Hearing the name “Ethel” might evoke images of the kind: the elderly neighbor next door who says hello whenever arriving home for Christmas break, or perhaps the Southern Gothic-inspired singer Ethel Cain. On Eastern’s campus, however, ETHELS is a unique club desiring to revive a vintage style of dance and music: swing dance. ETHELS stands for Eastern’s Toe-tappin’, High steppin’, East-coast, Lindy hoppin’ Swing Club.
Swing dance developed during the big band age of jazz back in the 1920s to the 1940s, and students at Eastern are working to bring its movement and legacy into the present. Senior Ethan Muldoon has had a core role in the club since stepping onto campus and now holds the title of president. Not much information about the history of the club is available, but Muldoon stated that ETHELS has had a presence on campus since the ‘90s: “I just found a notebook recently with notes from past club leaders from the year 2000; they were pretty active then and even charging for some of their events.”
Muldoon recalls over his past four years seeing a drastic change in attendance, recalling that the past couple of years saw a decrease in attendance: “It’s had a rough past couple of years. My freshman year was decently attended, but during my sophomore year we would get around six to 10 people in attendance.”
Interest for the club during the 2024 to 2025 school year dwindled a lot, but during the spring semester of 2026 there was an initial revival of the club, as well as outreach on social media to attempt to garner student interest. Muldoon recalls, “We didn’t really have formal meetings. We just started meeting in Clemens Hall; it has a good sound system and a wooden stage, so we thought, ‘okay, let’s just meet as a group of friends.’”
Those meetings carried into and exploded in attendance this semester. Muldoon specifically noted the importance of outreach at the club fair for interest among students, saying, “This past year, it shot off partially because I made a big effort at the club fair to be there, set up a table and demonstrate dances with the music, which helped make the dancing and the club look a lot more approachable.” The first ETHELS meeting of the semester reportedly had around 40 students in attendance.
Muldoon’s hope for the future of the club is bright. He has some fun ideas planned for future club events, such as themed meetings and potentially trying to get live music played for a dance night.
Club meetings are designed to be simple and fun for dancers of all levels. Muldoon explained that ETHEL meetings usually consist of some instruction on the “East Coast” style of swing dance, which, according to him, is “one of the oldest and simplest styles of swing dance.” Afterward, big band jazz or music with a similar feel and tempo will be played, and people are welcome to dance freely. The ETHELS Swing Dance Club typically meets at 8 p.m. every Thursday in Clemens Hall, and they can’t wait for newcomers to swing on by!
