Bumpin’ and grindin’, movin’ and groovin’. For as long as dance has been around it has been a heated issue. As far back as the 1800’s, dance has been a debated dilemma.
Fast forward to 2006, when Concord High School has postponed their Homecoming dance five weeks in an effort to attack the issue of students dancing “inappropriately” at school-sponsored dances. According to the September 26 issue of the Concord Monitor, the current plan is to form a committee of students, faculty and staff that will hash out ideas and create a plan that would result in the best win-win situation for all.
Letters to the Editor have exploded from both parents and students, all expressing different points of view. All in all, it’s pretty predictable – the parents want change and the students want the parents and the administrators to leave them alone.
In our opinion, we’re on the student’s side. As previously mentioned, dance has been debated for hundreds of years. Even the waltz, the most elegant and revered of dances, was once banned from any social occasion in England because of the scandalous nature of the dance.
In 1816, an editorial appeared in The Times in England denouncing the devilish suggestions of the waltz. The website www.centralhome.com had this quote from the editorial, “It is quite sufficient to cast one’s eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females.”
Perhaps the most interesting idea about all of this is how sensual all ballroom dancing is. The tango, the salsa, the cha-cha, the samba – all are incredible sexy dances judged during ballroom dancing competitions based on the interaction between the two dancers. Seen the movie Take the Lead? How about the show Dancing with the Stars? And that’s on national television, not just in a high school gym.
And don’t forget, we are the hip hop and pop generation, raised watching MTV and VH1 music videos full of crazy, gyrating moves. Performers like Britney Spears prancing around a stage half-naked dancing like a stripper were the role models of this generation’s dancers. Now, young people pay to take lessons in this style of dance, with hip hop and break dancing class attendance through the roof, and the enrollment in the classes of the fundamentals of ballet declining everyday. This is all we know. That’s not an excuse, but it is the reason.
However, while this is a convincing argument, it still does nothing to solve the situation at hand. So what is to be done? Frankly, and this isn’t the answer anyone is looking for, it’s too late to do anything. This problem has escalated to a point where there is nothing that can be done. You cannot un-teach an entire generation something that they had no control over in the first place. We are a product of our environment. The parents and administration can do nothing.