Santa Fe Swing

Info - Swing in Santa Fe

We have a rotating group of dancers teaching swing dance at the Odd Fellows hall on Monday nights.

: Swing Dancing @ Odd Fellows Hall AND Music in the Public Schools; How did we get started swing dancing at Odd Fellows Hall?
: The Odd Fellows Hall has just about the best dance floor in Santa Fe. Dance groups have met here for years. In 1997 some of the people who danced at the hall realized that there were only a few surviving Odd Fellows Lodge members and that in the foreseeable future all of them would have died or moved away and our favorite dance space would be sold and turned into a K-Mart. As a further complication, only men could become Odd Fellows and only the Odd Fellows had control of the Hall. Some male dancers became members of the lodge and some female dancers joined the Rebekahs Lodge (the female arm of the Odd Fellows).

Here in Santa Fe, the Lodge’s modest income came from renting the hall. But since the hall belonged to the Odd Fellows, the Rebekahs needed to develop an alternate source of revenue. We were not interested in bake sales or raffles or any of the traditional female fund raisers. In 1998, one of our members suggested putting on swing dances. We tried it and to our amazement it was phenomenally successful. The timing was perfect; swing dancing was popular; and we had hundreds of dollars more than we needed. We decided we needed a charity to support.

Another of our members had a son participating in the band program at Capital High. Knowing that the Santa Fe Schools allocated very little money for music programs, she suggested we invite Ortiz Middle School’s wonderful band director, Roland Villa, to speak to us. He gave a deeply moving speech explaining how music had saved his life. He felt that without school music, he would have ended up in a gang using drugs and probably be in jail by now. But his love of playing music kept him in school so that he graduated from high school and then from college. His life’s work was teaching kids to play instruments and he chose Ortiz since there he saw the greatest need for his talents. He said he had no budget to buy instruments or sheet music and could not even afford to buy a repair kit to fix the instruments he had. After we stopped crying, we voted to give him the $350 he needed to purchase the repair kit, the $$coming from our swing dance income.

This worked so well that we decided to find a way to help the teachers in the 4 (now 5) Southside schools – Sweeney, Chavez and Ramirez Thomas elementary schools, Ortiz Middle School and Capital High – in their efforts to keep music alive. These are some of the lowest income schools in the Santa Fe school district. Many of the students are immigrants whose parents speak no English and they need all the help they can get.

Roland invited us to visit his class a short time later. Here were these little kids – 6th graders, neatly dressed, holding their instruments properly, paying attention, working together and playing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” for all they were worth. It was sweet and touching and, after we stopped crying, we decided that we wanted to do more.

It turned out that one of the folk dancers we knew, Lorraine Goldman, was a phenomenal fund raiser. She taught us how to create a "needs assessment" so we could learn what the individual music teachers actually needed – this one needed sheet music, that one needed violins, the other one needed 2 trumpets and a trombone etc. With this information in hand, she approached people she knew, local banks and other large businesses, and said “Look. Ortiz Middle School needs a trumpet that costs ‘x’. Would you donate ‘x’ number of dollars for this purpose?” Using this “bridal registry” model, she raised a lot of money which the Rebekahs gave directly to the teachers.

The Santa Fe Odd Fellows Lodge has continued to sponsor swing dances at the hall and has continued to raise money from a wide variety of other sources. At this point, we’ve given the Santa Fe music teachers more than $500,000! Coordinating, paying and tracking expenditures is all volunteer, so there's no administrative cost to the music projects. We support general music teachers, violin teachers, guitar teachers, a Mariachi band (complete with uniforms!), choral teachers, band and orchestra. As an example, we provided a $10,000 drum line to the Capital High Marching Band! Any child in these schools who wants to play an instrument or sing is able to do so. Thousands of kids have been positively affected by this program. We have the support of the Superintendent of the Santa Fe Public Schools who understands that studying music helps children learn and keeps them in school.

Every year, the Odd Fellows invite the music teachers and school administrators to a dinner at the hall so that they can share what they have accomplished and what they hope to accomplish in the future. We’ve been moved listening to them, admiring their dedication and their love of their students. One teacher who came to Santa Fe from a wealthy California school said he was astonished to realize that we were providing the kids with instruments of far better quality than his previous employer.

Now, after all these years, we have attended and enjoyed innumerable school music events. The kids have far surpassed that early “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. We’ve watched and listened as 60 middle school kids played quite difficult classical music in the Ortiz Orchestra. We have been especially proud of our annual Roland Villa awards program which recognizes kids who show particular talent or dedication. (We were all devastated when Roland passed away, much much too early.)

Perhaps most amazing has been the effect our efforts have had on the School Board which has now added a music coordinator to their staff in order to provide appropriate music education in all of Santa Fe’s public schools. Santa Fe now has one of the best music programs in the entire country!!!
And to think that all of this grew out of swing dancing! What a great result!

A Note Concerning the Odd Fellows:
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows is an international benevolent organization dating back to the 1800’s. Its stated purpose is to “Comfort the sick, Bury the dead, and Care for the widow & orphan.” If you scout around almost any town in the US and in many other countries you’ll find an Odd Fellows Lodge.; The Rebekahs are the women's auxiliary for the Odd Fellows. Here in Santa Fe, NM the Santa Fe Rebekahs Lodge membership consists almost entirely of dancers (although you do not need to be a dancer to be an Odd Fellow).

On another front, Australia’s Independent Order of Odd Fellows had finally had enough of the out-dated division between men and women and permitted women to join their Odd Fellows Lodges. (I always liked those Aussies!!) That change was soon adopted by the American Odd Fellows. So the members of the Santa Fe Rebekahs quickly became Odd Fellows too in order to gain some control over the hall. So where once you may have heard of the Rebekahs’ music program, now you’ll hear about the Odd Fellows’ music program. It’s the same people still working to help provide music in the Public Schools.

By the way, if you ever feel an interest in learning more about the Odd Fellows or the music program, feel free to talk to any of the members of the local Odd Fellows’ Lodge. We’re always interested in welcoming new like-minded members. Please visit the Santa Fe Odd Fellows' website.

Main Navigation

Info - Swing in Santa Fe