Oh! What A Feeling: The Impact Of Childhood Dance Class On Kids Who Did Not Become Dancers
In April 2023, I presented the following paper at Pop Conference in Brooklyn, New York at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute Of Recorded Music. I had long understood that my love of pop music came in part from all of my childhood dance classes. I talked to old friends, new friends and friends of friends to find out what other people who danced as kids took away from that childhood experience. Here’s the paper! And a picture of 12 year old me all ready to go Dancing On The Ceiling.
I have spent a huge amount of time in my life thinking about my 6th grade recital dance to Lionel Richie’s “Dancing On The Ceiling.” Here I am. It was 1987. I was 12. By the time we started work on the dance in the spring, it had been on the charts, hitting #2 the previous fall. HBO had a program about the making of the video that seemed to air a lot on Sunday morning and that fascinated me. Lionel and his friends actually walk on the ceiling in the video, and this TV special showed me how he did it. That video played in heavy rotation on MTV, which I was watching a lot of by now. I was in a class of girls who were all better than me: they had great extension, didn’t fall out of turns and could get that one back bend roll up from the floor move that required abdominal strength that I clearly didn’t have. I was in the back corner for most of the dance. I didn’t care. The choreography was bright, felt contemporary, and had moves I saw in music videos. I got to wear the special white jazz shoes, and put my hair in a high ponytail, not the standard bun most recital dancers wore. My dad bought me the tape upon request after the song was chosen for the recital, and I played it and played it and played it. It was all SO MUCH FUN.
About 10 or so years ago the NCAA began an advertising campaign during the March Madness basketball tournament that highlighted how most college athletes go on to become pro in something other than sports. That campaign continues today. Parents put their kids into sports and continue to fund their participation for all sorts of reasons: expose them to a new activity, give them something safe to do after school, just have fun, or chase the elusive college scholarships.
It got me thinking about how becoming a professional dancer was never my aim as a kid when I put on the sequins and leapt across the stage. So what did I get from it? I realized that all of those years of hearing all of that music gave me a passion for it: from Disney songs, to the Nutcracker Suite, to a lot of Barry Manilow (I had teachers who must have been Fanilows in the early 80s!) to a wide range of 1980s radio hits and album deep cuts. I took what I heard in class and sought out what I loved on the radio, on MTV and at the Wherehouse in South Coast Plaza, my record store of choice. My passion for music was clearly evident through my growing stack of tapes and Star Hits magazines. And while friends, family, MTV and Rick Dees all played a role in my burgeoning love of pop music, when I look back now, I see that dance class played an extraordinarily large role.
This also coincided with a conversation I had with my dad about all of those dance classes both me and my sister took as kids. He seemed to think all that money he spent on our classes wasn’t a good investment because we hadn’t become dancers. On the contrary, I argued. I have a deep love of pop music in large part thanks to all that dancing. I became an archive producer in TV and film, spending a lot of my career in pop music spaces. My sister, Jamie Roberts, is a high school theater teacher in suburban L.A. whose foundation in dance enhances her ability to teach kids about all different kinds of theater.
So I wanted to find out from as many people as I could what did dance class do for you, what did it give you? So I started with my childhood dance recital programs, which my mom had kept for me all these years. I pulled out names of classmates, dancers I admired and teachers I had and tried to find them. I danced at Irvine Dance Academy in Irvine, California, from 1978 to 1989. I talked, Zoomed, emailed and Facebook messaged 50 people who danced as kids. Several of these dancers are from Irvine Dance Academy, but not all. Some are other friends from my childhood, some are people from my professional life and some are friends of friends of friends. Word gets out when you’re working on something fun.
I set out to find people like me, not working in dance who can draw a direct line from their dancing days to their non-dancing career. But, of course, I found so much more. I wish I could tell you about every single one of them. I am so grateful so many wonderful people took the time to share their thoughts and memories with me.
Here’s who I found:
Kristine Linares is an end-of-life doula and works with her family’s hospice agency in Orange County, California. She says that being tuned into her body and spirit is incredibly important to what she does. This ties into the first memory of dancing as a kid that she shared with me: warming up and stretching to Whitney Houston’s “You Give Good Love.” The dance studio was “a place my mind, body and spirit felt good because of the music, because we were stretching our bodies.” And “Whitney Houston’s music is indelibly a part of who I am.”
Sam Cutler is a TV development exec who grew up in dancing in 1990s Philadelphia. Modern dance was her favorite style and through this she discovered her love of choreography. Choreography is storytelling. It’s taking the audience to a place, a world, a feeling, a new culture. That’s what Sam does every day now as she works with teams to develop documentaries and non-fiction programming.
