Betty (Henderson) Wood and partner dance at the Roxy Theater in New York.
Story by Kara Barrett
Photographs courtesy of Denise Steele

he year is 1937 and the biggest dance craze in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is the Big Apple, a collection of jazzy swing moves danced in a group circle with a caller announcing the steps to big band music. African American dancers invented the swinging steps at a synagogue turned nightclub in Columbia, South Carolina, and later, three white students copied the steps at the University of South Carolina's prom. From there, the Big Apple was taken to New York by a group of sixteen teenagers who danced at the Roxy Theatre, performing five or six shows a day to packed crowds of 6,500 people. Betty Wood was one of those teenagers. And out of the original sixteen, Betty was one of only six chosen to dance on Broadway.

That was 61 years ago, and today Betty is still making an impact by spreading the Big Apple to audiences eager to rediscover the genre. Big band music and swing dancing--in all its forms--is popular again in a big way. According to Denise Steele, a Lindy Hop instructor, the dances are at the root of the exploding swing trend. "Exposing America back to its own dance forms affected swing music and now it's come full circle," she says. Steele is currently in her fourth year teaching the Lindy full-time all over Western Oregon. She says she has had up to three hundred students total in her four instructing locations at one time. Steele has also brought Frankie Manning, an original Whitey's Lindy Hopper--and now Betty Wood--to the Northwest to teach workshops to the public.


A newspaper clipping of Betty and partner demonstrating the Big Apple.
On a Saturday morning in early May, about fifty students of all ages have gathered to learn four dances known as the Big Apple, Little Apple, Carolina Jitterbug, and Shag, from Wood. "I'm little but I'm mighty," says the time-tested Betty over a microphone from onstage in a gymnasium at the University of Oregon. At age 77, Betty looks like your typical grandmother. In fact, she has six grandkids. She has curly white hair and wears glasses and bright pink lipstick. She speaks with a gentle Southern accent from her years growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina. Now as she stands onstage, Betty grins from ear to ear and watches the students as if they were her own grandchildren.

Her dance partner and co-instructor is a man about half her age. Lance Benishek, who is also a dance historian and choreographer, rediscovered Betty back in 1992. Betty had stopped swing dancing in 1962 when she and her husband moved to Florida. Instead she taught ballroom, tap, and jazz dance. But in 1992, she was the only one of the original sixteen Roxy dancers who remembered the steps to the Big Apple and other dances. Since then, she has traveled to Sweden, England, and across the United States, spreading her knowledge of the dances to others. She jokes around by saying that dancing with Lance is like dancing with her son. But she admires his knowledge and says, "He knows more about where or when dances originated than I do."


Betty (Henderson) Wood and Kenneth Clark demonstrate their newfound dance step.
Even though the Big Apple was one of the three biggest dance crazes to hit the United States--the other two being the Charleston and the Twist--its popularity wore off and the dance evolved into other forms. According to Betty, a partner dance known as the Little Apple was created out of the Big Apple, and with the introduction of the swing kick, it became the Jitterbug of the 1940s and 1950s. "We had the same eight-count as up in Harlem," remembers Betty, noting that the Lindy and Jitterbug were simply known as "fast dancing" back then.

Betty says she never imagined that the dances she grew up with would be this popular again, but she thinks the resurgence of "touch dancing" is wonderful. Although she listens to swing music 24-hours-a-day because it's "good for the soul," Betty isn't familiar with modern swing bands like the Cherry Poppin' Daddies. Lance, on the otherhand, admires the efforts of the Daddies and other groups working with the swing sound. "I think it's great. They're giving people a modern form to do these dances to and that's real special." Steele predicts that this is just the beginning of a widespread interest in vintage dancing. "People will go back to the dances and the swing era and discover that it's so rich." She believes that jazz and swing are a big part of our cultural history and we should be really proud of them. With people like Betty willing to spread these dances to a new, enthusiastic generation, swing is finally receiving the recognition it deserves.

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