Swing Today: ‘Our Dance Is Modern Because We’re Alive Right Now’

Caleb Teicher’s “Sw!ng Out” at the Joyce Theater aims to bring swing onstage as it lives today in a program that’s part variety show, part hangout.

Choices picked out of a hat: It’s a gambit of magicians and improv comedians, a way of showing an audience that chance is at work and performers are creating on the fly.

That’s the effect it has in “Sw!ng Out,” a new swing-dance show opening a two-week run at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday. At one point, cast members play a game called Luck of the Draw. A pair of performers’ names are picked out of a hat, then they dance the next tune together.

It sounds simple enough, but the game encapsulates several ways that “Sw!ng Out” is distinct, even groundbreaking.