I talked to several people who still dance, just not as their full-time career. Dancing in some part of their lives bring them joy, an outlet for creativity and exercise.
Kerry Kick works as a director of personnel and HR business partner for the School of Physical Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. She credits her early work in the office at Irvine Dance Academy as helping to develop her administration skills which she has rolled into a long and satisfying career. That’s her day job. But by night, one great day a week, she’s a line dancing teacher at The Ranch in Anaheim near Disneyland. Dance and choreography have always brought her joy and a sense of creative accomplishment.
Monica Hodes-Smail starting dancing as teenager in Overland Park, Kansas. She’s now a newspaper copy editor who teaches Jazzercise. She says, “I like that it gives me that feeling of “performing” that adults don’t really get in their real life. .. It gives me a feeling of leadership and some good interaction with people I might not run across in my day-to-day life.”
There are women who are in arts careers like Tara Tamaribuchi, an installation artist in Oregon, and Stephanie Young, a voice teacher and choir director in California. A feel for music and groove developed as young dancers influences their work today.
And I found people who did make dancing their career, at least for a portion of it. Professional dancers are important here because their stories developed alongside those of us who didn’t have career ambitions in dance.
Bobbi, Kristen, Kirk, Kristi and Gentry all danced for Disney early in their careers and then transitioned to non-dancing work after that. Rhonda Malkin has been fortunate as she says “to make a career with her dancing shoes.” From Laker girl to Rockette to the owner of her own coaching business, Rhonda credits her childhood dancing days with not only teaching her the steps and the technique, but giving her an opportunity to develop all of the things a professional dancer needs including a strong work ethic, resilience, time-management skills, dedication and stage presence. These are qualities that so many of us, professional and non-professional dancer alike, seek and value in our day to day lives. Dance class is a place to learn and practice them.
For the catering specialist, the law professor, the cybersecurity professional and the educators .. so many educators I talked to … the skills developed as dancing kids show up in so many places in our lives. It’s in how hard we work at things (practice, practice, practice) and how likely we are to try again when something goes wrong (just gotta get that combination right.) It’s in our ease in front of an audience. (If you can leap across the stage in a leotard, you can do anything.) It’s in the Spotify channel we choose (‘80s pop is a standard favorite). It’s in how we’re often the first and last on a dance floor at a wedding or bar mitzvah. And when you look through the list of Facebook friends or Instagram followers, they are likely longer thanks to several dance friends from long ago we stay connected to on social media.
No matter where, when or if we stopped taking dance classes, all kid dancers started in the same place: standing in front of a teacher. So I talked with a few teachers, all of whom were kid dancers themselves. And all of whom are pretty special people.
Of all of the former Irvine Dance Academy students I talked to, one teacher’s name came up often as influential, memorable and important in their dance lives: Monie Adamson. Monie is pure joy. Joy in tap shoes. She’s an award-winning dancer and choreographer and the founder of FOCUS Dance Center in Irvine. I took two classes from her in junior high. She embraced my enthusiasm and energy, showcasing what I was good at (stage presence, trying hard) and not drawing attention to the things I wasn’t as good at (double turns, splits.) Monie told me on the phone recently that every kid has a superpower. She was certainly good at helping me use mine.
A true teenage rock and roll fan, especially of Led Zeppelin and Queen, Monie found herself falling in love with a succession of drummers. But then she realized, it wasn’t the drummers that she loved, it was the drums! It’s rhythm. Finding that beat and not being able to ignore it or let it go. That was a throughline that several people I talked to identified.
And the beats that we danced to, all that music that we heard and absorbed, it was chosen by the teacher. Monie said that when she started teaching kids, she paid close attention to the kind of message the song choice would be creating.
Watching and re-watching the recital dances was another way that the music that was used became ingrained in us. It wasn’t just what we heard in our classes, but by watching other classes practice and wearing out the VHS recital tapes, all of that music was absorbed. There was a VHS tape that I had of a particular recital in 1985 that I wore out. The songs included “I’m So Excited,” “Neutron Dance,” “Born in The USA,” “Axel F,” “Breakdance,” “Strut,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” “I Would Die 4 U” and my absolute favorite “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” That one was girls my age and I really wished I was in that one. I got “Ghostbusters” instead that year. And funny enough of all the people I talked to, regardless of state or studio, that was the one song that came up as a favorite more often than any other. That absolutely warms the heart of this die hard George Michael fan.
