A new swing stepped onto campus with its first meeting Feb. 7.  

The Country Western Swing Dancing Club meets every Saturday from 7-8 p.m. in the Old Snack Bar, according to the club’s founder and leader, freshman Morgan Sites. 

“I just hope we have enough people to form a good community of people who love to do it,” Sites said. “That’s all I’m really here for, is just to have fun and dance.”

Sites said the country western swing club is a subdivision of Hillsdale’s main swing club, the Hepcats Swing Club, that meets every Friday night from 8-11 p.m. in the Old Snack Bar. This Friday, the country swing club will join Hepcats for a country swing night, according to Sites. 

The country western club focuses on dancing country swing, opposed to the East Coast and West Coast swing at Hepcats.

“I really prefer country swing to West Coast, and part of that is just because it’s what I’ve grown up doing, and it’s a part of my culture,” Sites said. “It’s what I love. And I think it’s more fun to dance to country music than it is to jazz.”

Sites, who is from Montana, said he grew up learning country swing dancing. 

“In Montana, at least at my middle school, they actually teach country western starting through middle school,” Sites said. “And so that’s where I first learned. But then after that, I’ve also done a lot of country swing through 4-H.” 

Sites said the basic step for country western swing is simpler, so it allows for more freedom to do complex moves like spinning. 

“The main problem with Eastern swing is that you’re moving laterally,” Sites said. “So because of that, whenever you’re spinning, you’re moving in a circle. And so getting back onto, you basically have to force yourself back onto a grid to start moving laterally again in that basic step, whereas with country swing, you don’t have to do that.”

Sophomore Sam Baggott, the lessons coordinator for the Hepcats swing club and an officer for ballroom club, said country swing is danced on a four-step count in a star shape and incorporates aerials.

“With the emergence of country music is when you started getting more two step and country swing,” Baggott said. 

Alexis Arnett, an ambassador for Hepcats, said that swing club tries to embody the feeling of the 1920s.

“When you step in a swing club, it’s kind of like taking a step back almost a decade, at least that was what I felt when I first came,” Arnett said. 

East Coast swing, usually danced to jazz music, involves a basic triple step where two people rotate around each other, according to Baggott. 

“East Coast was based off of the classic jazz step — peppy, steppy, hoppy, and energetic,” Arnett said.

The basic step for West Coast swing is on six counts and involves freestyle and improvisation, according to Baggott. It is typically danced in a line to more modern songs.

“West Coast relied a lot more on when more emotional, slower songs started coming out,” Arnett said. “It was much more fluid.” 

Baggott said Hepcats started teaching and dancing to West Coast swing this semester in addition to East Coast.

“People have loved the newer styles, newer music, dancing to newer songs,” Arnett said. “And so we’ve added a West Coast portion to our teaching element before we open up free dance.”