Schools compete in ballroom dancing

Eleven-year-old Nancy Gomez from Rego Park has always danced - she even remembers shaking in her crib as a baby. “If a song came out, I dance to it, whatever song it will be,” she said.
On Tuesday, June 10, together with 91 students from Queens, Gomez performed merengue and foxtrot in front of a cheering audience. The occasion was a ballroom dancing quarterfinal in Rego Park’s P.S. 100. Gomez shared the first place with her classmates from P.S. 139 and with students from P.S. 63.
The competition is an initiative of American Ballroom Theater Company, a not-for-profit organization which every semester sends instructors to city public schools to teach fifth-graders ballroom dances. At the end of the 10-week training known as Dancing Classrooms participating schools compete with each other.
Gomez admitted she was nervous before the quarterfinal. “But when I started moving, I was confident - I was shaking those hips,” she explained.
In the coming days, Gomez and the other quarterfinal winners will participate in Queens semifinals and finals. The winning team from the borough will go to a grand citywide final on June 21 at the World Financial Center. Industry professionals and celebrities will judge this grand final.
Gomez definitely wants to get this far. “I hope we win because we are really good,” she said.
All children who have completed the Dancing Classrooms program are eligible for free dancing classes at the American Ballroom Theater Company.
The company started the Dancing Classrooms program in 1994 in an effort to provide more high-quality art programs in city public schools. This academic year 211 schools participated, 70 of them in Queens, said Yvonne Marceau, co-founder of American Ballroom Theater.
The participating schools’ response to the program has been extraordinary, said Marceau. “We hear stories of how it has changed kids that might not be doing well academically,” she said, explaining that dancing teaches skills such as discipline and ability to focus.