Gainesville students and community members can swing back in time to enjoy dancing and music this weekend at the Florida Swing Dancing Club’s Gainesville Lindy Exchange.
The exchange will draw dancers from across the Southeast for a series of nine separate dance events which began Thursday and end Sunday. The last dance event — on Sunday on the Reitz Union Colonnade — is free. The others range in price from $5 to $25.
Garrett Rodrigue, a 19-year-old aerospace engineering sophomore, said he is looking forward to meeting people from other areas during the exchange.
Seventy-five dancers are already preregistered for the entire weekend, said event organizer Paula Cohen, and about 25 to 50 more are expected to buy tickets at the door of individual events.
Proceeds from the ticket sales will be donated to the Gainesville Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, said Cohen, a 21-year-old entomology and zoology senior.
Cohen said the charity was chosen as a recipient in memory of Bert Nelin, a retired professor of electrical engineering who died of the disease during the summer.
Cohen said Nelin provided dedicated support to the Florida Swing Dancing Club, a UF student organization open to community members. Cohen said he routinely came to dance and helped members raise money for new sound speakers when the old ones blew out.
“He had the heart of a teenager,” Cohen said. “He was kind of like our grandpa.”
For this weekend’s event, beginning dancers have no reason to fret, she said.
“If they pull one of us aside and say ‘Hey, I’m a newbie,’ we’d be more than happy to show them a few things,” Cohen said.
For ticket pricing and a complete schedule, visit www.lewps.com/glx/.
