On Wednesday, May 1, and Friday, May 3, Talawanda High School offered free ballroom dance lessons after school.
The lessons were held in the upper gym, and the instructor was dance professor, and former stunt double for the red power ranger, Michael Scoggins.
The idea was presented by senior Taft Marsh. “I always go to dances and I took lessons a while ago and I thought it would be cool to get other high school students to dance at school events like I do.”
Marsh went to talk to Ms. Mann, who coordinates Prom at THS, and she told him to take a survey seeing who would actually good, when the results came back positive, (22 out of 58 said yes) Mann said that the prom committee would fund the lessons.
The class taught simple dances, such as the meringue. The intentions for these lessons were to present a new style of dance for students who would be attending prom.
“When it comes time for prom, teachers just throw the students out on the dance floor without any forms of lessons in dance, and they expect them not to dance dirty. That is why when I come and actually teach students dances such as the meringue, they start doing it at prom and others join in and they actually end up having more fun,” said Scoggins
It is undetermined whether or not ballroom dance lessons will occur in the future, but Scoggins said he would be happy to come back. “Talk to friends about it and I would love to come back in the future. Hopefully there will eventually be a new dance craze at Talawanda.”
