Swing Des Moines serves as Artists in Residence at Western Hills Elementary

It's hard to say who had more fun - the teachers or the students - last week as Swing Des Moines served as the Artists in Residence at Western Hills Elementary.

Many of you may already know that one of Swing Des Moines' purposes is to work with area schools to educate students not only in the art of America's Folk Dance - Swing dancing - but also in the history behind the dance. We had another chance to do just that last week.

The week kicked off with an all-school assembly featuring Capitol City Swing, our performance troupe, showing the kids (and teachers) our hour-long presentation covering the entire swing era. The kids particularly liked the Charleston, the Shim Sham, and East Coast swing (which we danced to Great Balls of Fire). We ended the assembly by letting all the kids get up and learn a few steps as a preview to what they'd learn in their PE classes that week.

Then we had each class twice over the course of the next four days during their PE time. Students learned 20s Charleston - from Kindergarten all the way up through Sixth grade. They all seemed to just love it.

And the teachers seemed to have a great time, too. The kids were just so fun to be with - particularly the littler kids. A few of the kindergarteners preferred to hold hands while learning new steps. One of the first graders took a particular interest in helping Wally to get the steps right. Some of the older students developed elaborate group poses for Posin'. It was great.



Swing Des Moines owes a huge thanks to Mike Dennis and Kevin Spencer for taking on this project. Mike was at the school all four days, and Kevin was there for three of the four. They did the bulk of the work, that's for certain. Randy and I helped out on Thursday, but I feel like we did very little while we were there.

You can view our photo stream from the event here. I failed to take a camera to the assembly, and wouldn't have had time to photograph anyway. The pictures show the Thursday classes, and Kevin is missing because that's the one day he wasn't there. I'm sorry Kevin!! If anyone else took pictures at the event, please add them!

There is also a small write-up at the Register here.

Mad Hot Ballroom

Randy bought me the movie Mad Hot Ballroom for Christmas and I decided to watch it this afternoon. The movie is a documentary about a phys ed program in New York City schools that teaches ballroom dancing to 5th graders and culminates in a competition.

It was a pretty good movie - not for the dancing by any means - but because the kids were just so interesting. Listening to their thoughts on life, on relationships. Chatting about who they liked as dance partners. Girls happy because the boys wanted to dance with them, nothing more. Boys talking about their friendships with the girls developing. Kids having fun with partner dancing. Kids talking about "he's not leading that right, but I have to follow what he's leading and it's frustrating" or "she's going in whatever direction she wants to regardless of what I lead."

Some of the kids were really, really good - especially at the latin dances, which seemed to be the forte of the teachers, as well. Some of the kids weren't that great. But they all learned to dance, they all had fun, and they all learned far more than dancing.

I would absolutely love to start up a program like this in Des Moines. It's been on my list of "Stuff I'd Love Swing Des Moines To Do Some Day." I'm hoping we hear back from the IRS some time soon that we have gotten our 501(c)3 designation so we can start seeking grants to allow us to do just that. To get into local schools on a regular, ongoing basis.

We already participate in some school activities. Swing Des Moines is a regular presence at Brookview Elementary's Art Town, for example. But it's hard to develop any sort of program when we're working with only volunteer hours, and having grants would allow us to pay instructors and helpers, and help offset some of the costs those instructors and helpers incur. (Such as lost wages for taking time off from work.)

The program in NYC runs for 10 weeks. If we were going to do even half of that - 5 weeks - that's still over a month of time off from work. That's a LOT!! Ideally, we'd like it to be part of the phys ed class, which means numerous classes during the day. An after school program would be easier to do, I think, but would reach fewer kids. Ultimately, I suppose, it depends on what the schools themselves want to do. But I want to approach them with an offer they can't refuse - we'll come, we'll teach the kids dancing, they'll have fun, and it won't cost you anything.

How can they say no?

ps - "The Swing" that they danced was VERY ballroom, as one would expect. If you've ever watched ballroom competitions on TV, you know what I mean. It was ballroom swing, and had very little relation to actual swing dancing.