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Monday, April 2, 2007
Square dancing a nicer option
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Everybody keeps talking about the Big Dance down in the Big City this weekend.
Well, just the other night, I attended a Big Dance right here in the Big Burbs. It took place Thursday night at Nesbit Elementary, the Gwinnett school with the DeKalb address. It’s in Tucker.
Kids, parents and teachers packed the gymnasium. There had to be 300 people on hand. The sound system blared no rock, rap or rhythm and blues. No deejay was mixing.
This was a square dance. Kids were decked out in Western wear. From ear to ear they grinned, even my son. Earlier, Miles had said he’d have no part of it. A young mind can change quickly. There he was, arm to arm with his partner.
Typically at dances for this age level, boys gather on one side of the room, girls camp out on the other. No interaction.
And given the pap that poses as pop culture, that could be a good thing. Raunchiness rules. Rita Buchanan, Nesbit’s music teacher, wanted her 1,400 or so students to dance, but she didn’t want them to mimic the bumping and grinding common among older teens.
So she introduced the kids to square dancing.
“I wanted them to dance in an unraunchy way,” she told me. “Square dancing teaches that. The kids were very receptive.”
How nice to see a school host an event that allows the sexes to mingle on the dance floor wholesomely, like young ladies and men.
Ashley Foster thought so, too. She’s the events coordinator for Grand Square Inc., a Charlotte nonprofit that promotes square dancing and publishes Square Dance Today magazine.
She gave me a little history lesson on the dance. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal called for square dancing programs. More than a dozen U.S. presidents were square dancers, and 21 states, including Georgia, have adopted some form of it as their state folk dance.
Back in the day, square dancing was taught in P.E. or the fine arts programs of American public schools. As those programs have practically vanished, so has the introduction of square dancing to kids.
“Square dancers are getting older, not younger,” Foster told me. “We encourage people of all ages to try it. It’s a great social activity.”
At Nesbit, there may be some converts.
“It’s fun,” said fourth-grader Siera Battiste. “I like dancing.”
Georgie Williams, Siera’s grandmother, had a blast at the dance. “She told me what she was learning, and I said, ‘Go for it,’” she said.
“The teachers here are wonderful.”
Of course, square dancing, for many of the Nesbit kids, is a work in progress. The Big Dance was noisy, chaotic, fun.
Some students swung to the left when they should have shifted to the right. A few boys neglected to bow to their honorable ladies as instructed by the caller on the recording. In class, things were a lot more orderly, Buchanan said.
“They learned a lot,” she said. “I’m sold on square dancing.”
Easy to see why.
&madash; Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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The Badie Tour: April 4
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He’s the man who banned karaoke. It’s Lilburn Mayor Jack Bolton. On Wednesday, Rick Badie, your AJC Gwinnett News columnist, drops by Lilburn City Hall to chat with hizzoner. Read about the Badie Tour, online and in print, in Thursday’s AJC Gwinnett News.
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