Up-Tempo but Underground, the Hustle Still Has Some Muscle

I’ll get flak for saying this, but I love disco. I love the hustle too, and thanks to Cesar Ricaurte, I can “Do the Hustle” to vinyl every Thursday night just down the street from work.

Cesar, as he is known to all, is part of an echt-dance underground that’s kept alive various dance forms the mainstream thought died with the decade that spawned them.

West Coast swing didn’t disappear after the ‘40s, and the hustle didn’t perish with the ‘70s. Dancers and DJs in a small, tightly knit, out-of-the-way community kept spinning while trends changed aboveground.

Orange County is home to many of these devotees, and the Press Box in Westminster is considered Mecca. Some of the county’s top West Coast swing dancers have crammed the place for the last 15-plus years of Friday nights. Cesar, who deejays there on Thursdays, has kept a smaller crew coming to hustle since 1989.

Now is the time to check it out. Floors could get packed after the West Coast’s first hustle festival comes to Fullerton’s Holiday Inn in June. The three-day orgy of dance parties, classes and competitions reflects the hustle’s growing popularity, according to local social dance instructors.

It’s also picking up around the country, says Bellflower-based Phil Adams, who travels widely to teach. “I was just in Denver,” he said, “and everyone wanted to do it.”

Hips stay quiet, knees rarely bend and backs remain mostly erect for the hustle (a.k.a. street hustle), which lacks the bristling sensuality of, say, salsa. But the delirious thrill of the dance is seamless momentum, a fast, forceful continuity of movement unbroken by any sudden freeze, jerkiness or change of direction.

It’s got lots of spinning too, and the Press Box turns into something of a solar system when things get going. Women, whirling on their own axes, are whirled around the floor by partners who do whirls of their own.

The upbeat, up-tempo music sustains this momentum, of course, and Cesar, who took up hustle dancing in 1974, re-creates the heady era with songs from 300 vintage LPs he carts around in square yellow bins.

Ready for a flashback? He’s got “More, More, More” by the Andrea True Connection; “Fly, Robin, Fly” by the Silver Convention; Van McCoy’s “Do the Hustle,” and Gloria Gaynor and Donna Summer galore.

The peak is around 11 p.m., reaching a critical mass of about 40. Some, such as “Disco” Dave Sarul and Debra Hampton, danced their way through the Bee Gees decade. The well-known couple just began teaching the hustle at the Press Box once a month.

Even the veterans don’t retro dress, however. Parachute pants, short skirts and dresses or casual slacks, even jeans, are preferred over polyester. The club’s decor won’t send you back, either. Small and nondescript with a meager, 600-square-foot floor, dartboards and a few TVs, it once was part of a restaurant, then was remodeled into a bar to serve the Westminster Lanes bowling alley next door.

Even the mirrored ball above the dance floor doesn’t always revolve. But a bit of cultural ephemera lives on this unlikely setting, holding its own beside a Pic ‘N’ Save and Taco Bell Express.

* THE PRESS BOX

* 6471 Westminster Blvd., Westminster.

* (714) 898-2058.

* Hustle every Thursday, 9 p.m.-1 a.m. Lessons on the second Thursday of each month, 7:15-8:30 p.m.

* $5 cover. Lessons $10 per person.

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More hustle, social dancing

* Sundance Dance Club gathers at Sloppy Joe’s (Irvine Spectrum, 31 Fortune Drive) once a month on Thursday night. Next visit: Feb. 20. (310) 923-2623.

* Swingtime Dance Studio hosts a dance the first Saturday of every month for West Coast swing, hustle and country two-step. The first hour, 7-8 p.m., is hustle only.

Hustle lessons

* The Sequoia Club, 7530 Orangethorpe Ave., Buena Park. (714) 739-4141. Sponsored by the Sundance Dance Club. Tom Mattox, instructor.

* Danscene Studio, 2980-A McClintock Way, Costa Mesa. (714) 641-8688.

* Swingtime Dance Studio, 17450 Bellflower Blvd., Bellflower. (310) 867-2928.

* Rising Star Disco Weekend, June 6-8, Holiday Inn, Fullerton. $59. Organized by the Sundance Dance Club, (310) 923-2623.