THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 18, 1996 TAG: 9601170100
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
The Boogie on the Bay Shag Club will host a Shag-a-thon Saturday at Planters Club to benefit the Salvation Army.
Donna Kistler, publicity chairman, said the club will foot event expenses so ``all the money we take in goes straight to the Army.''
Here are the three ways you can help:
Be a contestant.
If you have at least $25 in pledges, dance between noon and midnight. The dancer with the highest amount wins a dinner for two.
Make a pledge of at least $5, and get free admission.
Attend. Admission for non-participants is $7.
Music for the 12 hours will be provided by two disc jockeys. Dinner will be served from 6 to 7:30 p.m. for $3, and drinks are 50 cents each. You may bring your own beer or liquor, set-ups available.
There will also be a variety of games and prizes.
The shaggers will try to outdo their 1994 and 1995 successes, when they earned $1,300 and $1,555, respectively, for a grateful Army.
``Shag dancing allows those of us who grew up in the '50s and '60s to get older slowly,'' Kistler said. Shagging supposedly originated in those decades, although many of the steps are reminiscent of the swing dancing of the '20s to '40s.
Nowadays, Kistler said, ``there seems to be more and more similarity between shag and line dancing.'' Shaggers, however, usually move a little slower - to soul, rhythm and blues and beach music.
Shagging, which is most popular on the East Coast, is said to have originated in Myrtle Beach, now a country music mecca. Bill Deal and the Rhondells, including drummer Ammon Tharp, are credited with giving it a push in Hampton Roads, starting at the old Peppermint Beach Club in Virginia Beach.
Boogie on the Bay Shag Club has about 175 South Hampton Roads dancers. Each Sunday night, from 7 to 11 p.m., the 5-year-old group hosts a dance at the Holiday Inn-Portsmouth Waterfront, on Crawford Parkway in Portsmouth.
Kistler said a junior shag club aims to keep the dance alive. Teens and others who prefer their music on the country side also are in luck: line dancing is taught an hour before the Sunday shag lessons.
Kistler, who now lives in Hodges Ferry in Portsmouth, recalled that Suffolk shaggers of the 1950s danced in the back room of a restaurant once on the site of Suffolk Plaza Shopping Center.
On Saturday, the dancers will be at Planters Club, 4600 Planters Club Road. It is next to Sleepy Hole Park, off Nansemond Parkway. by CNB