Incorvia is in his 20s. He wasn’t a willing participant at first.

“There was this girl that asked me to dance for about five years. I kept saying no,” he said. That resolve eventually wore down and he agreed. One time. No repeats. Yeah right.

“I came out and danced with her once, and I just loved the people,” he said. “I think in general people just love to dance.”

The crowd that assembles on Tuesday nights in Fairfield has a wider age range than many swing groups. They arrived to find lighting limited to track lights along the room’s perimeter. It softened the light on the dance floor. The room was cool, but that was an advantage. Do this dancing right and you could work up a sweat in subzero temperatures.

By 9 p.m. there are four couples on the floor at any given time and two or three others taking a song off to catch their breath. Swing dancing requires a partner, but just who the partners are changes as people take breaks.

The dancers concentrate on what they’re doing but also display a remarkable awareness of what’s happening around them. The center of the dance floor clears out a bit when Jeffrey Smith and Merett Giacomini begin a particularly energetic dance. If you watch closely you can see some of the influences from the earlier Lindy Hop.

The same thing happens when Incorvia and Andrea Smith pair up. No one stops dancing, but they make room for the more advanced steps being done a few feet away.

It’s a scene Louis Armstrong would enjoy.

Matt Milner can be reached at (641) 683-5359 or via e-mail at mwmilner@mchsi.com