Published: Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Dance It! teaches teens to swing
A high-energy, jitterbug style of dance that made a comeback in the 1990s is catching on again, this time at Edmonds School District high schools.
The Dance It! program returned to Meadowdale High School earlier this week with a four-week class teaching teens how to swing dance.
Dance It! is a dance program sponsored by the nonprofit Northwest Dance Network, also called NW Dance, which offers free swing lessons at high schools as well as public workshops and dance programs. Next month, the instructors are scheduled to teach swing dancing at Edmonds- Woodway High School.
Instructors start with swing because it's a fun style and easy to learn, said Lise Baadh, Dance It! founder and manager.
“If you have swing under your belt, it's easy to learn other dances,” Baadh said.
Beth Marriott, activities coordinator at Meadowdale, said she hopes the swing lessons will expose teens to other types of styles of dancing, such as the salsa, which she described as “pretty spicy” but wouldn't make people uncomfortable.
Marriott said she has had to separate students during school dances whose “moves” made other adults uneasy. Students had told her they didn't know how to dance any other way.
“We want to say, ‘There's this other way you can do this instead,'” she said.
Seattle-based ballroom dancers Lizzy Boyer and Mark Kihara will teach the class at Meadowdale.
Marriott said that, in the past, instructors helped students feel comfortable and have fun.
“No one feels tremendous pressure to be ‘on' or perfect,” she said.
Baadh said although dancing is socially acceptable for guys, it helps to have a male instructor for the guys. Some male students have said dancing has boosted their confidence.
“Guys have said they used to be shy and they couldn't talk to girls,” she said.
Baadh began offering the program at Shorewood High School in 2006. While taking her children to dance classes, Baadh observed a lot of teens were interested in learning how to dance.
This spring, she hopes to organize a dance for students from all eight Dance It! schools to socialize and test their dance skills.
“They can meet other people who know what they know,” she said.
The Dance It! program returned to Meadowdale High School earlier this week with a four-week class teaching teens how to swing dance.
Dance It! is a dance program sponsored by the nonprofit Northwest Dance Network, also called NW Dance, which offers free swing lessons at high schools as well as public workshops and dance programs. Next month, the instructors are scheduled to teach swing dancing at Edmonds- Woodway High School.
Instructors start with swing because it's a fun style and easy to learn, said Lise Baadh, Dance It! founder and manager.
“If you have swing under your belt, it's easy to learn other dances,” Baadh said.
Beth Marriott, activities coordinator at Meadowdale, said she hopes the swing lessons will expose teens to other types of styles of dancing, such as the salsa, which she described as “pretty spicy” but wouldn't make people uncomfortable.
Marriott said she has had to separate students during school dances whose “moves” made other adults uneasy. Students had told her they didn't know how to dance any other way.
“We want to say, ‘There's this other way you can do this instead,'” she said.
Seattle-based ballroom dancers Lizzy Boyer and Mark Kihara will teach the class at Meadowdale.
Marriott said that, in the past, instructors helped students feel comfortable and have fun.
“No one feels tremendous pressure to be ‘on' or perfect,” she said.
Baadh said although dancing is socially acceptable for guys, it helps to have a male instructor for the guys. Some male students have said dancing has boosted their confidence.
“Guys have said they used to be shy and they couldn't talk to girls,” she said.
Baadh began offering the program at Shorewood High School in 2006. While taking her children to dance classes, Baadh observed a lot of teens were interested in learning how to dance.
This spring, she hopes to organize a dance for students from all eight Dance It! schools to socialize and test their dance skills.
“They can meet other people who know what they know,” she said.