Is Swing the Thing to Oust Dirty Dancing?

ERMA — Teens don’t dance like they once did. What they do today could be described as sex on a dance floor. That bothered Lower Cape May Regional High School science teacher David Pacevich.
“I saw the need to change the culture of the school dances,” he said after chaperoning one dance.
It bothered him enough to hire former national ballroom dance champion Tom Cupp to hold a class Jan. 15. Pacevich paid for lesson out of his own pocket. The evening class was open to students and public.
Cupp said the mission of the class was to introduce students to swing dancing as an alternative to how their now dance, “which can be considered a little bit too suggestive.” Cupp said teens imitate dances they see in music videos.
Dances could end at the school if students continue dancing in what has been described as “simulated sex.”
The type of dancing students have engaged in made it difficult for the school to find chaperones.
“It’s a little tough for people to watch at the high school age,” Cupp said.
“Are you ready to dance a little bit tonight?” he asked the student dancers.
They replied with a holler.
Cupp said swing originated in the 1940s and was once called “Jitterbug.”
“Swing is like playing tennis,” he said. “You stand with your knees bent and roll, there’s a lot of stops and a lot of spins.”
Cupp told students it was not something that could be learned in one night.
Pacevich said he canvassed students who told him if they knew another type of dancing, they would do it. Dance instruction is no longer included in physical education classes, he said.
Cupp said some Hispanic students mentioned Bachada or Salsa. One student knew the Bachada and danced with Cupp which brought loud applause.
He said the term “swing” covered a number of types of dances.
Cupp, who competed on the 70s television show “Dance Fever,” instructed students in Single Swing, a four-step move set to music in 4/4 time. He has taught a number of local residents to dance including a fourth grade class at West Cape May Elementary School some years ago.
At first, boys occupied one side of the room and girls the other. They paired up as the class progressed. There were far more girls than boys in attendance.
Cupp told the boys the first thing to remember, they “have to smell good” and the second thing is “dancing is about kindness.”
He called dancing a partnership and compared it to a rose. Cupp said the man was a stem and the woman was the flower.
David Hueber, 16, said he came to learn how to dance traditionally rather than how people dance today. He has not attended any dances but hoped to use what he had learned at the prom.
Hueber brought his girlfriend Livia, a sophomore at county Technical School.
Pacevich said he enjoys dancing but has not had lessons.
“My wife and I are the first ones on and the last ones off the dance floor at weddings,” he said.
His wife and daughter attended the class. Pacevich expressed concerns about his daughter growing up and seeing inappropriate dancing in school.
Pacevich said girls were especially excited about the class because “they were not comfortable with the way they were dancing before.”
He asked attendees to fill out a survey in the hope that Cupp might return for more dance instruction.