The 20-year-old shows up early to Suburban Swing’s weekly Sunday dance, hugs some other earlybirds, and immediately extends her hand to a young man sitting on a bench.

He accepts it with a smile, gets up, and the twentysomethings take to the Abbotsford Seniors Association’s empty dance floor, swinging to a form of dance that had its heyday when their parents were their age.

There are no wallflowers at Suburban Swing dances, which combine a 45-minute lesson with two-and-a-half hours of music into a swinging Sunday each week. There is no staked-out territory in one corner for boys, and another for girls, defended with indifferent looks or hushed giggles.

No-man’s land becomes everyone’s land – with Tonge and her partner making the first charge – where couples jitterbug, Lindy-hop, and jive, both faces in each pair split by huge smiles.

The night is all about the dancing, for seasoned swingers and gangly greenhorns alike. Here, they are all on equal footing, and that is what brings nearly 100 kids, teens, and adults to the dance floor until 11 p.m.

He expects people of all ages will eat up in South Surrey, too, when Suburban Swing takes over the ballroom at Aston Pacific Fridays beginning Sept. 29. White Rock Mayor Judy Forster is expected to put on her dancing shoes for the grand opening.

In 1996, as a loss prevention officer, he tore a ligament in his knee. After seeing a swing dancing competition at the Purple Onion nightclub in Vancouver, his physiotherapist gave him the green light to gyrate, and Warner started dancing three or four times a week in the city.

Since starting, Warner - a dancer, DJ, instructor, photographer, and now programs facilitator at the prison - has danced around the world, and has had his dancers featured in several movies, included The Five People You Meet In Heaven and The Marriage.

Closer to home – and if home is where the heart is, the wooden floor of the Seniors Association is it – newer dancers are encouraged to ask experienced ones how to perform a barrel roll, a step-rock-step or rock-step-step.

“It’s all about giving pointers, and bringing (new dancers) up to make the scene grow,” says Dan Funk, a 28-year-old Trinity Western University student.

Warner isn’t surprised young adults like Tonge and Reimer represent the median age at Suburban Swing dances, which cost $8 a night, less than a movie ticket or cover and a beer at a bar.

TV hits So You think You Can Dance - won by a 22-year-old swing dancer this summer – and Dancing with the Stars have only added to the number of new faces on Sundays.

Warner welcomes more new faces to the opening Sept. 29. People never need to bring a partner, but for the grand opening, they do need to dress in 1930s and 1940s clothes. Sailor suits and military uniforms are popular for men; long skirts are in for women. The fun starts at 7 p.m., and the jitterbugging goes until midnight at Aston Pacific, 1160 King George Hwy.

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