Culture Through Ballroom Dance
News and Events
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School year 2016/2017: Culture Through Ballroom Dance provided dance lessons for elementary and high school students in the NKC School District, 6th graders in the Kansas City MO School District, and Middle School Students in the Truner School District in Kansas, as well as the little kids at Creative World in Liberty. Your donations are being put to good use!
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Some Previous years' classes:
Center Elementary School - All 5th grade students at Center Elementary learned Swing Dancing for their Black History Month program February 27th. Swing dancing originated in the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York City in the late 1920's where they danced to Big Bands like Count Basie. The students gave an outstanding energetic performance to rave reviews!
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Dance Day at Liberty North High
Due to overwhelming interest by teachers and students at Liberty North High School, a single ballroom dance lesson originally planned for Monday, Feb.9th, turned into an historic 720 student all day long "Dance Day" event. We taught Latin and Swing dancing from 8:10 am to 3:15 pm in 7 classes ranging from 31 to 135 students each, a record number of students in one day!
News media was there to cover the historic event. Here's a link for Channel 41 coverage.
http://www.kshb.com/news/region-missouri/liberty/liberty-north-high-school-students-learn-through-dance
Here's Fox 4 TV coverage.
http://fox4kc.com/2015/02/09/high-school-dance-class-aims-to-help-build-confidence-and-social-skills-in-students/
The Kansas City Star Newspaper covered the eevent as well in the 816 Section, April 1, 2015
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The following article appeared on the Liberty North High School Website.......
"Dancing the Day Away"
Spanish, World History, and all PE activity class students got to experience first hand some of the culture they had learned about throughout the year as Liberty North hosted its first ever Dance Day on October 9. Students from each of these classes got the unique opportunity to take a break from normal class activities during Homecoming and were able to experience a variety of different dance styles, ranging from Bachata, a Dominican Republic dance; Merengue, a Latin dance, and many other varieties of dances.
“Learning about different cultures is a part of the grade level expectations of the classes involved and we thought this would be a fun way for students to experience the culture,” PE Teacher Mrs. Sorens said.
Dancing might seem like drudgery for students, but many students seemed to have a fun time. And though this day was supposed to be a great learning experience for students, it also became a great way for students to meet other students they may have not known before.
“It was a great experience that was a lot of fun. It was fun to experience a lot of different dance styles and the mixer part allowed me to meet a lot of new people,” Senior Tiffanne Mac Donald said.
The students who participated experienced a wide variety of different dances. Students found some of these dances to be very enjoyable.
“I liked the Bachata mixer the most because we got to dance with, and meet, a lot of people,” Senior Jessica Bonnot said.
If students are interested in more opportunities to experience the different musical styles experienced today, Dance Club is hosting an Ice Cream Social on October 16.
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WILLIAM JEWELL BALL
Every semester the William Jewell Ballroom Dance class holds a formal ball open to the public. Ballroom dancers from across the metro area have attended and danced with the college ballroom dancers. This has become a MUST ATTEND EVENY by the Kansas City Ballroom Dance Community! The next ball will be Monday, April 20th, 7 pm.
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Penny High School in Hamilton, Missouri
For the last 3 years Culture Through Ballroom Dance has provided an intensive day of dance lessons to students at Penny High School, Hamilton, Missouri, to prepare them for their annual spring formal. Students learned contemporary ballroom dances that work with the music most often played by Dance DJ's, including swing dance, merengue, popchata and others. Instructions included the arts of leading and following.
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Liberty High Schools Update:
For the last several years there has been a continuation of dance lessons at both Liberty High and LIberty North High schools. This occured both in after school classes as well as dance lessons scheduled during coed PE classes. For High School Students we concentrated on Latin dancing to both Latin and Pop Music as well as Swing Dance. These are skills they can use at their normal high school dances.
670 Foreign Language students in South Valley Junior High students in Liberty Missouri learned to dance the Merengue and Polka on May 15th, 2012!
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IAfter School Dance class at Liberty High School. Good going Liberty High, and Liberty North! An article featuring these lessons appeared in the Liberty Tribune.
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Delano School for Special Needs Students Ballroom Dance Festival
Dance instructor, Brandon White dances with wheelchair partners to inspire students in wheelchairs. See the Video Gallery page for videos of Brandon and the Delano students dancing.
Thanks to Mary Spencer for the above pictures! Many thanks also to our wheelchair and special needs teacher, Brandon White, leading the class in the above picture.
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PREVIOUS HISTORY
2006 Through 2010
We served the following elementary schools in the Kansas City Missouri School District: Attucks, Border Star, Delano, Foreign Language Academy, Gladstone Academy, Holliday, James, Paige, Rogers, Ladd, Swinney, Wheatley, Pinkerton, and, Southwest Early College Campus .
In addition we had Center Elementary plus four high schools partcipating, Liberty High School and Liberty North, as well as Delano High School students and East High in the KCMO District. At Delano we are very proud to have highly regarded special needs dance instructor, Brandon White, to assist us in teaching an entire classroom of wheelchair dancers and their partners. They are making great progress; thank you Brandon!
.All of the 6th graders at Center School District Middle School also took ballroom dancing and gave a fabulous performance to show off their new skills.
Area school districts have been severly hit by budget cuts so we would ask any possible sponsors to check out our "How You Can Help" page.
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816-454-2419
Announcing our 1st annual Boogie Ball, Valentine's evening, Feb 14. You're invited! (see the Boogie Ball page on this website)
Funds raised by the Boogie Ball will allow us to sponsor a limited number of free dance lessonson a first come first served basis. Interested schools should contact us as soon as possible to get on the list!
Interested schools should contact us as soon as possible to get on the list!
High School Dancers love Swing!
Swing dancing is enjoying a resurgence in popularity with High School Students due to modern swing dance music such as "Happy" by Pharrell Williams, "Runaway Baby" by Bruno Mars and "Candyman" by Christina Aguilara. In one lesson high school students can learn enough swing to enjoy the dance! A swing dance lesson is also a great Black History month activity since it is an African American contribution to our country's culture oringinating in the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York in the late 1920's.
High School Dance Days
By Paula Marie Daub
Ballroom and Latin dancing are relevant to the following high school subjects: Foreign Language, Social Studies, Music, Performing Arts and of course, Physical Education. However only PE has adequate space for dance lessons, the gym. Liberty North High School solved that problem by inviting the other classes named above to join PE classes in the gym for shared dance lessons.
<<<see article on the left
-----------------------------------Participating High Schools
High Schools
Liberty High School
Liberty North High School
North Kansas City High Schools
East High School
Delano High School
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Black History Programs
Historically Swing Dancing was an African American contribution to our society. so in honor of Black History month, many of the schools we have served have performed swing dancing in honor of Black History Month. Here are some Center Elementary 5th graders having fun dancing.
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Our Ist Annual Boogie Ball raising funds to sponor dance lessons was a big success! Here are some photos....
Abel Rameriz Big Band
The Swingsters Performed!
For more infor on the Ball see the Boogie Ball page.
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Culture through Ballroom Dance was honored by the Kansas City Royals Baseball Club! Dr. Will Adams was awarded the Buck O'Neil legacy seats in honor of his founding of "Culture through Ballroom Dance" and his community service .
Congratulations to Dr. Adams! (Click on the link below for video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a7PCHTVYnk