“Swing” music and dancing has seen a resurgence in the last couple of years.

Whether it is because the decades the music first became popularized in (the 1920’s and ’30s) have once again come back into style or because the music has a timeless quality, swing is still reaching a broad-based audience.

This weekend, Iowa State students will have the opportunity to swing, at “Saturday Night Swing,” a dance co-sponsored by Student Union Board (SUB) and the Ballroom Dance Company.

Eric Yarwood, SUB programming adviser, said Saturday’s dance will be a great opportunity for students to experience swing.

“Swing dance is popular anymore,” he said. “It’s an opportunity we don’t usually have on campus.”

A Minneapolis-based swing band — The Senders — will provide the heavy dancing beat. The group, which has been together nine years, usually downsizes for road trips, bandleader and original member of the group, Dave “Cool Breeze” Brown, said.

Vocalist/guitarist Brown will be joined by two other band founders — bass player Bill Black and pianist Mark Ashe — a new drummer, two saxophone players and an upright bass player, which Brown calls “the essential element to swing” because it is the source of the heavy backbeat that is necessary in swing.

Brown said The Senders’ music is influenced by the period of swing that immediately followed the Glenn Miller Band-big band era of swing.

“We reflect the era when the big bands down-sized,” Brown said, noting that music like Glenn Miller’s was “very restricted.”

“The swing beat, the very heavy back beats — they were just slammin’,” Brown said. “This was considered very wild music; the older generation deplored it.”

The Senders have some original arrangements, he said, but are influenced by rhythm ‘n’ blues artists like T-Bone Walker, Roy Brown and Louie Jordan, whom Brown noted aren’t exactly “household names.”

“We cover the whole gamete of artists, [an era] that encompasses such a broad selection of approaches,” Brown said.

Brown agreed that the swing craze is once again captivating the nation. He said although the band sells more CDs on the east coast than it does in the Midwest, the swing scene in the Midwest is “really picking up.”

The frequency the band plays in the Midwest proves Brown’s statements are true. The band plays approximately three to four gigs a week, 150 to 170 concerts a year.

Brown said one of the reasons accounting for swing’s resurgence in popularity is that the dancing involves “actual physical contact.”

“It’s a little more sensual,” he said. “It’s very romantic.”

Another reason for swing’s popularity is due to the “romanticism” of the older eras. There is a definite “nostalgia” about the eras, he said.

According to Brown, swing appeals to all ages, from the younger twenty-something crowd to the older sixty-something crowd who is always first on the dance floor.

He also promised Saturday’s show would be a good time.

“We have a lot of energy on-stage,” he said. “I’m sure that there will be some good swing dancers out there, it’s an interesting sort of music — really early rock ‘n’ roll. It should be a blast.”

“Saturday Night Swing” will be held Saturday in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union from 8 to 11 p.m. Dress is semi-formal and no partner is necessary.

There will also be a swing workshop from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Oak Room for those who want to learn the basics of swing or brush up on their technique.

Admission is $5 for students with a fee card; $7 general admission. A cash bar and free refreshments will be provided.