In the late 1990s, for some reason, swing music was all of a sudden everywhere. Seriously, it felt like a giant switch had been thrown somewhere, and all of a sudden, wherever you looked: swing music. Swing music. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy played the Super Bowl. Something called “Zoot Suit Riot” was a gigantic hit. There was a commercial for, I think, the Gap, that was soundtracked by Louis Prima and had people doing the Lindy Hop or the Charleston or something like that. (This of course was also roughly the time that Britney Spears and that Boybands 2.0 wave started to emerge, so, you know, it’s not as though everyone all of a sudden was listening to swing. Just a lot of people.)

And, look, swing is fun music; in retrospect, it kind of makes sense that after five or six years of doom and heroin and D-tuned guitars, people were ready for a little plaid and some cocktail culture and hep cats and swingers and things like that. What was really interesting about it was that it seemed to come from nowhere – or, mostly, Jon Favreau, because if the phenomenon had a genesis moment, it was Swingers – which is a roundabout way of saying you might notice a bit more classical dance on your television in the coming weeks, because it looks like ballet is having a Moment. The big one is probably Sutton Foster’s new show Bunheads, but there are a good number of other ones gearing up, and plus First Position is in theaters across the country. So. 2012, the summer of ballet? Sure, why not? (FULL ARTICLE: T.L. Stanley, Los Angeles Times)