Back in the swing: Ballroom and salsa twirl back onto the dance floor (2024)

Dancing. Not talking about the kind where you stand at a barre, then stand on your toes. Not talking about the kind with metal nailed to your shoes and you make a lot of noise. Or the kind where you stomp and shot “Ole’.” Or the one where you wear wispy clothes and wiggle to drums.

I’m talking about the kind where you hold hands with a partner and you twirl or get twirled around the room.

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The kind of dancing that probably involves cheeks to cheeks, inhaling what your partner just exhaled; the kind where your sweaty palms and their sweaty palms will merge into a joyful, musical moisture.

I’m talking about Swing, Salsa, Foxtrots, Bachata, Waltzes, and trip-provoking Two-Steps that bring delight and presumably good health to millions around the world. “Couples” dances, that until COVID, were brilliant ways to spend an evening.

But though things have changed, there are in Tallahassee, tough nuclei of ballroom and Latin dancers who will do what they must to keep the rhythm in their souls alive.

Back in the swing: Ballroom and salsa twirl back onto the dance floor (2)

Back up to 50% attendance

Historically, the American model for ballroom dancing venues might have been the Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire Studios.

Arthur Murray, begun in 1912, and Fred Astaire, opened in 1947, have continued teaching ballroom dancing over the decades. Today, of the two, only the Fred Astaire Studio on East Tennessee survives in Tallahassee, along with 170 studios nationwide. Here, franchise owner, Michael Hill and his wife, with four instructors, teach classes that have become both virtual and in-person.

But Hill says there’s no denying that the pandemic has changed many attitudes of his students and its effect on his business.

Back in the swing: Ballroom and salsa twirl back onto the dance floor (3)

“Since dance studios were classified with gyms last year for six weeks, from late April until the end of May, we were required to close,” Hill said.

“Some of our students, whose average age is from 30-50, were petrified. Some of them still basically aren’t leaving the house even now. I would say that during the worst of it, 60% of the students stopped coming. No new students signed up. Now we’ve built back up to about a 50% attendance of where we were before COVID.”

Back in the swing: Ballroom and salsa twirl back onto the dance floor (4)

Hill is one who believes much of the COVID constraints have to do with politics, noting that in “conservative cities like Fort Walton Beach,” masks were not required nor much used. “In New York and Detroit, Democratic areas, they might wear masks for the rest of their lives.”

At his Fred Astaire Studio, Hill says they practice good sanitizing, but even in group classes, they are not requiring students to wear masks, “although about 50% still choose to.”

Not too far away, is Studio D, privately owned by Miriam Watkins, whose space on Apalachee Parkway not only teaches Latin dance from Cha Chas to Salsa, Mambo, and Bachata, but rents out space for Ballet, Jazz, Hip Hop, and Zumba classes, occupying every day of the week.

Back in the swing: Ballroom and salsa twirl back onto the dance floor (5)

Masks on, dance parties on

Watkins says that last March through June they put their social dancing parties “on hold,” but that classes have continued, and now the dance parties are back in full swing as well—all masked and sanitized.

“We have been very, very careful,” she says. “Now that we’re having socials again, we take temperatures, require masks, have guests fill out a health assessment form, and between every number, when people are likely to change partners, they have to go sanitize their hands.”

Like the Fred Astaire Studio, Watkins notes that during Spring of last year, “probably 50 students had stopped coming.”

She cites the fact that Florida State University had sent many students home, and that FAMU has had curfews on and off. “But in a way, we stayed open so that people would have something “mentally fun” to do. I mean, when restaurants were closed, movies not open, what was there for them to enjoy?”

Watkins says she is optimistic about her studio and the outcome of the pandemic.

Back in the swing: Ballroom and salsa twirl back onto the dance floor (6)

Rebuilding the dance scene

“It is so healthy to dance — to feel the passion for movement, to socialize, and really enjoy yourself,” she says. Watkins has created nationally-recognized Latin Dance Festivals over the past years, but says that the “dance scene still has to be rebuilt” before she would feel ready to stage another such major event post COVID.

Hill, is also renting space to another group: USA Dance, which formerly met at the Tallahassee Senior Center when the Center was open. “There were only about 17 people here the last time,” he says, sounding wistful.

Hill says there wasa national Fred Astaire Dance Competition in New Orleans, for which “12,000 people have signed up.” According to their online information, scrupulous safety measures will be in place, including masks and plastic face shields, and even marks on the floor for the no more than eight couples dancing at one time.

But there is likely universal agreement found among Miriam Watkins, Michael Hill, and many, many other dancers from the Tallahassee Tango Society, to the Corazon Dancers, to the couples who are now at home shuffling their feet in the living room — and that is that dancing is passion.

Dancing is life. And dancing is an absolute necessity.

Contact Marina Brown at mcdb100@comcast.net.

Never miss a story: Subscribe to the Tallahassee Democrat using the link at the top of the page.

Back in the swing: Ballroom and salsa twirl back onto the dance floor (2024)

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