Waynesburg U. instructor teaching students the lost art of swing dancing
Waynesburg University senior exercise science major Robert Cronkhite turns freshman nursing major Kristina Fisher while dancing in the West Coast Swing style. Members of the Sting Swing club hosted a dance lesson for local high school students Saturday.
Waynesburg University freshman nursing major Andrew Kingan and freshman nursing major Kristina Fisher dance to the song “Time of Our Lives” by Pitbull and NeYo. The West Coast Swing style can be danced with current songs on the radio.
From left, Waynesburg University junior graphic design major Alexis Boudreau, Swing Sting adviser Faith Musko, senior exercise science major Robert Cronkhite and freshman nursing major Andrew Kingan practice their West Coast Swing dance moves. Saturday, members of the club held dance lessons to prepare high school students for the upcoming prom season or just to learn some new moves.
Waynesburg University freshman nursing major Andrew Kingan and sophomore finance major Holly Berkey dance during a Sting Swing club practice.
Robert Cronkhite, senior exercise science major, spins Sting Swing adviser Faith Musko during practice. Sting Swing is a Waynesburg University club for the West Coast Swing style of dancing.
WAYNESBURG – Faith Musko has been teaching chemistry and forensic science at Waynesburg University since 2012, but a couple of years ago she started a new class on campus that has both nothing and everything to do with chemistry.
She’s been teaching her students how to swing dance.
“It’s a smooth, fluid dance that can be performed to any genre of music,” Musko said. “They find it to be a good stress reliever during the semester.”
The dance class started in 2012, when some of her chemistry students had asked her if she had a good weekend. She told them she had spent it out of the country competing in a dance competition.
“They were surprised,” she said.
One of her chemistry students, Robert Cronkhite, a senior exercise science major, asked her, “Well, could you teach us?”
They started out with small sessions for a few students, but by spring of 2014, word around campus spread and they officially became the West Coast Swing Club, or the “Sting Swing.”
And they aren’t the typical ballroom dancers. In fact, West Coast Swing isn’t considered ballroom dancing at all, Musko said.
“It originated in the 1940s to the 1950s after World War II,” Musko said. “Servicemen and women were coming back from all these different places with different types of dancing, and West Coast Swing became a melting pot of all different types of dance.”
What makes it different than ballroom is a “Jack and Jill” style of partners, Musko said. In a typical ballroom dance, a couple practices a routine for a particular song, performs it together and is judged as a couple. But with West Coast Swing, dancers are randomly paired with someone and judged as an individual.
“It’s an international dance with competitions all around the world,” Musko said.
Musko, a 33-year-old Butler native, has been dancing since she was 4 years old. Although she only picked up West Coast Swing four years ago, she’s considered a professional and teaches it across the states and internationally. She’ll be competing in the French Open for West Coast Swing in Paris next month.
In the past four years, the 2005 Waynesburg University graduate has competed in numerous countries and several U.S. cities and she’s teaching her students to do the same. Cronkhite said he’s competed in Georgia, Michigan and Chicago.
But most importantly, she’s teaching them to have fun with their new skill.
“The most important part is giving them something to do to music that’s fun,” she said.
This semester, the dance club has 20 members, with a ratio of five women to every man. Musko said she’s been telling her students from day one that “every woman wants a man who can dance.”
“That’s the one thing I remember when I started this,” said Andrew Kingan, a freshman nursing major who joined Sting Swing this year.
Alexis Boudreau, a junior graphic design major from Vermont, has been in the dance club for three years.
“It’s a really great dancing community and a great way to learn something new and be the deviant from the group and really stand out,” she said.
It’s also a clean style of dancing, Musko said, which is why she’s also trying to reach out to local high school students before prom season.
“There’s no twerking or grinding on each other,” Musko said. “It’s all about being respectful of your partner and listening and communicating.”
Musko and her dance students held a three-hour class for local high school students Saturday night in the university’s gym to teach basic swing dance steps. It’s an art form she and her college students are trying to pass on to another generation.
“We just wanted to share the love of this dance with people,” Musko said.