'Dare to Dance': Horace May Elementary hosts student folk dance showcase

Mar. 28—BEMIDJI — If it was up to Lenore Siems, everyone would know how to dance.

As the music teacher at Horace May and Solway Elementary Schools, she took the first step in starting that movement this past week with a learning recovery club for students.

With 21 second- and third-grade students from Horace May registered, Siems spent an hour each day after school March 20-24 teaching the children various types of folk dances.

Siems explained that the program was born out of a need to find a creative use for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding to help children come out of the coronavirus pandemic, heal and learn to be more social and spend time together.

"Teachers can offer to teach a class after school for the club," Siems explained. "And we are encouraging kids, after COVID and all that, to get together, to do learning recovery clubs and this is the one that I started."

Siems settled on folk dancing as an easy way for the children to work together as a team and to learn and have fun at the same time.

Giving it the title "Dare to Dance," her objective was to provide students with the opportunity to learn dances and music from different cultures, experience movement through dance, and gain skills in cooperation and teamwork.

"It's hard not to be joyful and happy when you're dancing and you get great exercise," Siems said. "During the class, we talk about the history of where the music comes from that we are dancing to and the culture the dances come from."

On Monday, Siems invited the students' parents, grandparents and guardians to come and see all the fancy dance moves participants had learned over the past week.

"Today the students are going to showcase a couple of things and then we are going to invite you to come and dance with your child and show you what these folk dances they have been learning are like," Siems said to the parents on the sidelines.

"But what if you have two parents?" a curious child called out from the circle of students waiting on the gym floor.

"We'll get them all out here, I promise," Siems replied with a laugh.

Starting off with "Los Machetes," a song and dance from Mexico, the students stood in a circle each holding a pair of small wooden stick instruments. After Siems started the song they each clinked their sticks together on the beat and danced along to the music.

A round of applause from onlooking family members greeted the children at the end of their first performance. This was followed by a partner swing dance called "Sashay the Donut."

Next, Siems invited the family members to join in the fun and pair up with their respective child.

Starting off easy, Siems began by having the participants form a large circle before walking them through the steps of the first dance.

It was clear how invested the youngsters were in the activity, not only from the number of smiles spread across their faces but also how much attention they paid to the dances themselves.

After giving the wrong instructions by mistake, the students were quick to chime in on the correct Siems on the number of "claps" required on a specific step of the "Kinderpolka" — a German polka dance.

In between dances parents, grandparents and guardians were able to swap out to make sure each of them had the chance to dance with their child.

The grand finale for the group was "Ahoy, Pirates," which gave everyone a good workout and brought forth a lot of laughter as they all marched to the center of the circle and shouted, "Ahoy!"

At the conclusion of the dance, Siems asked the adults to take a seat — and a breather — as the children did one last dance to round out the showcase.

Lining up in matched pairs the children stood in two straight rows for "Turkey in the Straw," a popular Contra dance.

Though the "head couple" each started out in pairs, carefully dancing down the row of fellow students, the energy was apparent by the end of the dance as the students began to unlink their hands and simply run as fast as they could down the line back to their places.

Onlookers greeted the children with a hearty round of applause as the song finished.

"Thank you all for coming and for dancing with us," Siems said to the crowd before it dispersed. "This is the first time we've done this and it was so much fun for me, I hope it's been fun for all of you. I think we should start a folk dance revival, that's my dream in life is to get people dancing.

"How can you not be happy when you're dancing?"