Some Mainiacs in performance with King Memphis, around 1995 - "the music made them do THAT?"

Please note:  Since this profile was written, many changes have occurred.  The MSDS is now incorporated as a nonprofit membership organization with dues, officers etc.  Workshops, scholarships, performances and occasional dances are on the agenda.  For current information please contact
 Paul Krakauske.


The Mainiac Swing Dance Society

The Mainiac Swing Dance Society, an affiliation of persons interested in improvisational swing and centered in the Portland area, was founded in 1990 by Reggie Osborn and Paul Krakauske. They had been spending a lot of time traveling to dances in Boston, and decided to create dances closer to home that featured the same kind of energetic music they liked (Louis Jordan, jump blues, big band jazz, and 1950's music). It was the energy in the music that attracted them, and the freedom to improvise, like a jazz musician.

The name "Mainiac Swing Dance Society" was developed as an identifying "brand name" so people would know what kind of music and dancing to expect at dances sponsored by this group. There are no officers, no paid memberships, and no structured organization to the group. Anyone who shows up to a Mainiac Swing Dance Society sponsored dance, can call himself or herself a member!

The Mainiac Swing Dance Society sponsors many swingin’ activities throughout the year. These include:

• Bi-weekly east-coast/jump-swing/lindy-hop dances at the Presumpscot Grange. The dance on the first Friday of the month has a live band, and the dance on the third Friday is DJ'd by Mainiac DJ's.
  

• Monthly west-coast swing dances at the Casco Bay Movers Studio
  

• Workshops taught by Mainiac Swing Dance Society members, or by out-of-state experts brought to Maine by the Society
  

• Performances: as entertainers at various events like New Year’s Portland and the Maine Festival, and benefit performances for worthy causes. In keeping with the unstructured, non-bureaucratic philosophy of the Society’s founders, there is no set "performance team". Performers are simply those who know their stuff, and are willing to put in the time commitment to practice.

Paul Krakauske is the sparkplug and main organizer of the Mainiacs, although others are getting more involved as teachers, DJ’s, event organizers and facility managers. The Society sees that its activities could be expanded with more reliable volunteers to handle items such as publicity. A website is currently under construction, which will replace a newsletter that was much appreciated by recipients, but which took a lot of time and money to distribute. The Society divides the year into three seasons for planning purposes (September through December, January through May, and June through August).

The Society adheres to the particular musical sensibility that is its foundation - self-expressive, improvisational movement to swing music, relying much more on good partner connection, than on any set of prescribed steps to be done in a certain way. As with tango and salsa, there is freedom to interpret the music in this type of swing. (As Frankie Manning points out, a dancer actually has two partners, one is the music, and the other is a person.)  Maine bands have generally been very cooperative in working with the Mainiacs to create the music that dancers want.

What is the future of the Mainiac Swing Dance Society? Over the past decade, the swing revival saw a "fad and frenzy" stage that coincided with the famous Gap commercial. Although that phase is over, swing is a stronger scene now than it was in the late 80's/early 90's, even though it no longer grabs the media headlines. Dancing to swing music is a multi-generational activity which attracts adventurous people to explore beyond the traditional ballroom dance studio’s structured lessons. It is an American art form that is alive and growing worldwide, and in Maine as well, thanks in large measure to the activities of the Mainiac Swing Dance Society.

 

                        Some early-vintage Mainiacs