So it was the Homecoming Dance last week at the high school where I work. Things went smoothly, kids were reasonably well-behaved –except for the dancing. Let’s talk about that dancing.
Or would it properly be termed “dancing”? Not wanting to sound like some disconnected old fart (I’m 38) but what is up with kids these days?
What they call dancing we used to refer to as dry-humping because that is exactly what it is. A girl gets in front of a boy and the two of them sort of shimmy and grind ass to pelvis not even bothering to keep time with the music nor demonstrate anything remotely artistic in movement. You also get packs of girls involved in a group performance with an all-out grindin’, gyratin, let-it-all-hang-out kind of thing going on.
Is it me or them? It looks ridiculous. Having discussed this with some of the students, they reply that’s just the way they dance nowadays and that there’s not really any sexual connotation involved.
Knowing that older generations have always had problems with the way the younger generation decides to move with music –I know the Charleston was originally viewed as an over the top, vulgar display- what are we to make of this phemomenon?
I’m chaperoning Homecoming tonight, and yes, they dance like that, and yes, it’s disconcerting, to say the least (and I am only 30, and tend to be more accepting of student behavoir than most). I think it’s an outgrowth of the MTV spring-break and dance shows–these kids absolutely grew up on pictures of poeple grinding against each other.
When I was in high school dances mostly involved people looking at each other with no idea what to do during fast songs and holding on and swaying during slow songs: now they dry hump (at times on the FLOOR) to the fast songs and look at each other with no idea what to do during slow songs.
One advantage to the modern way is that it is more communal–when I was in high school, you danced with your date and only your date so if you didn’t have a date, you didn’t go to the dance. Period. I don’t think they even sold stag tickets. Now, we ONLY sell stag tickets and people go with groups of friends, and people dance in the crowd. So dances are more communal affairs–not things that are only open to the top 20% of the kids who can get someone they are willing to date to be willing to date them.
My solution is to stand at the door with my back to the dancers, oh and ah over all the clothes, bring safety pins to help with emergencies, talk to kids who wander out bored, and never ever ever turn around and look at the dancing. Let the administrators decide what is too much–I don’t have to deal with it. As a teacher, I get to play the good cop.
At my son’s (public) HS dances you get tossed instantly for “freak dancing”, and so there is no freak dancing. Why is this such a problem for other HS’s. Why doesn’t your administration just say “No freak dancing” or you’ll get tossed".
“Turn your head and stare at the coats.” I’ve rarely heard anything so pathetic. I’m not picking on you for being put in this position, but I’m disgusted at your admins for not enforcing some discipline on this stuff. If they don’t want it to happen it wont.
My schools always said that, but what are they going to do? Toss out EVERYONE? They don’t know any other way to dance, so no one would even bother coming anymore. Plus we didn’t consider it “freak dancing”.
But the question, astro, is (why) should they stop it? The context for the dancers is more important than the context of the chaperones. The kid wasn’t bullshitting when he said there isn’t really any sexual connotation involved (well, not above the base level of sexual awareness in a 15 year old - a bagel has sexual connotations at that age!) It’s just the way they’ve always seen dance.
I went to high school at the same time as Mando JO, when we’d essentially hug and then sway left, sway right to the beat of the slow music. There were chaperones who were aghast, feeling that we were mimicking missionary sex or something, and tried to implement 6" Rules so that our pelvises wouldn’t touch. Were we thinking about sex? Well, maybe, but no more than we were thinking about sex when we were in the car, or hanging our coats, or getting a glass of soda.
While Mrs. Johnson was steaming at the ears about our lewd and lascivious ways, we were just copying what we had been taught by movies and TV was the correct way to dance. So are these kids.
I’d rather they be innocently dry-humping on the floor than having irresponsible sex at home.
OTOH, I’m not a total idiot. I’m annoyed that those people who 10 years ago said that the crotch rock and rap they were putting out on MTV wouldn’t have the slightest affect on our intelligent viewers, or that kids don’t learn how to act from television and movies. Yeah, obviously they do. They act out the sexuality and violence they see on the screen. Big surprise there! If you want better behaving kids, turn off the fucking television, nimrod!
