Dance Dance Revolution

School's back in season, so principals will demonstrate yet again they are much older than their students.

High school's dances grind to a halt

Teeheehee.

A furor over what Concord High School administrators call an "overtly sexual" style of dancing at school dances has split the school community: There are those who defend the students' right to dance however they want and those who believe the moves are just plain inappropriate.

Principal Gene Connolly is with the latter group. He said the school will cancel all remaining dances, including the upcoming homecoming dance, unless students step forward to help halt the "grinding."

Coming out against grinding sounds like a great way to get a date ... watching TV with your mom on the couch! Oh, snap.

"This style of dancing is wrong," Connolly told parents at a Parent-Teacher-Student Organization meeting Tuesday night. "If you were to see it, you would be equally offended."

Asked by parents to describe the dance, Connolly offered this: The girl leans forward and the boy puts his pelvis against her backside. Then, he thrusts.

Wait, Connolly thrusts?! NO, asshole, the verbs attached to the subject Connolly are in past tense.

"It's feigning a sex act," Connolly said.

According to Connolly, students began grinding at Concord High dances about three years ago. Administrators tried to intervene, pointing out that the school handbook says all dance styles "must comply with standards of modesty and safety" and mandates that dance partners face each other.

I'd like to enforce the rule that partners must face each other. "No twirling her, son." "Pause! I need to get out my protractor to see if you two are technically facing each other!" "I am a huge fascist tool."

When that didn't work, administrators met with the student senate last year and drafted a "dance memo of understanding."In the memo, the students acknowledged that current dance trends "can appear sexual." They also said the administration "has made it clear that they do not want to police our dancing styles."

Damn! Sounds like no such enforcement position exists.

"We all know where the line is and when we are crossing it," the memo says. "There will be no specific 'rules' to follow regarding how we dance. However, should someone's dancing make others feel uncomfortable, they will be kindly asked to stop. . . . Should they refuse to do so, they will be asked to leave."

FUN FACT #1: we do not all have the same line and we do not all know where others' lines are.
FUN FACT #2: I like to dance with a severed head of Muhammad; is that alright?

The situation came to a head Saturday at the first dance of the year, which was attended by 350 students. By the time the first slow song was played, a half-dozen boys had been warned repeatedly to quit grinding, staff and students said. When they persisted, the boys were asked to leave. About 150 students followed.

Do the girls get to stay?
Also, I am nearly positive the students who left went home and caught up on reading. Definitely none of them had actual sex.
Wait a minute...they do want to police student dancing.

The students headed to the parking lot, Nicholson said, but changed their minds after being told they couldn't congregate on school grounds. Someone suggested they go to White Park instead, but the police were already there. So the students proceeded to Rollins Park, where Nicholson said they played music and danced.

At Rollins Park, it is much harder to sneak in a brown bag.

Senior Caitlind Cooper was one of the students who gathered at the park. Addressing the PTSO and Connolly on Tuesday night, she objected to the way the situation was handled.

"We go to a dance to have fun, and you telling us how to dance is not fun," Cooper said.

Heehee.

Some parents agreed. Tom and Cathy Cooper said they feel teenagers today are acting no different than they themselves did decades ago. Tom Cooper said he feels an obligation to remember what his parents said about the way he danced in high school.

"If you remember Elvis Presley - there's a grinder," Cooper said.

True or false: Tom Cooper is old.

"Eventually, things may change and this may be considered mild," said parent Cheryl Hunter. "But right now, it's inappropriate."

In other words, eventually you and people like you will be dead, and some of today's grinders will have fresh beef with their children.


Related news:

Although a recent National Center for Health Statistics survey found that more than half of all teenagers engage in oral sex, teen pregnancy rates have plummeted since the early 1990s. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of high school students who reported having sexual intercourse dropped from 54 percent in 1991 to 47 percent in 2005.

What about the National Center for Feigned Health Statistics? I think they found that feigned sexual intercourse is up.