aws dropped in Dana Auditorium when Nathalie Gomes and Yuval Hod, international-contest-winning swing dancers, performed their show-stopping move, ‘the Slinky.’ It involves an acrobatic act that had the two entwined like an X, then flipped each other into the standing position eight times. The move is hard to watch and harder to explain, and it was just part of over 24 hours of swing fun that took place last weekend.
Gomes and Hod have won the World Swing Dance competition three years in a row and have been the American Lindy-hop champions for four years. Their passion, however, is teaching and spreading swing dancing.
“I’m more interested in teaching,” Hod said. “I’d prefer 500 people interested than 5000 people impressed.”
They own and operate the Hop Swing and a Jump studio in New York. It was there that Guilford sophomore Chris Wells took classes over the summer and was so inspired he wanted to bring them to the college.
“I learned to dance at Guilford last year, and when I went home to New York I asked who to take lessons from,” Wells said. He asked if Gomes and Hod would be interested in coming to Guilford to do a workshop. “I fell in love with the dance, and the way they teach,” he said.
After scheduling issues, Gomes and Hod fit the college into their busy schedule. They were filming for the movies “Mona Lisa Smile” and “The Polar Express,” as well as spending time creating their new routine, which they performed on campus. The piece took nine months to create and choreograph.
“It’s a very intricate song,” added Gomes. Part of the difficulty was making it perfect; the dance is designed to mimic the music.
“We want people to see the music in the dancing,” said Hod.
Complementing each other on stage and off, Gomes and Hod are devoted to teaching and spreading swing, as well as adapting.
Why Guilford, why teach briefly at colleges?
“Guilford makes a lot more sense than New York,” said Hod, “The people here are young, and the kids and colleges are what have kept swing alive.”
The success that Gomes and Hod have achieved, including movies, titles, T.V. performances and halftime shows, is secondary to the joy of teaching, they said.
“And,” Hod said, “every dance, and this is important, has an emotion. Lindy hop is funny and it keeps us young. Look, I’m 85 years old.”
Despite Hod’s claims, he is 34 and started dancing only six years ago. He was so entranced by the dance within a year he won the American Lindy hop championship, with Gomes acting as his trainer.
“She taught me everything,” joked Hod. Gomes’ experience ranges back to when she started dance at age 11.
“We’re very hard to peg,” Hod said. “We’re mixing all the styles.”
Their act includes the acrobatic ‘slinky’ move as well as a heart pounding move where Hod throws Gomes into the air only to have her dive down his back and pulled through his legs. “It’s like eating an apple … in a very concentrated way,” said Hod.
Why do they dance? Even their answers show their dichotomy.
“Dance is a very innocent environment,” said Gomes.
“I wanted to hold a woman,” said Hod.
The two-day workshop, hosted by Guilford’s Fancy Feet and Fingers Swing Club, included classes for students of all levels, from the six basic steps of swing to advanced classes in the fast lindy. The workshops were open to the public and boasted as many as 55 attendees to some of the lessons.
“It’s a really amazing opportunity,” Guilford ’02 alum Merritt Johnson said. “The teachers are awesome.”
The college provided the lessons free to students and charged a nominal fee to community members.
“I appreciate the college underwriting some of the cost,” said Ken Lommel, a member of the Piedmont Swing Dance Society.
To learn about swing dancing, The Fancy Feet and Fingers Club meets Wednes-days at 8 p.m. in King 128.