Bringing Ballroom to Twin Cities Classrooms

By Ember Reichgott Junge

"Out to the cheese, jump-jump; back to the crust, jump-jump; under the bridge, jump-jump; under the bridge, jump-jump."

That was chanted by a fifth-grade dance couple practicing their new swing steps (on a giant imaginary pizza) during recess at Benjamin E. Mays IB World School in St. Paul. And they were good. You should have seen their boogie walks!

They and over two hundred fifty fifth graders in eleven classrooms in the Twin Cities are getting ready for their finale of Dancing Classrooms, the new Minnesota program bringing the benefits of ballroom dance to fifth graders. With specially trained teaching artists hired by the nonprofit Heart of Dance, students are checking their dance positions for crispy chicken wings (elbows) and sticky peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches (forearms).

Take a look at the tango that students from Friendship Academy of the Arts, Minneapolis, and Four Seasons A+ Elementary, St. Paul, performed recently after only eleven lessons on www.HeartofDanceMN.org or Facebook. Adorable! The fifth graders will be even more energetic when they perform their new dances for their parents and schoolmates at their school culminating events at Friendship (December 1st); Athlos Leadership Academy, Brooklyn Park (December 2nd); Four Seasons (December 3rd); and Benjamin Mays (December 4th). The events will also feature student expression around dance, including essays and poems, artwork, and research into cultural origins of each dance.

We at Heart of Dance could not be more pleased with the progress of our students over the ten-week Dancing Classrooms fall residency and the excitement of their school leaders about the program. This is not just about learning dance steps. As one paraprofessional told us, "Their discipline has gotten much better, not just in dance class. I see it in their other classwork as well. They work better together—more like a team."

Dancing Classrooms is about respect, elegance, and teamwork. What joy to watch these young people break through fear and resistance to, "Thank you, partner." A few students act out, of course, which is why Heart of Dance created a new volunteer classroom assistant opportunity and trained six classroom assistants this semester to help with classroom management and gender balance.

Then there are students who light up when the music starts.

"How did you feel about that?" teaching artist Andrea Mirenda asked after she introduced students to the slow and elegant waltz.

"Boring," said several.

One young lady looked up and said, "That's what I'll do on my honeymoon on the beach."

And another responded, "That's the dance my mom and dad did at their wedding."

Our ballroom dance community is stepping up in other ways. Dancing Classrooms includes one session where a ballroom professional partners with our teaching artist and offers feedback to students. We are grateful to dance professionals Eric Hudson and Dustin Donelan from Cinema Ballroom, Russell Alliev from DanceLife Ballroom, Gordon Bratt from Mill City Ballroom, and Patrick Ellner from Fred Astaire Dance Studios for visiting our classrooms. This session is always a favorite for our fifth graders!

All of this leads to the exciting inaugural Colors of the Rainbow Team Match on December 13th at 3:00 p.m. at Dancers Studio in St. Paul, where six couples from each of eleven classrooms will compete, one couple per classroom for each dance. The public is invited to watch dance couples compete in merengue, tango, rumba, foxtrot, waltz, and swing. Don't be surprised if you see some heel-toe polka and the stomp thrown in as well. We are honored to have four professional ballroom dance judges to judge our dancers: Amy Anderson, Nathan Daniels, Eliecer Ramirez-Vargas, and Rebecca Ramirez. We are grateful for the Colors of the Rainbow Team Match sponsorship from University of Minnesota Ballroom Dance Club and U Partner Dance, Inc. Watch out for photos in the January issue of Sheer Dance.

Due to the great response from our community, Heart of Dance is expanding for the spring semester! We still have room for a few more classrooms. If you want to bring the benefits of ballroom dance to a child you know, or if you know educators who might want to bring Dancing Classrooms to their schools, contact Heart of Dance cofounders Ember Reichgott Junge at emberrj@heartofdancemn.org or Andrea Mirenda at andream@heartofdancemn.org.

Of course, contributions large and small will help Heart of Dance expand our classrooms for spring so we can serve more Twin Cities students. With your help, we hope to serve six hundred students in this inaugural school year! Visit us online at www.HeartOfDanceMN.org, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.


If you would like to volunteer as a classroom assistant for the spring semester, contact Dede Ouren at dede.ouren@gmail.com.

Thank you for joining Heart of Dance on this journey, transforming young lives one step at a time!