Swing High, Swing Low

Tonight, the Eight Week Wonders are practicing a new routine they'll perform in the upcoming Virginia State Open dance competition.

The Wonders -- named for the eight-week courses Koerner and Sternberg offer, at a cost of $99 per person -- take inspiration from generations of swing dancers: the manic, quick-stepping athletes who popularized the Lindy Hop at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom in the 1930s; the World War II soldiers who romanced their gals to the strains of big bands led by Glenn Miller or the Dorsey brothers; the teenage jitterbuggers of the 1950s.

There are better, younger, hipper and more agile dance teams in the region's thriving swing-dance community. But none is more inclusive than the Eight Week Wonders. Some Wonders have sinking centers of gravity or bad backs. So routines are choreographed to accommodate a back row of dancers who can't execute the handstands, flips and throws that are the crowd-pleasing athletic extreme of swing. The number of people on the team hovers around 30 active members. The rules are simple. Team members don't have to show up for practices or performances if they don't want to.

"I'm just a nerdy little white guy who was saved by dance," says the 5-foot-9 Koerner, 47, who quit practicing law full time to teach dance with Sternberg and host at least four dance parties weekly. "I didn't want to run a team where we had to cut people.

"We're like a family," he says. "We have to take the bad uncle back when he gets out of prison. Our motto is, 'If you have 99 bucks, you are on the team.' The best part of the group is that after we dance we all go out to Pizza Hut, which world champions can't do because they have to watch their weight."

In their dancing prime, Koerner and Sternberg captured the Virginia State Open Lindy Hop championship six times. Now they say winning isn't paramount. Some Wonders credit them with fostering a community of dancers whose friendships transcend divisions of status, political affiliation and Zip code.

"This is what I've been looking for," says Hilary Cairnie, a partner in a law firm. "It's beyond a hobby. It's a parallel universe. You ask any swing dancer who is devoted to it, 'Gee, if they didn't have dance in their life, what would they do?' What the heck would I do? I wouldn't even want to go there. I could join the country club. I could golf. I'll pass on all that. Just let me dance twice a week, every week of the year, and I'm engaged."

Although the Eight Week Wonders are close-knit, few know precisely how one of the team's most admired stalwarts, Steve Terry, a 48-year-old systems design software engineer, became disfigured. They just know that Steve and his dance partner, Frances Gail Courtney -- who goes by the no-nonsense moniker F.G. and is, at age 38, one of the youngest Wonders -- are natural dancers with innate rhythm. Watching Steve and F.G. during performances helps lesser dancers keep on the beat.

Steve doesn't volunteer information about his disfigurement any more than he allows it to make him self-conscious when he's dancing. He dances five or six nights a week at local venues. He arrives jauntily, in a white Mercedes SLK 320 hardtop convertible with red leather seats. He makes himself an upbeat presence. When a fellow dancer remarks that she wishes the winter weather outside matched Steve's vintage shirt emblazoned with a balmy scene of palm trees, he taps his forehead and says, "It's all up here."

He takes the attitude that everyone has sorrows to overcome. He just wears his on his face.

On a dark, cold Sunday night in October, the stretch of Lee Highway in Merrifield that houses the Elan DanceSport Center is nearly deserted. In a brightly lit second-story window the Eight Week Wonders can be seen spinning: together and apart, together and apart.

From the street, the moment evokes the scene in the movie "Shall We Dance" in which the successful, ennui-ridden character played by Richard Gere glimpses a lit dance studio from a passing train and is filled with longing.