Before twerking, before Gangnam style, before the Macarena, Newport Beach was the birthplace of a big band-era dance that time hasn’t quite forgotten.

The Balboa.

Its precise origins are fuzzy. But thousands of couples perfected its simple steps inside the Rendezvous Ballroom and the Balboa Pavilion on the Balboa Peninsula in the 30s and 40s.

When Artie Shaw, Bennie Goodman and Bob Crosby played, we danced the Balboa, said Daren McGavren, 91, who worked as a doorman and occasional crooner at the Rendezvous Ballroom. “Most Southern California kids danced it.”

It spread across the country, in part, by soldiers at the Santa Ana Army Air Base in Costa Mesa who came down to the peninsula’s dance halls to blow off steam. The dance sprouted up overseas.

McGavren, then an Army cadet, remembered a party at Ohio State University where he showed the steps to the woman who would become his wife of 62 years.

“The kids there recognized it,” he said. “They asked me, ‘Hey, is that the Balboa?’”

Like the Lindy

Its steps are a basic eight count. One-two-shuffle-step, one-two-shuffle step, said McGavren, “somewhat like a step on the East Coast called the Lindy.”

Dancers keep their arms entwined and their backs as straight as swizzle sticks. Most of the movement is below the hips.

The dance was ideal for jam-packed dance halls, where the wild kicks and exuberant moves of the Charleston and other lively dances were banned, said dance instructor Dan Guest, who heads a Balboa Festival. The Balboa’s simple steps also made it perfect for fast and slow tempos.

Later, he said, dancers added on variations. The Balboa Hop. The Bal Swing. The Bal Shuffle.

But even here, its history is murky. Newport native Helen Ann Langmade, 91, remembers the dance as a hop.

“I have yet to see anyone do the Balboa Hop the way we did it,” she said.

Langmade thinks the dance may have started in the late 1930s at Newport Harbor High School. But most other accounts trace its roots to the Balboa Pavilion or the Rendezvous Ballroom.

Birthplace?

The likely birthplaces are both Newport Beach landmarks, although only one is still standing.

The Balboa Pavilion came first, built in 1906 at the tail end of the Pacific Electric Railway that ran all the way to Pasadena. Started as a meeting place, with a post office and barber shop, it wasn’t until the 30s that the Pavilion became a big-band hotspot, showcasing the likes of Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and the Dorseys.

In 1928, the Rendezvous Ballroom was built only a few blocks away. With a 12,000-square-foot dance floor that could accommodate more than 1,500 couples at a time, Look Magazine crowned the ballroom the “Queen of Swing” in 1938.

McGavren said the Rendezvous is where the Balboa was born. He remembers watching one of the area’s best dancers do it there, and imitating his footsteps. But the Pavilion’s website claims it was the breeding ground. As for the Register archive, it’s mixed on the matter.

Times change, memories linger

Whatever its origins, the Balboa continues to this day. A new generation show off its simple steps at annual competitions and on YouTube. It even has its own Wikipedia page. (The birthplace listed there? Southern California.)

In 2001, San Diego dancer Joel Plys liked the Balboa so much he co-launched an All Balboa Weekend in Ohio.

“Now, there is a Balboa weekend somewhere in the world almost every weekend,” Plys said.

But you won’t see it danced at either of its likely breeding grounds.

The Balboa Pavilion now is home to sport-fishing rentals and restaurant. The ballroom remains, used now for special events.

Rendezvous Ballroom burned down twice, in 1935 and 1966. Today, ocean-front condos are in its place.

Time hasn’t quite forgotten it.

On the Balboa boardwalk, bicyclists cruise past a bronze plaque that commemorates the ballroom’s dance hall days. Few give it a glance. If they did, they’d read an inscription that ends with these words, “The music and dancing have ended, but the memories linger on.”

Contact the writer: nshine@ocregister.com or Twitter:@nicolekshine

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