DANCERS HAVE GROOVY TIME ONCE THEY GET IN THE MOOD

The Jerry Ford Orchestra was playing "In the Mood" Saturday night, and everybody at the new Rec Center Dance Studio was.

Among those crowding onto the dance floor at the Halloween costume party and swing dance were tie-dye-shirted, Afro-haired hippies, a couple in orange Cape Girardeau County Jail jumpsuits and Zoot-suited gangsters with their molls. University students and townspeople alike attended the party hosted by Dr. Marc Strauss, assistant professor of dance at Southeast.

Strauss was dressed in full Austin Powers regalia: blue velvet suit, white socks, crooked teeth and scotch-taped eyeglasses, a comical figure who began the dance by teaching couples to do the Lindy. He started at 7 p.m. By 7:11 p.m., 11 couples were doing the dance. By 7:20, 17 couples were doing the energetic double Lindy. By 7:45, the dance floor was full, and the seats at the perimeter were empty.

It was, in Strauss's words, "Groovy, baby."The tuxedoed, 11-piece Ford orchestra mixed the music up with "Woodchopper's Ball" and "Rock Around the Clock." Among the dancers who needed little instruction were fiancees Doug Bowen and Claudette Hency. Hency said she knows how to dance because she grew up in Oran. "The whole town was invited to weddings. And everybody danced."As a boy, Bowen danced in the alley as he listened to bands play inside French 75, a dance club in Covington, Ky. But he said he still has had to overcome the traditional male reluctance to dance ballroom style."I just go out and do what feels good," the engineer said.

The couple were there with Hency's daughter, Jessica, a catwoman dancing with sailor named Doug McDermott. Both are theater majors at the university. McDermott played the tap-dancing Spats in the University Theatre production of "Sugar" last year, and Hency, a Notre Dame High School alumnus, danced in the chorus.

Both will be involved in the upcoming "A Night on Broadway!" production Nov. 11 at the university.

Dressed as a flapper in an azure dress and chartreuse boa, Marissa Tilley is an elementary education major who loves to dance and has taken a class from Strauss. But she already knew how. "My mom taught me. She likes to dance and my dad doesn't," she explained.

Mary Pensel, who teaches a country dancing class at the university, says the resurgent popularity of swing dancing did not surprise her. "Learning to dance has always been important," she said. "Everyone wants to learn salsa now because of Ricky Martin. They always want to learn, but the dance switches."Some of Pensel's students were at the dance earning extra credit. A teacher in the Jackson schools, Pensel shows the high school students how to move their feet in preparation for the Jackson High School Jazz Band's annual swing dance.

Strauss organized this dance because he wanted to introduce the community to the Rec Center's new dance studio with its dancer-friendly sprung parquet floor, ballet barre and the mirrors on two walls. He also just likes to encourage people to enjoy dancing."It's one in a continuing number of events we offer so people start to realize dance is around," he said.