunity with Line Dance Night Mondays in the CSU Ballroom. Students of all skill levels are welcome, no prior experience is needed.
Swing Dance Club focuses on East Coast Swing, a style that members describe as flexible and beginner-friendly.
“I like it because it’s not super rigid. If you make a mistake, perfectly fine, you just keep dancing,” Noah Gould, a member of the club, said.
The club provides a space to relax, exercise and gradually improve dancing skills.
“We really like to promote having fun and being social and learning something new … It is like a really good form of exercise too. I’m always winded by the end of the night. It’s really fun,” Abby Skwira, another club member, said.
The idea for hosting a line dance night came from students’ curiosity and a desire to introduce a style that feels less intimidating than partner dancing.
“We have had a lot of people confuse us with like a line dancing club because swing dances inherently a partner dance … we figured that a branch out, do something new, and it might be less intimidating for people to come and do a line dance instead of a partner dance for the first time,” Skwira said.
They noted that the group also enjoys performing line dances whenever songs like “Footloose” come on.
While swing remains the main focus of the club, members love exploring other dance styles.
“Around Valentine’s Day each year, we try and do a waltz night. We have a lot of people who have lots of different experiences…sometimes they’ll teach us a little ballet thing, or exchange students teach dances from their home countries, which is really fun,” Skwira said. .
They have also tried Charleston, Lindy Hop and other historical forms of swing, demonstrating the club’s openness to variety and creativity.
Line Dance Night was designed to be welcoming for beginners.
“Even somebody who claims that they can’t dance or has two left feet … can pick up dance quickly, because 95% of us that go to the club have never danced before. And then we end up loving it and doing it every week,” Skwira said.
Skwira emphasized that students don’t need to bring a partner.
“We do a rotating system so that you get to meet a lot of new faces, and then you’re not really coming and feeling like you don’t have a partner,” she said.
Beyond learning steps, the club offers social connections and boosts self-confidence.
“It just expanded my community and like my networking on campus by a hundred times by going to swing dance because there are so many people and so many different kinds of people,” said Skwira.
Gould described the personal growth they’ve experienced.
“Starting out zero knowledge … even for a while, I never really thought of myself as a good dancer. And then one day I just looked back and realized, I can do all these different moves. It’s fun seeing yourself grow in a very low-stakes environment where there’s no pressure to be good,” Gould said.
The Swing Dance Club also encourages new participants to move at their own pace.
“Sometimes if we have, like, more complicated moves … We tend to also try and keep a modification to it. So if it’s your first time … you don’t need to do anything crazy that you’re uncomfortable with. And you never have to do any moves, nobody’s going to press you to do anything that you don’t feel ready for,” Gould said.
Students interested in joining Line Dance Night or learning more about the club can contact [email protected] and check out their Instagram @mnsuswingdance.
Photo Caption: The swing dance club provides students with a no-pressure opportunity to be social, exercise, and learn a new dance. They’ve been branching out into new dancing styles recently, with line dancing being the most recent. (Logan Schlosser/The Reporter)
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