Music drifting down the stairwell leads guests to the second floor at 129 E. Cunningham St.

Tunes are by Santana and Glenn Miller. "We can even cha cha to Metallica," said Ed Hughes, founder of the Butler Area Dancers. "If it has a beat, you can do one of the formal dances to it."

Dance fever pervades Butler at least two Saturday nights a month, when the group holds its semi-monthly get-togethers.

"It's a fresh thing, a new group I started in January of this year," said Hughes of Renfrew. "I've been going to Pittsburgh to dance and I thought we needed something like it here."

So far, between 65 and 75 dancers are showing up on a given Saturday.

"I think a lot more people are going to be here because of the price of gas," said Roy Ritter of Chicora.

Swings, cha chas and slow dancing are the usual fare. There's an hourlong dance lesson from 8 to 9 p.m. and then dancing until midnight. Hughes teaches the lesson.

"There are so many steps in each dance you'll never know them all," Hughes noted. "Since the club is new, we do a lot of basic steps, and I do always throw in one challenging step and I tell them it's a challenging one. If you don't learn it, you'll see it again."

More experienced dancers take part in the lesson, too, he said. "It never hurts to go over the basics no matter how experienced you are."

Hughes said there's room for growth, 110 or 120 dancers a night. "It's a big dance floor," he said. "If we get enough people, we'll open up the third level dance floor," he said of the Dance Impressions building.

The dance floor is about 35 feet by 60 feet, a floating wood floor installed not long ago.

"A wooden dance floor is hard to beat," said Gail DiCuccio of Butler.

"The floating wood floor is very cushiony, easy on your legs," said Hughes, who also teaches at Dance Impressions. "If you spend any time dancing, concrete can be hard on your legs. It tires you out."

Most of the women dancers wear heeled shoes. "You always wear heeled shoes in Latin dancing," DiCuccio said, "and a slight heel is most comfortable." No dress code is set for these Saturday night soirees. Most people dress neatly and comfortably.

Beyond the physical attributes, a dance hall is about the music. "The way it's set up here tends toward East coast swing, the jitterbug from the Dick Clark era," DiCuccio said. "But we'll do any music by request, like if someone wants to waltz. We'll do a couple of line dances, too." And the music is not so loud the pairs can't talk while dancing.

Dancers arrive as couples or singles. "We do at least one mixer (dance) so everyone gets to rotate and gets a chance to dance with everyone else," DiCuccio said.

DiCuccio said she started taking dance lessons, tap dancing to be exact, when she was 6 years old. She goes dancing about three times a week now.

"You develop a sense of rhythm that one song is a cha cha or a rumba; one is a jitterbug," DiCuccio said.

"And songs that are close (to a couple of different dances) you look at each other and say, 'Let's do this one,'" said Hughes, her dance partner. "It's all in what the couple hears, whichever dance the couple wants to do really.

"The man is out there choreographing all the time the whole time, and the lady is thinking where the lead is coming from next."

The two television seasons of "Dancing with the Stars" has created a lot of interest in dancing again, said Hughes, who's been dancing for seven years and teaching it for six.

"It's doing great things for dance," he said. "It's showed guys they can do it. If we can get them in here five times, the next five times they'll be dragging their wives in here to dance."

He said the Butler Area Dancers range in age from college students to senior citizens, with many levels of experience.

The ratio of men to women is close to even, he said.

"Sometimes there are a couple more ladies than men. Other times a couple more men than ladies."

Saundra Austin of Butler brings along her 82-year-old mother Dorcas McCabe who's fond of dancing.

"She's a little shy," Austin said. "She used to dance with my dad all the time; he passed away 15 years ago." So Austin learned to dance the man's part so she could partner with her mom.

"There's one couple that comes; they don't dance, they just like to get out and watch other people dance," DiCuccio said.

So far the dances have attracted people from the North Hills, Ohio and North Huntingdon near Greensburg. "Because dancing has become more popular, it's something this area is hungry for or is starving for," Hughes said. "There's definitely a need for people to dance."

<b>WHO: </b>Butler Area Dancers<b>WHAT: </b>Twice-monthly dances<b>WHEN: </b>Lesson from 8 to 9 p.m. followed by dancing from 9 p.m. to midnight July 8 and 22, Aug. 12 and 26, Sept. 9 and 23, Oct. 14 and 28, Nov. 4 and 18, and Dec. 2 and 16.<b>WHERE: </b>129 E. Cunningham St.<b>ADMISSION: </b>$6 for non-members, or $3 for members who pay $25 annually to be part of the nonprofit club<b>INFORMATION: </b>724-586-2671