Although most of this will be covered in the book that is in progress, we feel the need to have something online for the dance which has gained so much popularity and interest.

The Balboa is a dance named after the peninsula or area of land on which it was done (there is a Balboa Island just across the water). On its rebirth today it has a similar story to that of the Lindy Hop. After the swing era, The Balboa continued to be done by a small southern california community, and over the decades their group had a dance hosted by Hal and Marge Takier. However, this group has become smaller and smaller with the original dancers passing on. The dance held every other Sunday for years has dwindled to just a few; however, like the Lindy Hop of the 90's the dance has caught on and spread, not just across the country but all over the world!

Unfortunately, only a small handful of dancers have discovered these legends since the swing era. However, unlike the Lindy Hop dancers, no one had ever thought to research the dance and I found myself fascinated with an area never before studied. But where did it come from? The truth is we have asked the wrong people, in turn getting mixed answers, and now there seems to be some mysterious aspect of the dance and its origins.

Maxie Dorf, who probably became one of the most famous Los Angeles dancers, always said the Balboa came from Fox Trot and Swing (Referred to today as Bal swing) came from Charleston, this is the same answer I'd gotten from the other Ray Rand dancers. Maxie never kept it a secret that what he did was Swing and thought Balboa was "boring". As for the term "Bal-swing", that's something that they came up in the early 1980's while Dwight Lapardis was taking lessons from Maxie. They agreed to say "Bal-swing" when Maxie referenced his Los Angeles roots dancing as opposed to the more slotted west coast swing which was popular during that time.

Some of these greats gave some lessons and some the occasional question on how they did certain steps, But none it seemed were interviewed about the history. Even when they passed, There were still questions coming up that needed answering.

We are left to pick up the pieces by the remaining few who could remember and thankfully, we have their interviews which have become priceless in telling a large part of the Los Angeles dance scene and for this article some small pieces on The Balboa.

To understand how the dance was created and evolved, you must first understand a little about the beginnings of Los Angeles as well as its public transportation system. The migration west to Los Angeles from 1920 to 1930 was the largest migration ever in North America with the Department of Finance of the State of California reporting a growth from 936,000 in 1920 to 2,208,492 in 1930.

This rapid explosion caused neighborhoods to pop up overnight, building out and along the coast. The birth and popularity of Balboa can be credited to the Pacific Electric railway. The Newport-Balboa line, as it was called, continued where the Long Beach line ended, and extended southward first past Seal Beach then Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and then Balboa. These coastal locations were the prime spots for thousands of people and the Pacific Railway was the ticket to paradise.

On June 17th, 1904, the track had made its way to Huntington Beach, bringing crowds in touch with coastal attractions. However, the charm of isolated spots drew crowds and Balboa's Terminal opened for public use in July 4th, 1906. The end of the track, which was 39.66 miles from Los Angeles, ended on the Balboa Peninsula.

The Balboa Pavilion was the Terminal which doubled as a bath house and recreation center . The Victorian-designed building was located at the end of Main Street looking over the water east towards Balboa Island.

The Rendezvous Ballroom was opened in 1928. The ballroom was a block long between Washington and Palms, which was typical of a large ballroom.The building was two stories tall and was equipped with a mezzanine and balcony. The dance floor was large enough to accommodate 2,000 dancers and crowds well over 5,000. The spanish architecture had three arches in the front and a sign that read "Dancing". The interior photos of the ballroom here appeared in a magazine from 1938.

During the peak popularity of dancing, many ballrooms had to impose rules of "no breaking away" from your partner to help ease the congestion. Other times dancing closed position was the only way, rules or not. Any large weekend type dance would have brought this type of congestion, or any opening night with a big name band. By WW2 the Balboa was being done in place even if their was more space on the floor giving it its trademark look.

By the time I came around in the mid-90's, most of the Balboa dancers were gone. A handful like Nate Arkin, Marie Fido, Ed and Inez Thompson were still jamming in the corner, and younger dancers like Maxie Dorf, Irene Thomas,Willie Desatoff,Bart Bartola and Hal Takier were still called swing dancers, regardless of how well they might have been able to do "The Balboa".

Coming from Nate, "First, Balboa dancers were all older than these swing dancers who were my brother's age. That's who he competed against and hung around. Jack (Nate's brother) was good and won some of the biggest contests at that time. Certainly he could do The Balboa as I'm sure most of the kids could of, but They were all Jitterbugs trying to coming up with the next big step."

Venna broke it down, " Fancy footwork? That's work and thinking. That's not a Balboa dancer; Balboa dancers like keeping a nice rhythm and that's it, just like the waltz,tango,foxtrot or any ballroom dance. What made Balboa different is they could go all night at all tempos and good ones get inside the rhythm and just float. We didn't get into that back then. We were exploring how to do tricks and win contests. JigTrot was the dance popular with the kids my age. In 1935, from the Mandarin (Redondo Beach) to the Casino Gardens, all the Ballrooms were having Jigtrot contests. Before that it was Charleston and we started mixing it together. Hal and Lolly were good at that and they were the fastest. I started dancing with Gil (Fernandez) and within a year we were doing gigs for Ray (Rand)."

The term "the Balboa" became popularized in the early 1930's and was also referred to as "the Balboa Shuffle". The dance step itself is that of the foxtrot, the same foxtrot step that was being done just up the coast at the Casino Gardens in Venice Beach. However, while traveling, they started sliding and began calling it "slicker dancing".

Dancers like Nate Arkin said, "When you first start dancing you don't think about anything fancy, you just try and dance, hopefully on time and hoping she liked it." During WWII, Nate was in the service stationed in Long Beach and would go on leave to dance with Ginger Rogers, whom he had meet at the Hollywood Canteen. She loved Balboa dancing with him, and they continued to dance together.

On one trip, he brought his 4 best friends to the studios were they could watch the two of them film and then visit with her during lunchtime, all taking turns doing the Balboa.

Roy Damron learned the Balboa in a park in 1932 for 5 cents that his parents paid. They saw advertisements and heard his friends were going to try. "It was just a basic box step. The shuffle is what made it and was difficult at first but once you got it, it felt good."

The reference to doing "the shuffle" or the "Balboa Shuffle" caught on after the opening the Rendezvous Ballroom and by the early 1930's the term was common with the locals. The Dance style spread up the coast through the beach cities, and at the peak of the swing era its popularity brought the dance inland throughout the entire Los Angeles area.

It was during this migration the term slowly changed, and was shortened to "the Balboa". making it a reference to its location of popularity, and not its shuffling characteristics. At large dances such as the Diana Ballroom, Casino Gardens, and The Palomar, Balboa dancers migrated together and would be found near the stage to the right side.

These dancers went through life enjoying the same music as the jitterbugs,But they just happened to be a bit older. For instance no Balboa dancer would have been attracted to the "Hep Cat" Culture that attracted so many jazz musicians and Jitterbugs during the 30's, that was left for the teenagers sweating up a storm!

When Disneyland first opened Carnation Plaza with the Big Bands in 1961 featuring Benny Goodman, it was the first time dancers like Dean Collins, Maxie Dorf, and Hal Takier had seen each other since the swing era, and over by the stage the Balboa Dancers congregated, just as it had been years ago....