1984 has often been cited as a key year in music history, one of the best and most influential. And I have often thought about how the music of that year came into my life. Yes, through typical channels like the radio, MTV and friends’ older siblings. But I realized the most influential place for me was that recital and that VHS tape.
There were some song choices through the years that now, looking back, were a bit puzzling. One of the great unanswered questions of my youth will be: Why did Miss Patrice choose New Order’s “The Perfect Kiss” as a recital dance for a bunch of 10 and 11 year old girls? She put us in red and white polka dots for a band whose aesthetic is definitely not red and white polka dot. The song also includes the lyric “tonight I should have stayed at home, playing with my pleasure zone.” I couldn’t find Miss Patrice to ask her, but I hope I get the chance someday.
Scott Spiro, the aforementioned cybersecurity expert, was a talented tapper and one of the few boys at Irvine Dance Academy in the 1980s. While he hasn’t danced in several years, he says that tapping while waiting for the elevator to come in an office building is a cool party trick. You don’t expect the IT guy to break out in the times step. But more than that, he credits the performance skills he developed dancing as key to handling with skill and ease the several on-air expert interviews he gives as part of his job.
One of my school friends and closest friends to this day is Jennifer Babic, a special agent for the State Department. Not a lot of dancing in her job. She wasn’t allowed to listen the radio at her house so pop music came to her at dance class.
But more than a place to hear the latest hits, dance set Jennifer on a path toward confidence and pushing her own abilities: “I was super shy. Doing pretty much anything in public or in front of an audience was my worst nightmare. Except dance. I loved dancing and I thought I was good, so I never had any inhibitions about (it.) Dance was my first stepping stone out of my introvert box. Dancing absolutely influenced … how well I can do things now that I wouldn’t have dared as a kid.” And the kinds of things she does now involve national security.
Sometimes no matter how hard you try, you just don’t get that perfect posture or turn or combination. Drama and Library teacher Kate McKenna felt that dance was about humility. “I worked so hard at it and was never very good at it. I learned very young that it’s okay not to be the best at everything.” And I agree. I, too, was never the best. But, boy, did I love it.
Dance also built resilience in several ways, as elementary school teacher Sara Brooks so wonderfully describes: “I was never fully accepted into the ‘in group’ in my dance classes, and I felt that deeply every second of every class, pretty much. That was SUCH a struggle for me. It took so many years, but overcoming that struggle and coming out on such a bright side of it has meant everything. Since dance was absolutely the hugest part of my childhood, my experience during those years couldn’t have been anything but impactful.”
As I approached this project, I thought a lot about the positive influences, but of course there were negative ones, too. But as uncomfortable as some of my experiences were, I didn’t have any lasting physical or self-esteem effects. I corresponded with one woman I danced with who developed an eating disorder. Another told me in her ballet class, she was “a teeny tiny little thing and I thought I was fat.” Pressure to look a certain way or wear outfits that dancers didn’t choose and didn’t feel great in took a toll.
Several of my classmates remember when those cute sparkly costumes became not as cute and not as sparkly, and a bit tighter and a bit mid-drifter. A lot of us in our junior high dance to “Wipeout” felt this way. Several people I corresponded with in this picture felt some kind of trepidation at the time about this costume, myself included. Looking back, I think I look pretty cute in this costume. But I know I didn’t feel totally comfortable wearing it. I did enjoy dancing with the boogie boards for this dance. I found the joy there.
And to bring this back to the title of my presentation: “Oh! What a Feeling” is a clear reference to “Dancing On The Ceiling.” That dance sums up everything about what my childhood dance days gave me: a deep love of pop music, a perfect outlet for my enthusiasm and energy, how to create the perfect high ponytail. I can still do the choreography. I once got up at a pizza restaurant to the bemusement and slight horror of my kids who were about 9 and 5 at the time. It came on in the restaurant and I had to get up and dance. That is part of the legacy of having danced as a kid. When you hear a favorite song, a favorite rhythm, a favorite artist: you just HAVE TO DANCE.
This is not to be confused with “Flashdance .. What a Feeling”, the fabulous Irene Cara song which I recently danced to down the frozen aisle of Trader Joe’s. Full jazz hands, full voice everything. I have no shame in Trader Joe’s. I picked up customers and crew members to dance with me. In that moment, I am challenging the love of music, the need to dance to it and the joy of it all. And the words I’m singing ring very true for me, in large part thanks to dancing as a kid: “Take your passion and make it happen .. What a feeling!”