Male high school student checking in, who will be going to a dance tonight…
Up until recently, i sort of had the same view you did. I didn’t like the grinding very much at all. It really did seem like a chance to dry-hump/get dry-humped by people you barely know and nobody would say anything about it. That is, until i went to Prom with a date, and did some of it myself. Since then, I’ve softened a bit towards it.
Honestly, that really is the only way most kids know how to dance. At least, that’s how everyone i know (minus the kids who actually take dance lessons) know how to dance. Grind to fast songs, slow grind to slow songs (either that or get refreshments, because they only play about five or six slow songs, and it gives you evenly spaced breaks)
But it doesn’t really bother me in an intellectual way–just in an emotional I-don’t-want-to-see-that way. Intellectually, I’ve really got no problem with the fact that dancing is sexually charged–it’s ALWAYS been sexually charged, dancing always has to go right up to the limit of what is socially acceptable public touching. SO I think there should be limits–like dry-humping on the floor–but I don’t think we should make them dance like it’s 1985.
I have a suggestion - could you hire some local college kids to teach some quick group swing and latin lessons before the dance? Then make sure that you play music people can actually dance to. As long as you get some good-looking older boys and girls to teach, I’m sure the HS kids won’t put up too much of a fuss.
I went to HS in the late 90s so we mostly had a godawful mix of Brittney Spears and Limp Bizcut (excuse my spelling, please) but one of the dances we had a few students who knew how to swing and went around teaching everyone else. I remember that as being the best all year.
I wonder…is there any hope that the success of shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” and “Dancing with the Stars” could bring other styles of dance back into favor?
Maybe. The principal at the school my nephews go to is on a crusade to end freak dancing. After there was too much of it at the back-to-school dance, he cancelled the all dances for the year. :rolleyes: It’s made the local news. Now the students are organizing their own Winter Formal. You’d think he’d have more important things to worry about.
Honestly, I really doubt it would work. For one thing, the kids have no time around homecoming–the sorts of kids who would go to lessons are already in the musical (opens in two weeks), on the swim team (had a meet Monday), on baseball team (we have fall league baseball), on the football, dance, or cheerleading teams (obviously busy in the run up to homecoming), involved in student council/class activites (building the floats for the parade, organizing the dance itself) and, for the most part, in four (and often more) advanced classes. The kids that are not as involved are either the ones that are pretty apathetic already (and so not interested in dance lessons) or working. I have to have academic decathlon practices at seven o’clock at night because it’s the only time I can get penciled into some very busy schedules!
Still, the kids would make time if they saw the way they dance as a problem. However, they have a good time, so they don’t.
I actually was talking about a lesson that is integrated into the dance. If the dance usually starts at 8 then open up the doors at 7:00 or 7:30 and teach the basic single-time swing step and a simple pattern.
Ok, first: the kids you watched may not have been doing anything with the music (to the beat, I mean), but that might just be because you were with a bunch of kids who can’t dance.
Most people stare slack jawed at “freak” dancing (in a bad way)- when it is at its freakiest. Frankly, I really, really don’t understand why a girl would bend over at a 90 degree angle and let a man hump her ass- that’s gross to me (and I am a big fan of humping in appropriate situations). The last time I went to a hip hop club, I had to slap my fair share of guys that walked up behind me thinking I was one of those hoochies, grabbed my hips, and tried to push me over so they could “freak”. Hell no.
That said, done properly, hip hop style dancing is just as complicated as the chacha or whatever it is y’all did in your day :D. There’s all kinds of moves and stuff that are incorporated. Here are a couple you tube links: the lean wit it, rock wit it , the chicken noodle soup, krumping, on and on.
The point is, it’s not just all booty poppin and grinding. If that’s all you saw, then the kids probably just didn’t know how to dance and were trying to do what they saw on tv. And you know, some hip movements with a little booty popping isn’t really sexual, but it’s when a person gets really into it and it’s obvious that they are literally dry humping that it becomes sexual. Or, in my case, when I feel the guy start to pop one against my butt. Then I leave.
Oh, dear. At first, I thought that your description was, indeed, how young people dance. But then I remembered that I was in my mid-twenties and am thinking about how young people dance while slightly intoxicated at the bar, actively trying to pick eachother up. My high school also had a strict no-grinding policy. It didn’t bother any of us that much.
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