“We were at a coffee shop at like three in the morning, and we run into some friends from high school,” sophomore Elia Samms begins the tale that ended in her discovering her love for swing dancing.

Those friends from high school had just ended their night swing dancing away at one of the nearby ballrooms, and they invited Samms and some other friends to join them next time.

The Seattle swing dance scene has been increasing in participation, according to Samms.

After that first night, Samms and her friends attended almost every night.

Samms visited three swing dance clubs in her area last summer.

“When I first started, I didn’t think I would like it that much, but it has actually helped me a lot socially and emotionally,” Samms said.

Samms will be starting up a swing dance club on campus.

Their first meeting is Feb. 27 in the HHPA Multipurpose Room at 6 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 22 Samms, and some of her friends attended a swing dance club in Portland, but she has been preparing for the first club meeting since the start of the semester.

“We have a pretty cool DJ. I’m trying to make it as much as a professional swing venue as possible. A lot of people are going to be just starting, which is really cool. People get a chance to try it out. I think I have it scheduled for like two hours, but people can come and go whenever,” Samms said.

From then on, the plan is to meet up every two weeks.

“I just really like teaching and tutoring. I have experience teaching other things beside dance. That’s kind of what I do. If I find something I’m passionate about, I want to share it with people. I got here, and I got kind of sad because we don’t have the same scene going on here that we do in Seattle,” Samms said.

Samms enjoys the freedom of swing dancing.

“Within swing, I can do Lindy Hop. I can do Blues and Balboa. We got like super into it over the summer. It’s one of those things where the scene is growing so fast you just want to spread it and tell everyone,” Samms said.

Samms recently gained an internship for the summer at Portland swing club through her connections in Seattle and a class assignment. She is actually looking at owning a swing dance ballroom as a future career.

“I’m basically going to be trained to run a swing club. I’m going to learn the business side, the tax thing, teaching classes and handling money. I’ll be learning little bits of everything,” Samms said.

For more information, email [email protected].

And if you’ve never swing danced before Samms said, “Try it. When I first started, I didn’t think of it as a dance. I thought of it as a different form of social interaction. It’s really fun. It’s really easy. You meet a lot of really cool people. I’d just say give it a try.”

Gilberto Galvez can be reached at [email protected].