Stepping it up

One evening in the 1950s, Otis Givens attended a neighborhood party at the invitation of two sisters. As the music started playing, the girls began to dance — but Givens, then 16, was planted firmly to the floor.

His friends were surprised, and asked the teen why he wasn’t grooving to the music.

"I don’t know how," he recalls responding.

From that point on, the sisters decided to teach Givens the decade’s popular dance moves. With some practice, he eventually retrained his two left feet and became quite proud of his newfound talent.

His young teachers also were impressed, and wanted Givens as their dance partner.

"When they went somewhere, they wanted me to go," says Givens, originally from 19th and Christian streets. "We would show off together."

As his moves improved, Givens became a staple at South Philly’s plentiful dance halls. He also was a welcome guest on a few TV programs filmed in the region.

"There was a lot of dancing going on in my time," notes the dancer, who now has his own students in a class he teaches at Hawthorne Recreation Center, 12th and Carpenter streets.

In the ’50s, the dancer’s regular haunts included halls at St. Charles Borromeo, 20th and Christian streets, and St. Simon the Cyrenian Church, 1401 S. 22nd St.

The former Girls YMCA, 16th and Fitzwater streets, held Thursday-night dances, and young people would boogie Friday nights at the Christian Street YMCA, 1724
Christian St.

Dancing was so popular that teens couldn’t stop their feet from moving — even during the school day, Givens recalls.

"People from all over would cut class and go to Bok Vocational to dance during the lunch hour," he says.

South Philly was a neighborhood of corner-hanging cliques in those days, and Givens belonged to the "20th Street corner." Its boundaries included South Street to Washington Avenue and 20th to 18th streets.

It was understood that residents could attend dances only in the area of their designated corner, notes Givens, 67.

But by showing off his impressive moves, Givens was given a pass to dance at out-of-neighborhood establishments.

His version of the "Strand," also known as "walking the floor," was a regular crowd-pleaser. The dance began by forming a circle and slowly strutting around the perimeter of the dance hall. Brave couples made their way into the circle and performed such dances as the cha-cha or mambo.

As Givens made his way around the room, he never passed up the chance to out-dance a couple standing on the sidelines.

The avid dancer seldom brought along a female or friends to local halls, noting that going stag was more exciting.

Givens says he was not a fan of the era’s popular line dances such as the "Madison" and the "Continental."

"You need a partner to do the dances I like to do," he says.

Ever the innovator, Givens was fond of tweaking the popular dances of his youth.

"I’ve always tried to do something different than anybody else," he says. "I always wanted to be noticed."

As television trained its cameras onto dancing teens in the 1950s, Givens got his chance.

Knowing someone who "worked the door" at American Bandstand, the dancer made several appearances on the show, then hosted by Bob Horn at 46th and Market streets.

During the ’60s, Givens’ dream was to appear on The Mitch Thomas Show as a "spotlight dancer." A friend secured a spot for him on the show, which was the first live televised black dance program in the area.

When the song Talk to Me by Little Willie John blared over the speakers, Givens knew it was his turn to shine.

"My partner and I started dancing," he says. "The things we were doing made everyone back away."

Givens became a regular on the program during its filming in Delaware and then Philadelphia.

During the late ’60s and early ’70s, he also danced on a show filmed at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier.

Around the same time, the dancer returned to the airwaves on a show called Step This Way, which was filmed in the WPVI-TV Channel 6 studios.

In front of a celebrity panel of judges, couples were scored on how well they performed two dances — one of which was chosen by the judges. Givens won the top prize twice.

While dancing is Givens’ passion, he paid the bills by working as a longshoreman for 33 years. He toiled on the Camden, Philadelphia and Delaware waterfronts before retiring in 1996.

Givens still dances and shares his moves with his class at Hawthorne Recreation Center each Thursday. The two-hour class started last month.

Givens labels the course a "work in progress," noting that it covers the dancing basics and a few of his "homemade" concoctions. For example, he plans to teach students how to combine the spice of salsa with the flavor of the cha-cha.

Much of his free time is spent with his wife Evelyn, 60, at home in Somerdale, N.J. Not surprisingly, the couple met at a New Jersey dance in the ’50s.

They lost contact for about 10 years, but married in the 1970s and have a 27-year-old daughter, Tiffany.

On average, Givens says, he still ventures out to dancing venues at least three times a week.

"The most important thing is being able to go somewhere to dance. If they had dancing on the moon, I’d be there."

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For more information on Otis Givens’ dance class at the Hawthorne Recreation Center, call Alfie Pollitt at 215-748-7494.