The ARTery presents Dancing Classrooms

From an Omaha World-
Herald story:

...There was the tango, the
favorite of Victor Rojas, 11.
And the swing, 12-year-old
Amairani Garibo's favorite.
They showed off their
rumba, merengue, waltz,
fox trot—and macarena,
too.... Victor likes the
tango because "you get to
do more stuff with your
feet" than in the other
dances. He has been
selected to tango onstage
Monday night. Despite the
expected crowd, he's not
nervous.

"I can dream it and do
it," he said with a laugh.

Liberty Principal Nancy
Oberst said she noticed a
change in her school
during the... program....
"There was so much
interest and discussion by
children and their families
and the staff," she said.
"It snowballed...." Susie
White, who snapped cell
phone pictures of daughter
Isabelle Chamberlain, said
the program meant a lot to
her daughter. "She
practiced everywhere,"
White said. "She was
having fun. She came
home wanting to teach me
the dances." —Omaha
World-Herald, April 14,
2006.

Dancing Classrooms: Teaching Children to Take a Bow

Midtown in Omaha, Nebraska

'Art Is for Everyone'

Twice a week for 10 weeks, hundreds of Omaha Public Schools students put aside their
math and science books for 45 minutes to learn the Merengue, the Foxtrot, and the
Rhumba; the Tango, the Swing, and the Waltz; the Heel-Toe Polka, the Electric Slide, the
Stomp... and just for fun, the Cha-Cha Slide, a vigorous line dance that gets a little extra
gusto. (Most of the kids have danced the Cha-Cha Slide and teach the teaching artists a
move or two.)

These students are in the Dancing Classrooms Program, brought to Omaha by the
ARTery in 2006.

The world-famous ballroom dancers Pierre Dulaine and Yvonne Marceau started
Dancing Classrooms in 1994 as a not-for-profit project of the American Ballroom
Theater Company. The film Take the Lead, starring Antonio Banderas as Dulaine, is a more-
or-less accurate depiction of the early struggle to gain a foothold in the New York City
school system and the rapid success of the program once it was accepted into the
curriculum.

Dancing Classrooms is an arts-in-education program teaching ballroom dance to
children as early as fifth grade. As depicted in the popular documentary Mad Hot Ballroom,
Dancing Classrooms is an in-school residency for every student regardless of background
or experience.

While Dancing Classrooms has been hailed as an effective program for teaching social
dance, the program provides many other benefits. Dancing Classrooms creates an
atmosphere that encourages students who are typically introverted and reserved to step
out and shine. It focuses physical energies and improves health through the joy of
movement. It builds self-esteem and social skills as it improves confidence and children's
ability to relate to others.

Since 1994, Dancing Classrooms has grown from one fifth-grade class of thirty students
to nearly twenty thousand students in the New York City area. The program has
expanded to several other U.S. cities and Canada.

Dancing is about connections ... to our friends, to our families, to our neighbors. It is one
of the most expressive ways we celebrate and communicate our cultures and
communities. With Dancing Classrooms, we are able to reach children in existing
classroom settings and address fundamental issues of mutual respect and self-esteem -
issues that social dance puts into practice. We hope to inspire children through dance to
do well, to respect one another, to be proud. This program is about more than dance, it is
about teaching children to take a bow.

—

Pierre Dulaine & Yvonne Marceau

Mission

ur mission is to build social awareness, confidence, and self-esteem in

children

through

the practice of social dance.

Through standards based, in-school residencies, we use the vocabulary of ballroom dance
to cultivate the positive feelings that are inherent in every child. The maturity necessary to
dance together fosters respect, teamwork, confidence, and a sense of joy and
accomplishment. Ballroom dance is the ideal medium for nurturing these qualities.

Philosophy

Dancing Classrooms uses a curriculum-based teaching approach to achieve social
awareness and build self-esteem. Students learn the vocabulary of various contemporary
social dances in a classroom setting. Each class in the series introduces new steps,
reinforcing what has been previously learned through practice and repetition.

Our teaching philosophy is one of inside out versus outside in. Yes, the students learn to
dance, often extremely well, but if they do not gain a sense of pride in their
accomplishments, if they don't emerge with greater confidence and respect for themselves
and others, then the Dancing Classrooms mission has not been achieved.

Dance is instinctive in human beings. We take that inherent ability and help the
students bring it out rather than forcing it upon them. For that reason, the more students
learn, the more their self-esteem rises.

Our classes serve a diverse population of children who speak many different languages.
Classes are conducted in English. All students are welcome; there are no prerequisites,
and experience is never required.

Dancing Classrooms courses culminate in a series of competitions. To see the
excitement and preparation generated by these competitions, view the excellent film Mad
Hot Ballroom.

Instant Gratification

Ask any of the Omaha ARTery's teaching artists what it's like to teach Dancing
Classrooms for the first time. You'll usually hear, "If I hadn't seen it for myself, I wouldn't
have believed it."

At the first session, fifth-grade boys and girls generally are uncomfortable touching each
other, even in the "pancake hold"-boys' hands extended palms up, girls' hands placed
gently on top of the boys' hands, palms down. By the third session, most of the children
are comfortable dancing in the traditional "ballroom frame," and some start practicing
together while they're waiting for the bus after school. They enter and leave each dance
class in "escort position"—gentlemen on the left with their right arms bent like teapot
handles for the ladies to hold on to.

Most of the students—they are always referred to as "ladies" and "gentlemen" in
Dancing Classrooms—try to teach the steps to parents and siblings. That's one of the
reasons the ARTery started a class especially for parents and other interested adults.
The teaching artists find Dancing Classrooms very rewarding, because the students
respond so quickly and enthusiastically once they get past their initial awkwardness.
Some classroom teachers and TAs have reported remarkable improvements in self-esteem
and school performance among children who were morose and listless before they
learned "to take a bow." And research shows that Dancing Classrooms does indeed
improve not only self-esteem but school performance.

The Dancing Classrooms Story

Since 1994, Dancing

Classrooms has

rown

from

one fifth-grade class of thirty

students to nearly twenty

thousand students in the New

York City area. The program

expanded to Omaha in 2006

and has since spread

to several

other U.S. cities and Canada.