In recent years, dirty dancing — also known as “freak dancing” — has been popular at school dances nationwide, and Mountlake Terrace High School is no exception.
But when a few students took things too far at a TOLO dance in February, the Associated Student Body was asked to find ways to clean up the dance floor.
Freak dancing involves bumping, grinding, dancing back to front, bending over and more.
“It’s basically the way we dance,” said Tiffany Steele, the high school’s senior class president. “It’s the way we’re taught to dance.”
The style comes from rap videos, said Kyle Gibboney, junior class president. He first saw kids freak dancing when he was in seventh grade.
The TOLO dance marked a turning point at the school.
“It was inappropriate contact between two individuals,” explained Taylor Laneville, sophomore class president, with a touch of diplomatic irony. “The administration got fed up.”
“It was the first incident of horribleness,” Steele added.
“We told the kids no more dances till we come up with a plan,” said Kim Stewart, ASB coordinator. “It was a joint (effort) with ASB and the administration.”
Several methods had been tried, with little success, in the past. They included snapping digital pictures of freak dancers and sending them to parents, squirting offenders with squirt guns and shining a light, called the “lust buster”, on them when they got too hot and heavy.
“The squirt bottle (used at one dance) with cold water worked great at the beginning,” Gibboney said.
But by dance’s end, the room was hot and kids thought it was refreshing, Laneville said.
So for prom, which was held April 29, the ASB students decided to try something new.
“We had everyone sign a contract that said, ‘I won’t do dirty dancing or bend over,’” Steele said. “A lot of people were against signing it, but we said you can’t go to prom (until you do.)”
The ASB worried that if the restrictions were too harsh, no one would come to prom, Steele added. Students instead might have rented a club space for the dance, which could lead to drinking and driving, she added. So the group compromised with a half-way policy.
“It’s OK to stand straight, not facing (each other) but you can’t bend over,” Stewart said. “We had to compromise, but someone coming in from off the street might still be like, ‘Whoa.’”
At the prom and at Spring Fling, held last month, the disc jockey also threatened to turn off the music when students crossed the line.
“At Spring Fling, the DJ said: ‘Girl in blue, do you want me to stop the music for you again?’” Laneville said. “She got all red.”
Also, chaperones wore glow-in-the dark T-shirts that read: “If you bend, the dance will end.”
More chaperones have attended the dances now that they’re cleaner, Steele said.
“It was harder to get chaperones (before) because (they said), ‘I don’t want to see that,’” she said. “Now they’re more willing.”
The new methods seem to be working.
“I thought it worked well,” Steele said. “(Prom) was a lot cleaner than most of our dances.”
The students couldn’t say the problem was solved for good.
“It’s suppressed,” Laneville said.
The high school’s dances aren’t unique. Other school dances are more blatant, Steele said, adding that at some Seattle school dances, kids make their way to the floor.
“Our kids are a whole lot better,” Stewart said.
Mountlake Terrace’s dances are open to students district-wide.
“Most kids I talked to (who broke the rules) weren’t our kids,” he added.
Stewart is proud of what the students have done to address the issue.
“This was a pretty controversial topic and they addressed it,” he said.
The ASB students, while acting to stop the dancing, have mixed opinions on it.
“I think they might have overreacted a little to say you can’t dance anymore, period,” Steele said. “But it (the dancing) can be taken overboard. I can understand it not wanting to get worse.”
The situation reminds Laneville of the uproar around Elvis Presley’s dancing in the 1950s.
“Like when Elvis came out, his hip gyrations were offensive,” he said. “I think that’s what’s happened here.”
Sarah Koenig, education writer for the Enterprise, can be reached at 425-673-6526 or entschools@heraldnet.com.
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