Eighth grade. I never had the nerve to ask someone to dance in the beginning. About halfway through the year, my mother made me take dancing lessons, much to my horror. However, some of the most popular girls in school were also there, and it turned out that I had a talent for it. At the next dance I walked up to one of them and we boogied (after a fashion). I looked over where my guys were in their usual wallflower positions and noted with extreme satisfaction the open mouths and the green tint of their faces. Sweet.
Boy, middle school was a real cauldron of confusion, huh?
I started going to a Teens Only dance every Saturday night that I could. The first song I heard was “Wipeout.” Still didn’t really know how to dance so I shimmied. Frantically.
(I hope) I later learned to dance better.
Seventh grade, Christmas dance, recorded music in the gym. The fat boy asked me to dance. Turned out he was incredibly light on his feet, sort of lifted me up onto his paunch and made me light on my feet too. (He was also tall.) He danced with me most of the rest of the evening. Maybe because I was willing to be sort of carried? I don’t know. We never went out but we danced together a lot. Thanks for asking; that was a nice memory.
While in grade school, we had dance classes, but because of my parent’s religious convictions, I sat on the monkey bars and watched. That was hard.
Fast forward to my 8th grade graduation party at one of my fellow student’s home. There was dancing and Emily S. asked me to dance (shuffling feet and sweat were involved…along with “bumps”) After a couple of dances, she wanted to cool off outside on the porch, so off we went. As soon as we were outside, she laid a big ol’ smack on my mouth. I distinctly remember thinking that if this was a sin, so be it, and laid one on her. Somehow it didn’t really seem any cooler.
Thanks, Emily S. for letting me discover that calling good things a sin is in fact a sin itself.
Jr High, but my best friend’s mother called a “stand” because the boys and girls just stood on opposite sides of the room.
8th grade, 1969, a school dance in the gym Friday after classes, a real band playing Grand Funk Railroad and James Gang, lights consisted of one of those floodlights with a rotating color lens used on aluminum Christmas trees. As I recall, there were lots of kids dancing, free form hippie style, and I joined right in. Good times…
My school called them “canteens”. No clue why. First one was in 7th grade. Autumn of 1974.
Holy crap !!
Anyway, Barbara - who I loved as only a 12 year old can love - spent the night making out with some other boy. Oh the heart break.
I carried a torch for her long after she dove deep into drugs, left school for a while, etc.
Summer after graduation, I found myself biking past her house. On a whim I rang the bell. Sat and talked for a while.
She hugged me harder than any girl had, including girls I had gone out with. Both walked away with wet eyes.
Yeah. I remember that dance.
never went to one.
Some sweet stories here.
My first dance was 8th grade graduation. My school rented out a party house and everything. Didn’t dance a single dance. 
Much more memorable for me was a Christmas dance my freshman year. It was called the Santa Switch, because the girls had to ask the guys.
Now, before I go any farther with this tale, let me point out that I was the bottom of the pecking order in high school. I was the girl everyone made fun of, taunted. There was a boy in my class that I really liked, and he was nicer to me than most, since we were both horse crazy. I thought about asking him, but I chickened out. Instead I asked a friend, 2 years older, who went to a different school.
Jeff and I had grown up together. Our mothers were life-long best friends. And Jeff was drop dead, breathtakingly gorgeous. He said yes.
The dance was held in the school cafeteria, decorated up like a fantasy world. I was wearing a long, emerald green halter dress with a little matching jacket, allowed to wear make-up, hair done, the whole nine yards. Jeff was in a stylish (for 1974!) leisure suit. When we walked in holding hands, the cafeteria literally went quiet and conversation stopped and everyone turned to stare at the misfit girl coming in with the best looking boy there. It was a moment like something out of a movie, and I will never, ever forget it.
When I went to the ladies’ room a bit later, I was literally surrounded by some of the ‘popular girls’, wanting to know WHO that was and where I met him. I smiled smugly, said his name was Jeff and he and I had known each other for years. He was waiting for me outside the bathroom door and playfully picked me up and slung me over his shoulder (I was much thinner and he was a strong guy, on the state champion wrestling team at his school) and carried me back to our table.
We danced, we went out for pizza after, and he stayed at my house watching horror movies until the wee hours of the morning. I think I fell a little bit in love with him that night. It was without a doubt the most magical night of my life.
Nothing more ever came of it. He and I are still friends, and I still wonder… what if?
The first dance I remember learning was a sort of shuffle that Bebop and Rocksteady did in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.
The first dance I went to was a sock hop in 6th grade. I slow-danced with my first “real boyfriend.” Oh, the memories! =)
The first dance I remember going to was the Junior Achievement Ball, which was actually a fairly swanky affair, held at Tangier in Akron. I had just turned 15 and went with a family friend (he was one of the officers, I think). It was both my first dance and my first date.
For some reason my dad took me shopping for a dress without my Mom. He took me to Sears … after all, what could possibly be wrong with buying your formal wear at the same place you buy your tools? 
I ended up with this orange chiffon number with flowy sleeves and big purple and blue irises printed all over (bad even for the 70s I suspect, but what did I know?).
I did not know how to dance and never really learned. I’m pretty much limited to the tarantella and conga lines. I have had a few people attempt to teach me the polka (kind of required when you are from where I am) but that never worked out very well.