Move, Shake, Drop! - Amy Snook

This past Saturday, I spent my morning and part of my afternoon teaching a dance to some of the children at St. Andrews. Michelle and I got together a group of students at 10:00 in the morning, not knowing what to expect, and managed to teach them two different dances by 1:00 in the afternoon. We told the arts and music teacher to invite whoever he felt would enjoy dancing to our special program, and we would come prepared with a dance. At first we were going to teach the dance to Single Ladies, but upon getting there we realized that the dance was too hard for the little girls. I had already put together a dance to the song Baby Boy, and expounded on that. There were no boys invited to this workshop, only girls, which was easier because we know much more girl-oriented dance moves. Teaching these kids the different dances was a great experience because despite our major differences, we have one common passion- dancing. Watching the girls dance was great for me because it made me realize how universal dancing actually is. People all over the world can unite and find commonalities within dance, and it's a great way to have fun. The kids at St. Andrews love to dance and they especially love African-American hip hop artists. I was talking to Michelle, and we were speculating about why they don't listen to rock as much, why it's mainly rap, and hip hop, and R&B and I ventured a guess that it's inspiring for them to see successful African-Americans making music in America. It probably isn't as inspiring to a young Sudanese or Eritrean girl to watch a middle aged white guy jam out on a guitar. I could be completely wrong, but the theory seems to make sense. The girls always ask for Beyonce, or Chris Brown, and sometimes Shakira. The boys love Soulja Boy and Chris Brown and sometimes Lil' Wayne. Soulja Boy seems to be the most popular by far, so one day Abigail and I actually taught a group of students the dance to one of Soulja Boy's songs. It turns out that the dances that Michelle and I are teaching to the students will be performed in the closing ceremony. The students weren't going to perform anything but since we're putting together a dance for them, they get to show the entire school what they've learned. They almost jumped through the roof when they heard they would be performing! Michelle and I will be doing this every Saturday until the closing ceremony, and hopefully the dances will look really good. I can't wait for next Saturday!